Small Pleasures

Greetings from Chennai! I am just waiting for my flight to board for London and thought that I would use these few moments to talk about small pleasures on my trip. I had the great opportunity of flying through Bangalore yesterday (and I am not being sarcastic here) - what a beautiful airport. It could rival any new airport in the west. It had some greats shops and was incredibly clean and modern - not like the airport in Delhi or Chennai - the chaos also seemed to be a little more constrained. I thought that I was flying on Kingfisher Air but actually it was on Jet Airways - which is essentially just like Air Canada. The service was pretty good, the plane was new and the safety demonstration was pretty much the same.

Given that my flight is pretty early this morning (8am departure) and figuring that I needed to be at the airport about 5:30am (see - I don't cut it close all the time mom), I opted to get a hotel close to the airport and booked into the Trident, which is a four-star, business oriented hotel. Overall, it was a pretty decent hotel, although my room did smell like someone had died in it! Here is where some of my small pleasures began - fresh fruit! I had 2 apples in my room, along with a plate and knife. . .to have some fresh fruit was incredibly nice! Then, I was able to have a bath! Not just a shower, but a bath. All of the places that I have stayed have only had a shower, so to be able to linger in hot water was awesome. Then to top it off, my bed had not one, not two, but rather 4 down feather pillows - small piece of heaven! Another way that I could tell that I was staying at a good hotel was the toliet paper - we aren't talking 1-ply stuff here - but rather some more along the lines of Charmine soft. . .oh how nice it was. And (yes there is still more), they used fabric softener on the towels! I haven't had towels that soft at a hotel other than the Four Seasons in Whistler! Overall, my body was happy.

The other small pleasure that I have had today was an orange. I have been craving an orange for about a week now (would also like some pasta too) and in the lounge here in Chennai, I noticed they had oranges, so I asked for one. Thinking that I would get an orange and would peel it, I thought I was off to the races. . .but no. The girl brought me my orange, all nicely peeled, cut into segments with the skin removed in a bowl. . .talk about a small piece of heaven in my mouth!

So those are just some of my small pleasures from the last day or so. . .I should run as my flight will be boarding shortly. I just was to leave this note on a more spot, I was reading in the paper this morning (I actually quite like Indian newspapers) about a new old age pension for those over 65 and living below the poverty line. It will guarantee them R 200/month with the expectation will contribute another R 200/month - for a total of R 400/month. In USD that equates to about $10. Unbelievable isn't it?!

Remember to count your blessings today and remember all of your good fortunes.