The Summer Trip on the Pacific Endeavour in Russia

The Yakor Hotel

View from the window of the Ladder Hotel
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

By Ieuan Dolby

On 27 August, I returned to Russia to rejoin the Pacific Endeavour in the port of Kholmsk! I had spent nearly twelve days at home, maybe not long enough to comfort my grieving wife, but long enough to hug her and tell her that I loved her! To keep the money flowing in and so that I would have a longer time home after this trip had finished I had to depart on my travels once again. I flew direct from Taiwan to Korea and then joined a SAT (Russian Airline) flight from Korea to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk but as the boat was still at sea I went straight to a hotel for the night.

I am familiar with hotels, after the years and so many, I feel that they are now as much apart of my life as say, planes or taxi's. I know the finer workings, the cogs that make hotels tick over and to come across one that confuses me or where I feel insecure is very rare indeed. In fact I can not remember the last time that I felt so insecure, maybe that time in Bombay nearly fifteen years ago when a super-sized cockroach looked at me and refused to budge as I came out of the shower or that time I stayed at what turned out to be a fully-fledged whore house minus the whore (who's the odd guest out?) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan but here and now I felt it again!

It is hard to describe why I had certain misgivings about this establishment; I mean it was clean (to the extent that one can extract ten year old cigarette stains out of the woodwork) and warm but ………..

I arrived at the Yakor Hotel in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk at 11pm, the result of a delayed flight from Seoul and due to an inconvenient Oil-Gas Conference being held in the city this was the only room left in the whole town! Lucky to get anything I suppose! The agent kept on apologizing to me as if it was his fault, but he made sure that I was checked in without hassle and that I was safely locked in my room before he departed for home!

I knew when we pulled up at this hotel that all would not be to "star" standard, the façade was poured concrete grey, the 10watt bulb did little to light up the entrance and the lone security guard was fast asleep on the couch inside (admittedly any person of ill-intent would have to climb over him to get inside). I stepped gingerly out of the security of the vehicle to the clatter of an empty bottle of beer that was flung in my general direction by a lone tramp! Having flung his beer he must have expelled all of the anger that had built up inside of him as he then became engrossed in extracting a full bottle from inside the lining of his large trench coat, obviously the pockets had long since given way! Like a scout with a silenced no-mans land ahead I grabbed my luggage and dashed inside, head bowed and legs pumping I arrived to a screeching halt at the foot of the couch on which the undisturbed doorman snored gently, the unexpected minefield left behind by the enemy!

The agent gave the doorman a mouthful of Russian invective thus giving me time to get my breath back and my nerves under control. I suppose it is at this point that this hotel proved itself without doubt that it was struggling to maintain appearances, on one hand attempting to play with the big boys (a result of not enough hotel space in Yuzhno) and on the other unable to actually do it. The end result; charge extremely high prices and 'like it or leave it'. The receptionist was the doorman and having been suitably knocked into shape he grumped and groaned his way around to giving me the key and with the agent ushering me along like a security guard to the crown jewels I was placed inside the box for the night! He didn't quite say it but the intended implication of his 'door-to-door' service was "stay inside till the morning"!

I wasn't going anywhere!

The Ladder Hotels Room
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

I stood there looking at the pink-dripped walls wandering what to do next! There was a bed, a table and a window and a little bathroom with a broken shower and a blue toilet. A noticable feature being the leftovers of the last persons endeavours on the toilet bowl, despite a little notice on the lid that said "this toilet has been surgically cleaned"!

The toilet of the Laddder Hotel
Photo Copyright © Ieuan Dolby, 2006

I opened the window only to be faced with some steel bars that wouldn't look out of place on a prison cell! At least the attack was not going to come from outside! I decided that the only option I had was to sleep and so I lifted off the bed cover only to be faced with a square pillow that could have been used as a backdrop to some mountaineering film! I opted to place the towel they provided, a blue-holed affair on the sheet that was 'untuckable' due to its minimal proportions, discard the pillow and try to place this bad memory behind me, morning should bring respite!

The attack came at about 2am! I was deep under having been led into a false sense of security by the bars on the window and the locked door with the chair under the handle when the mosquitoes came for a late night snack! Not one, not two but a hoard of them descended, I should never have opened the window, and I spent the rest of the night taking turns between trying to sleep and hunting them down. I hate that buzzing in the ear just as I'm about to drop off again!

In the morning I got up to face the rest of the day! I got up, had a shower only to be thumped on the head by the shower head which decided to fall off at an inopportune time, to be burnt by the hot water as the cold tap suddenly switched itself off and to slip on the now slip-matting as I got out - no more, I can't take any more!

I went for breakfast, not much else to do really and left the room behind as much locked away from me as to protect the luggage left behind. I took with me a copy of a three-day-old Financial Times that I had found on the plane and sat down at one of the three tables that constituted the hotels restaurant. I asked for a coffee, assuming that the food might not be up to scratch only to be given some food with my coffee anyway. Breakfast was interesting, I think a result of my having turned up at 10am rather than the suggested 8am caused problems, so the cheese on the mini-slice of bread was already curling up at the corners and the vegetables on my 'flan' were soggy! I struggled through, noting that if I were to stay much longer at this hotel I would need sustenance (god knows what lunch would be like) and the fact that the sole waitress had shut the door behind her thus locking me into this miniature canteen left me little choice but to swallow! She hadn't smiled when I entered and didn't smile when she slammed a hot cup of water (one must mix their own instant coffee and milk-powder in themselves) in front of me, spilling half of it onto my newspaper, and not wanting to make her angrier I battled my way through to the bottom of the soggy yet still tough lump of egg and bits!

As my meal was drawing to an end and as I was contemplating life ahead the door opened. I ducked, expecting an attack of one sort of another but it was my agent. I felt like running to him, getting onto my knees and begging him to save me but I restrained myself and said 'good morning" instead. As things turned out I was in luck, the hotel was fully booked for the next day so I had to check out! Yippee, the war had come to an end, respite in the trenches for the besieged, and so I skipped to my room, threw what I could find into my suitcase and hopped and jumped my way out of there - I did give myself time to fill up the bottle of beer I had drunk with water and place back the cap in a manner that would at first glance resemble a full bottle - small (slightly pathetic) revenge against the 120 US dollars charged for the 12hours stay!

I met the agent at the door! He was busy talking on the phone trying to find another hotel, one that might be of a better standard and I took stock of my surroundings! As implied last night the building resembled a prison camp, to keep people inside rather than to prevent those trying to get in! My drunk from the night before was still there, the fact that enough glass to re-window the building was scattered around him proved beyond doubt that his bare feet must have soles like steel and that his coats size was rather deceptive - he must have had a crate stashed inside there if not more!

With excitement the agent informed me that he had located another hotel! The price was slightly more, at 250 US dollars a night but it had air-conditioning and was in-fact a small apartment. Yippee!

I was ecstatic, saved before the noose tightened; that was until he told me that the new hotel was owned by the same company as the one we had just left!

God help me!

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