It was kinda nice, we got this trip to go take a old lady to see some temples. She was 90 years old , in a wheelchair and had recently recovered from years of being paralyzed. So her wish was to go thank some gods, which meant a trip down to Madurai, then to Jamnagar. On a map its almost a perfect triangle.
The Trip
Normally we look forward to Madurai, as we stay at the Gateway Hotel, which is one of the Taj hotels. This time the hotel was a bit of a let down. The place has the old colonial feel, with the old bar full of leather couches and the pool table, with the old colonial architecture, but we were let down not by a dirty room, but by the management and restaurant. In true India fashion they have senseless rules, lots of them and the one thats annoying to a business traveller, is the way they separate any liquor item from the food, and present it right down to what you drank on the bill, but the food is summarized in one group as food. And they refuse to alter the bill, so instead of the company paying for the liqour like normal as its just part of the bill as it normally says Beverage service or something like that on the bill, it says 4 large bottle gin, 2 bottles Moet etc. The other bad thing about this place was the restaurant this time. The waiters were all in these filthy uniforms that looked like they hadnt been washed in weeks, really really dirty is all I could say to describe them. And when you did get to order your food the problem was they would go into the kitchen place the order and then come out with a problem, ie sorry sir no lettuce would you like a greek salad instead? (by the way the greek salad was anything but greek, it was in fact a Indian salad of tomato, and cucumber with vegetable oil on it!!) Then mains come, I ordered a chicken steak sandwich…I know how can a chicken be steak right!, but out comes a little bread roll with about 4 pieces of onion on it, and about half of a half chicken breast, together with a little dish of pineapple in mayonnaise, and a hand full of sour cream and onion Lays brand chips! WTF, I ask and get sorry sir we have no fries or coleslaw! Would you think about telling me at time of order next time maybe…or is that too much to ask?
But personally I would now not recommend the Gateway hotel in Madurai , unless they have done something about the service, lack of food and cleaned the waiters uniforms.
Jamnagar was not a nice place also. For one its a dry state! And the hotel the company booked us into was a old , dirty run down piece of shit. DONT ever ever stay at the Hotel Aram in Jamnagar. I must admit I have never been in such a bad restaurant. For one it was outdoor..which would have been ok, but of course in true Indian fashion there was lights, and so many lights that all the mosquitoes in the state were attracted to it. We asked for a mozzie coil, and were given about half of inch of a coil to burn under our table…yep did nothing!. The menu as you can see by the pics was filthy, the waiter never spoke, and look at the pic of my napkin and you can see that the table was really really dirty when I wiped it. To add to the insult of a dirty mozzie ridden restaurant without a beer in sight, it was vegetarian only!
One weird thing here I couldn’t get a pic of was the carpark disco. Yep they had a stage, with a guy playing cds loudly in the car park. Later on at night I could still hear the music blaring, so I opened my door and saw the little stage jam packed full of people dancing. Now that would be ok, but when my eyes came into focus I realized it was all men gyrating together, the women were sitting on plastic chairs in front of the dance floor with no expression on their faces watching them dance… really weird it was !
Here is the trip in pics:
