The Lair

So, why am I away from Colombo? Because the client that I’m meeting thought that Sri Lanka was too dangerous to visit. In retrospect, I don’t blame the client. Random bus bombings tend to make anyone nervous, hell they make me nervous.

Which makes the news of a serial killer in the vicinity of the hotel all the more ironic. In a moody, murder and mayhem sort of way. No doubt sensing an opportunity, the guests at the hotel have been issued a mini travel-advisory of sorts. Do not, the advisory says in officialese, trawl bars in the region. Instead, patronize the inhouse watering hole. Also, reads the subtext in large lettering, don’t stagger around the streets drunk. In addition to drunkenly stepping on something that smells noxious, getting hit by an errant driver or tripping and falling over pieces of the pavement, a pedestrian is liable to have his head smashed in by a psycho.

So, cable TV and lots of nice facilities (and a comp mini-bar!) notwithstanding, I think we were all a bit bored with life this week. There is only so much drinking that can be done after a hard day of arguing about the nitty gritties of requirements; so everyone was feeling some degree of cabin fever. Even if it is a very large and luxurious cabin with a working ethernet port and super slowmo internets.

This is why the development manager in the client’s establishment and I were in the bar talking about the time honoured tradition of asking hotel staff for female company. Not that we were particularly inclined, of course - but we were in the company of a young, impressionable developer type who had gotten himself a free business class upgrade. “Easy”, we insisted. “Just walk upto reception and ask for some female company for dinner. We’re sure they’ll oblige you”. Wide-eyed, this little munchkin swallowed the story.

Strategically waiting until after we had all eaten dinner (so his motivations could hardly be mistaken), our hero sauntered upto reception and made his request. Until the very last minute, I thought he knew it was a joke. I only realized my mistake when I saw an emphatic head shake from the hotel staff.

Apparently that sort of thing doesn’t happen around here. Who knew?

As hinted earlier, I’ve been shunted to that large country up north. Having spent approximately a week here, I’m now qualified to make the following observations.

• Conference rooms across the world look pretty similar
• The streets (as seen from the interior of a thankfully airconditioned vehicle) look pretty darn dusty.
• These Chennai drivers are completely and utterly insane - I’ve started a hall of fear for the most extravagant, like some random driver deciding that he really needed to take an exit and proceeding to cut us off while both vehicles were travelling at about 80 klicks an hour.

Considering the hype about the accommodation that could have been on offer, I was (pretty justifiably, I think) a bit wary. I wasn’t kidding when I thought of packing a can of Baygon (insecticide, essentially) to keep the marauding vermin at bay. The first day we landed, we went to this serviced apartment block - like a hotel, but not quite. A quick inspection of the room revealed no vermin, reasonably clean sheets, reasonably clean towels. Thanking myself for small mercies, I settled in.

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No, really. It’s a scoping technique. I now need to find 5 other things to learn before breakfast.