I Wish I'd Never Left Home

I didn't care that Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, served as an oasis of booze and brouhaha for party-starved Iranians. After a 10 hours in a Volga crossing the Karakum desert, even the sight of Iranians in search of a good time at the Intourist did not trouble me much. All I wanted when I arrived was a hot meal and a warm bed. Fat chance. Complaining about bad food and grime at Intourist Hotels is old hat, but this place was ridiculous, the second worst hotel I've ever stayed in (the worst was an outhouse of a place in Malaysia where they used old socks for curtains). Start with the room. In the ash tray there were used Q-tips mingling with the cigarette butts. A dust-caked window served as a conduit for a wintry current of air. In the bathroom, roaches congregated by the drains of the hair-coated tub and sink. Greasy pillowcases. Hair was everywhere.Nothing could kill my appetite at that point, though, so I went down to the restaurant. The entrance was blocked by a surly woman with metal teeth and a high center of gravity. "Private party," she said with a sneer. Strains of the Lambada floated from behind her as the door swung open. Two men dragged a screaming woman out by her arms. She was trying to walk. All of them were utterly plastered. It took $10 to get past the metal teeth. Inside, I all but had to jump up and down on the table to get the attention of a waitress. The food was predictably bad, but this place managed to ruin potatoes. They were undercooked and cold, with a couple of curls of hair added for spice. The dessert menu offered comic relief, anyway: Snickers or Mars. The most nauseating thing was the band. A fat man in brown polyester sang muck from the 1970s. When he started "You Light Up My Life" I knew it was time to go.Back in my room I took a nip of emergency scotch, crawled into bed, and let the bed bugs bite, and bite, and bite.