A night in Trivandrum Samurat Style

With no hotels available, we managed to book what felt like the last hotel on earth - The Samurat Hotel.
When we landed at the airport in Trivandrum, we got talking to two French gals who had not booked anything. We'd told them the mission we'd been through to get the room at the Samurat ( we had called about 18 hotels ) and offered to let them come with us. They gladly accepted.
Sabrinne and Sevrinne - from Marsailles (sp?!).

The Samurat was an experience I hope to never relive. It was the dodgiest hotel I have ever stepped foot into. Its only saving grace was Annu - the beautiful Indian guy who ran the show there. He was so pleased to see 4 young, white girls arrive. We were definately the first real foreigners he had ever hosted.

He arranged an extra mattress in the room for the Frenchies and was SO accomodating. He only charged us 400INR for the room for all of us. That's like 80p each a night!
But someone wise once said "you get what you pay for" and that room was revelation to that very saying.
The room was a filthy dirty flea pit. I felt sorry for the Frenchies sleeping on the floor - their matress was so dirty. I was too scared to lift the stained sheet off ours to have a look. Decided not knowing would be better.

The bathroom was also in bad shape. But at lease we had one with running water and a working loo.

Across the road was a temple or something that was blaring our Hindi music (which I am quite fond of now).

After dropping our luggage we went downstairs for a drink. Both Julia and I needed a stiff drink. It'd been a long day with the Mumbai airport taxi ride, all the walking + the flight.

We popped into the bar around the back of the hotel and were greeted with a room filled with working men on their night out. Again, everyone stopped to behold the sight that had just walked in. We had been there for about 2 seconds when Annu ran in and shooed us out. Apparenly women are NOT ALLOWED into the bars. They don't drink or smoke at all.
He happily bought us a Kingfisher and allowed us to sit in the hotel lobby. In exchange we spoke with him and kept him entertained.

After the beer, we hit the sack. The Frenchies had a cockaroach on their bed which we had to deal with first.

I don't think any of us in that room got a good night sleep again.
We were all moving on the next day. Julia and I wanted to explore Trivandrum - the temple, and markets and then hit Kovallum - beach resort.

That night I drifted in and out of sleep to the sounds of the Hindi melodies blaring through the walls. I prayed hard that our next stop would be something that resembled more a holiday than an experience!