Serious Travel Article (STA) 8: Booking Blind, You Get What you Pay For! A Trip to Hounslow, near Heathrow.

Booking hotels online in a country you are not familiar with can be a dangerous thing, booking your  stay in a town you left three years ago can be even more daunting.

Returning to the UK from a stay in sunny, trouble free, people sparse Queensland was a hard thing to do. Booking an online hotel not far from Heathrow, near to rail and tube was easy. Arriving at 5.30am tired and dirty after the 20 plus hours riding the Airbus A380 I rang my pre booked residence,

“do you have an early check in”?
“Not till 11.30”, was the stern reply.

Heathrow Terminal 3. Britain's favourite purple building.

OK coffee and Danish at the airport lasted a couple of hours, then on the tube to Hounslow central, the smell of the underground hit me like the perfume of a long forgotten girlfriend, I hadn’t realised it before, how the scent of our city’s  public transport system was ingrained on my memory. The sun was shining  as I dragged my case along Lampton road where as a child my father and I treated ourselves at Rossis ice cream parlour at least once a week (without my mothers knowledge). Such guilty pleasures at a very young age!

The once grand buildings of the road were now bulldozed or left to fail in to disrepair by greedy developers desperate to build cheap boxy hotels for the sprawling airport  run-off.

My pre booked hotel was on the Staines Road a 15 minute walk from the station, easy to find but in the morning rush hour, dodging the stream of commuters was getting ever harder with my oversize case.

Hounslow's multicoloured health centre

 

The Shalimar hotel was on the main road with cars parked on the forecourt, a plastic roof was held up by Corinthian coloms under which a grubby red carpet drew you inside. I booked in much earlier than they had said without incident and was shown to my, as requested, "quiet room". It was a fair size with a double bed, TV and en suite. The view from the window was across a concrete court yard strewn with  large empty cans of ghee and damaged dining chairs, not a good look. There were no towels in my room, but I was in no state to use them anyway I just needed sleep I set my alarm for 6 pm and tucked my self under the covers.

The picturesque Shalimar Hotel in Hounslow

Then came the knock on the door...

“Towels here!”, The Ghandiesque old man screeched.
“OK, leave them outside please” I shouted in reply.
“OK lady.”

By 6pm I had been disturbed 3 times with loud banging on the door insisting that I retrieve the towels, my fuzzy jet lagged brain saw the towels making a break for it if I didn’t take control of them!

Unrefreashed by my siesta, I retrieved the lonely towel from outside the door it smelt clean but was stained, I didn’t care. I forced my rather round body into the priest hole size shower, the water was plentiful hot then cold but flowed with gusto, I managed at least a turn of 180 degrees I squeaked across the tiles if I tried to turn all the way. My one towel did the job, just about .

It was then that I noticed the pillows.

Into an old white poly cotton case was squeezed two much used, stained and greasy, grey pillows. I didn’t think I had a pillow phobia until that moment, I have been known in the past to buy a cheap pillow for hotel stays, mostly because of my vibrant red hair and the stain it can leave behind, oh how I wish I had stuffed at least one into my case.

A Filthy, Dirty, Rotten Pillow. Typical of the Shalimar Hotel, Hounslow.

Luckily for me the shops were still open at 7pm unlike the sleepy Brisbane suburb that I had left behind.

Hounslow high street was still full of people and I stopped for a while to eat at one of the many Indian restaurants in the area, a friendly Buffet with a good choice of items. Suitably stuffed I set to walk the 10 minute walk back, the street was silent, all of the bustling families had moved on, the chattering Polish women were gone, even the pub was quiet. It was then I noticed the dark shapes of hooded figures in the doorways, farther along 4 youths were openly dealing drugs as community police cycled past. I was approached by 2 hooded girls about 16 years old asking if I could give them money for cigarettes, I ignored them and walked toward the bright lights of the now closing Chinese buffet. Sirens broke the eerie stillness of the pedestrianised high street, the figures went back to their business and I upped the pace from my meandering to an assertive, positive walk back home.

Modern day Hounslow High Street

Hotel pillows removed to a safe distance and my new clean one on the bed, I settled in for the night with the TV on low so not to disturb the other guests.

And that’s when the party started, I think it was quite a large family do by the noise and calls of “look, Aunty Sanjeeve is drunk!” There was also a lot of drumming, dancing and shaking of the floorboards, but most of all small children were screeching and kicking the empty ghee tins around out side my window.  Around midnight the band had packed up and the disco started,

I fell into a broken sleep, woken again at 2am by the sound of strong Indian accents singing along to Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldier.

I took breakfast the next day in the room where the party was held, under foot were last nights samosas and bargies trodden into the carpet, a strong smell of stale alcohol and curry spices were still fresh in the air. “It was quite some party”, I said to  my bleary eyed host.  He smiled in return.

I returned to my room later that day to find my single towel had been replaced with a fresh pair and a bath mat. All  were stained and damp, upon returning these I was given an excuse that sounded like “we just cant get the staff”, but I expect they said something else. The new towels didn’t smell fresh but at least they were free of the tell tale brown stains .

Towel Cleanliness at the Shalimar Hotel was a bit Dodgey to say the least!

Ready for an early night I got into bed, all was quiet and the rain kept the kids out of the courtyard so I was guaranteed a peaceful night, my only problem was that the sheets on my bed were still wet, too overcome with weariness I assigned my self to a damp cold night.

My last breakfast was shared with  noisy families put up by the council due to the severe housing shortage in the area. There were arguments with the chef about how Halal the sausage really was and why only English bread was served.

Breakfast was minimal and only the cheapest ingredients were used, white bread, watered down juice, cardboard cornflakes, yoghurt from brands unknown to the civilised world and the fattiest of bacon, but Mrs P could fry a pretty mean egg.

This family run hotel is friendly enough, but little concern is given to the guests peace and quiet when functions are held. The pillows need a health and safety warning, the carpets are stained and have retained an odour of long forgotten curries. Getting a clean dry towel is an issue and dry bed linen is surely a basic human right!

I would not want to return here, nor would I wish a stay upon my worst enemy!

Hounslow Really has lost a lot of its Charm since this Photograph was Taken

Hounslow has lost a lot of its charm and even though I was bought up in the area I don’t feel its the same place I that I left all of there years ago.  And as for booking a quiet room over the internet, forget it.