England IV – Doncaster

Doncaster is a sorry little town. It is dominated by industry, vacant plots and chapping brick houses, a lot of people look like they’re struggling to get by and I haven’t seen a single smile since I arrived here (that last part may be due to the heavy dew). My initial experiences did not help: First off, the taxi took me on a far longer ride than I asked for. Maybe he just really liked driving on the highway? When accounting for the tip he obviously didn’t get, the price probably went down to the same amount anyway. Secondly, I missed big time on the hotel. I did check around, then for some reason ignored the warnings on Tripadvisor (too many people use it as a passive-aggressive way of getting back at places if they’ve not gotten their way) and booked the cheapest place I could find, the Restover lodge. After all, I only needed a place to rest over and keep my stash, right?

The room is lit only by a small bulb on the wall. As there is no desk, I am writing this in bed with the laptop on the chair stool. The interior reminds me of the cabins on a ferry – everything is bolted to the wall. The window features a broken blind and a sign about thieves operating in the area. The toilets and showers in the hallway are supposedly self-cleaning, I assume that is by UV-light because there’s fatty grimes up the walls. At least they are disinfected fat grimes… No soap in any of the toilets. The other guests are huge beefy men with gangsta-style tattoos. It wasn’t until the next morning I saw the sign that could have gotten me out of this:  “After check-in you have 10 minutes to control the facilities. If you find the room unsatisfactory and want to leave, you can do so free of charge within the 10 minutes” (insert picture of sign here) The water smells like a swimming pool, though that is not really the hotel’s fault it adds to the ickyness. On the plus side, the staff is friendly and promised to have a talk with the cleaners, the wi-fi is fast and the sheets are clean (I am counting my blessings here). Also, ignoring the litter outside the window, you can see an old graveyard.

The “hotel” looked central on the map. Wrong again, it is in an industrial area cut off from the town by a highway that I would rather not cross on foot. To find a walkable way across, I had to go quite a bit out of my way.

So here I am, in a depressing place without a single sighting (the tourist office lists two attractions: The mall and the market. They were okay), meeting is not until tomorrow and I am back at the room to do some work. I got some raw greens and coconut water (try it!) for lunch, and at least I feel clean on the inside. Now I’ll pretend I’m solo backpacking in some obscure, hidden place (not that far from the truth) and call the whole experience exotic.

Used to be a grand place back in the days