Yesterday we reached Thiruvananthapuram around 1.30 pm and took a taxi to our hotel, Swades My Home. The first thing that struck us was, Thiruvananthapuram seemed to be in some sort of time wrap … the roads were barely two lane and lots of potholes dotted the entire distance. Our driver gamely told us, the roads were badly impacted due to the floods, but they don’t seem to have been in a good condition ever. We had last visited Thiruvananthapuram in 2007 with Appa and Amma and at that time we had driven down from Bangalore. We had to get the wheel balancing and alignment of our car done three times because the roads were so bad then.
Dr. Shashi Tharoor’s constituency needs some love and attention.
Our hotel was on a steep incline, but the driver was a pro and he even managed to park the car well enough for all of us to get out easily. The reception of Swades My Home was clean and inviting, just that there was no one at the front desk. Soon, Joubin came by and showed us to our room. We loved the massive sofa-cum-bed that they had in the front room and also the room was spotless. We got the dosas heated and ordered some kurma etc to go with it. Then all three of us just took a short nap. When we woke up, Krishnan took bath first and realised that there was no hot water. Amma needs atleast warm water to take bath and both, she and I need hot water if we are washing our hair. Krishnan of course doesn’t care about the temperature of the water or the environment :):).
We asked the front desk person to check the hot water supply and he tried in both the bathrooms, but there was no hot water. So he told us to shift to another room. I got a little grumpy because I had unpacked and I had to pack again to move into another room. I kept muttering under my breath but re-packed quickly and we shifted to another room on the 3rd floor. As I unpacked a second time, I realised that the Air-conditioner in Amma’s room was not responding to the remote. I asked the hotel’s support staff to get the remote battery changed but that had no impact on the AC’s responsiveness. The room got stuffy and difficult to be in. By this time the hotel’s owner and Joubin had come and they suggested that we shift to another room yet again. I got really upset because I had to re-pack yet again and move. Not just the fact that we had to re-pack, but in this whole process, we had lost two hours and couldn’t go to the Padmanabhaswamy Temple as we had originally planned. I made a huge fuss and waited to check everything in the third room before shifting. While I was ranting, I have to appreciate both the owner and Joubin for being totally patient and apologising for all the trouble.
Luckily, nothing else went wrong and I unpacked a little more after an hour of moving into the third room. It was 7.30 pm by this time and we started feeling hungry. We checked the nearby restaurants that would deliver and found a vegetarian restaurant by the name “Mother’s Veg Plaza”. They had a massive selection and all my favourites like Idiappam and Puttu. I immediately ordered some Veg stew and idiappam for us and Poori for Amma. As soon as I paid and confirmed the order, the restaurant canceled the order ! I called them up and was told there is no Veg stew so they had canceled the entire order. I ordered again, without the stew and guess what, the order got canceled a second time. When I called the restaurant I was told to order on Swiggy or Uber Eats :):), as they didn’t use Zomato much. So I ordered on Swiggy and couldn’t get any of my favourite items as they were only available during breakfast. BUT, we were third time lucky and the order was accepted.
The order came quickly enough and when I saw the packing all my anger and frustration melted away – everything was packed in foil packs, and the plastic bag was 100% compostable. No cutlery had been sent thankfully. The food tasted awesome and suddenly the Thiruvananthapuram trip started becoming better.
Looking forward to our trip to the Padmanabhaswamy temple and some of the other temples that Viju suggested.
