The View from the Hotel Window

Most of my blogging trips are work, they are hectic, I have to find good pictures, I need to take notes and generally see how the stories would work out. We are usually in a group which leaves the hotel in the morning right after breakfast, to return after only dinner. And then we get up and repeat it the next morning again.

I end up spending a lot of nights alone in a hotel on my travels. Don’t get me wrong, I love it. If I have a view from the hotel window, all I need is a cup of tea along with it to make me happy. After that I  am ready to sleep! I drink tea before sleeping only when I am traveling! That is my night ritual, to sit by the window with a cup of tea and then call it a day!

I am someone who likes to sleep with the curtains open. Sleep is something that comes easily to me anywhere in the world. In hotels, I like to deadbolt my room but after that I rest easy. Usually I leave a light on somewhere far away in the room so that I do not feel disoriented if I wake up at night.

Sometimes I get lucky to have a fabulous view from the window. It is human instinct to look out if you open your eyes at night. Even at home I see a lot of greenery out of my window. But I feel all warm and fuzzy when I open my eyes to an unfamiliar and exotic view! I actually smile and then go back to sleep again! I did that a lot at Melia Barcelona as the view from the window was fabulous!

Those few hours in the night is all that I have to myself. There are days when I need to work on some digital campaign after I come back to the hotel. I have tried to cut down on it. But still, the digital campaigns pay money and at times I end up working on the go. When I open my laptop, sit on the bed and get to work, I feel I am at home, till I look out of the window and see that view! And then somehow I feel happy! I clearly remember the beautiful view I had from my room at Courtyard by Marriott in Bangkok. The reflection is falling on the glass table in my room!

And then there was the Royal View Hotel in Hong Kong. The trip was special because my daughter and niece traveled abroad for the first time. I was the only adult on this trip. We had a double bedroom suite and of course the kids took the master bedroom. This was the view from the living room balcony and I would enjoy it when the girls would have fallen asleep! It surely kept me in a better mood to cope with their antics throughout the day!

Then there was trip to Kanha where I stayed at the Taj Safari’s Banjar Tola Lodge. My luxury tent’s rear wall was glass! With my curtains open I could see so many fireflies dancing behind it at night! That was the view I would fall asleep to! I do not have a picture so you would have to imagine the scene!

It is the small things that give me immense joy while traveling. They make up for jet lag, no masala tea and the like!