Farewell to Bangalore and yet MORE crazy Airbnb hosts!!!

After leaving the lovely Ananda ashram, I returned to heart of Bangalore city for 2 more nights, where I stayed at an Airbnb. It is really a hit-and-miss experience with Airbnbs and guest houses in India... as you know from my account of the place near Auroville, I sometimes have a "miss" that is so off, bizarre, disturbing in some way or other, that it makes noteworthy blogging! Well...here you go, this was one such case, as follows:

 They may initially LOOK nice, but... 

First of all, this photo is about 15 years old. The "little girl" is now in college. I actually only met her briefly, and she seemed sweet. On the other hand...her parents, my hosts....a whole other story, as follows:

Far as I can discern, they are "nice" so long as they are getting what they want out of their guests: namely, lots of money and good reviews. The "bribes" come in the form of food, of course.. bits of it, here and there.  But then... it soon becomes evident that, in fact, they are super-paranoid about "Covid Cooties"... wanting to see vaccine certifications, making me sign government registers umpteen times; forcing me to spend an hour of my valuable time filling out the required "C form" that they are supposed to do themselves; not wanting guests to eat in the rooms because they are afraid of "attracting cockroaches",  yet they provide a fridge (and, by this logic, does it means they never eat in THEIR own home?!?! of COURSE not!!!)  Then, worst of all, they charged me 200 rupees (4 times what it should cost) to do a load of laundry in a broken washing machine with no spin cycle. As a consequence, on my last day there in Bangalore (of which I paid for a night I did not use since I got on a train I did NOT think I would make it on! that is a whole other story... !), rather than enjoy visiting the sites of Bangalore, I had to "babysit" my very wet laundry in hopes that, by moving it around enough, it would dry by evening and before it needed to be packed for the very long train ride to Karad.  Everything dried--thankfully--except for my fleece jacket. They then insisted I pay the full charge for laundry, even though the vast majority of work was MINE--hanging and moving the laundry around on the terrace--on chairs, because they think a clothesline is "unsightly"-- more insanity!---and as a result, I left with them angry with me. OVER A LOUSY 200 rupees!!! And these people are FILTHY rich, owning an entire apartment complex... isn't it ALWAYS the case, though?? People getting wealthy because of their greedy and miserly ways?? Such a pity...

Oh, and did I forget to mention that another guest--a poor, young, naive German girl-- wound up paying close to ONE THOUSAND dollars U.S. for a nice--but small--room on the terrace that is barely worth half that much in India?!!? Sad but true... AND no discount for her lengthy stay of 2 months... how is it SO FEW folks know about karmic comeuppance in this country, where the concept ORIGINATED?!!?!? WOW...mind-boggling, to be sure... 

Anyhow, I had a brief, but otherwise enjoyable, stint in Bangalore overall,  even though I failed to do many things I would have liked to. (thankfully, I DID return a couple weeks later...more about that in a future post.) 

Next post: a horrific train ride to Karad, Maharashtra!






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