O Brothel, Where Art Thou?
Filed Under: “This is a hotel, right?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have rooms?”
“Yes. How long would you like the room?”
“For one night.”
“The whole night? You mean until morning?” It was 11:00 P.M. The woman at the desk seemed surprised by Audrey’s response.
“Don’t worry I clean the room and change the sheets after every client. Everything is clean,” she assured us, showing us a room with a day bed.
It did look clean and she agreed to get some new sheets and towels, so we took it. Thank heavens for sleep sacks, anyway.
“You are my first American clients,” she beamed. “If you need anything, just find me. My name is Galina.” First all-night clients, too, we thought.
Audrey paid for the room at the front desk and noticed a ledger detailing the rooms and times they were booked.
“I have a bigger room next door. It will be available after midnight,” Galina explained. Who knew midnight was such a popular time to finish up your business in Kazakhstan? The curfew time of married men, perhaps?
“Do you want to watch TV? If so, I’ll ask my husband to plug it in and turn it on. Some former clients ripped it out of the wall. Now he needs to install it each time.”
A little rough-housing, we figured.
We were so exhausted from our experience at the border, we enjoyed a bit of “Dangerous Minds” on our little abused TV, put in our earplugs (the place did seem pretty busy after all) and slept until mid-morning.
After we checked-out, we elicited some strange looks from the taxis waiting in front of the hotel. “Not accustomed to clients with large backpacks?” Dan inquired. More looks. That’s the great thing about being a tourist. You can sleep at a hotel-by-the-hour and not really care what the locals think. After all, it isn’t your country and you can simply plead ignorance.
So next time you are on a limited budget and need a place to stay in Shymkent, Kazakhstan look no further than the hotels-by-the-hour near the train station. Once you overcome the initial weirdness, they are pretty clean and inexpensive, particularly by Kazakh standards ($20/night for a double). And if you want to take a nap before a train or bus, there is nothing odd in asking for a room for 2 hours. Just be sure to bring an open mind, a sense of humor, your sleep sack…and your earplugs.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
er, what kind of noise?
August 27th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Brian,
Use your imagination.
Dan
August 28th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Hi Dan and Audrey,
I’m sitting in Baku at the RFERL bureau. Yahya recommended I start the day with this story. So I’m re-thinking your hotel recommendations… Tbilisi Charm hotel — anything to share about the “charm” of the hotel?
Best, Cathy
August 29th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Cathy,
Tbilisi’s Hotel Charm is legitimate, genuinely pleasant and so named for all the right reasons.
Some might argue the same of our hotel-by-the-hour in Shymkent, too. We wouldn’t. If pressed to name it ourselves, we might offer Hotel Bizarre…or perhaps Hotel Squeegee.
D&A
August 29th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
I would not be surprised if somebody knocekd on your door saying they need your room for an hour or two
August 29th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
That’s the glory of earplugs - we would never have known if somebody had knocked!
August 29th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Hi guys,
Thanks for the comment on my blog, I have enjoyed reading yours. I had a similar experience this morning, A Scottish guy and I were riding motorbikes around the DMZ in Vietnam. This guy knocked on our door and asked if he could talk to us and practice english. As we were packing he asked us if we wanted hookers, then proceeded to tell us how good they were. The other day I was walking around Hoi An, and was asked if I wanted a lift on a motor bike, said no thanks and was then asked what about a woman. Both times it was before 9am.
Anyway I am going to ad a link to your blog on mine I think my friends would like it as well.
Good luck
Scott
August 30th, 2007 at 12:08 am
Hi Audrey and Dan,
a lot of greetings from Germany, we’re back and planning our next journey to … Georgia.
I follow your trip almost everyday.
These story is absolutely crazy. Were you able to sleep that night or was it to noisy :-))?
Eik
August 30th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Scott,
Thanks for the note…and the link. It seems to us that sex is a common theme (interest?) just about everywhere - be it Vietnam, Kazakhstan, or anywhere else for that matter. Today, for instance, Audrey is asked by a portrait artist in an amusement park here in Almaty whether she wants her portrait drawn. She responds “no thanks” and he asks her “how about sex?” A man of all trades, I guess. Particularly when single guys are involved though, sex seems to be the one language, one currency, one trade that everyone is familiar with.
Happy travels,
D&A
August 30th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
Eik,
Great to hear from you. Glad you are enjoying the site…and planning your next trip…to Georgia.
By the way, we were able to sleep that night. Pretty well, in fact. Exhaustion from our experience at the Uzbek-Kazakh border (see the previous story) and premium earplugs seemed to do the trick!
Cheers,
Dan
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Use my imagination? Reconstruction of the next room? loud TV? Borat wrestling with his camera man? a litter of kittens meowing for milk? Am I close? eh? Certainly you don’t mean sex noises? Are we allowed to say sex?
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Brian: Suffice it to say that they weren’t running the vacuum cleaner next door at midnight. And yes, you are allowed to say sex. Based on our experience, the more you refer to it in your comments on our site, the higher our ranking in the online world.