Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Handily out of hand

Most fervent and loyal blog readers will clearly remember the Hare Krishna Guesthouse in Mumbai, India.
How at 4.30 AM the peaceful sleeping guests are waken up by devotees chanting: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama”.
To have to listen to this chanting the whole day and evening until it penetrates the brain cells of even the mentally strongest person who notices walking in the street singing himself “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Rama, Hare Rama”.
A scary experience but the good news is that now after having returned from India for one week the indoctrination is weakening and hardly the chanting is heard in the head anymore.

What are still clearly remembered though are the comfortable rooms of the Hare Krishna Guesthouse in Mumbai, India.
They were big and with a large balcony.
With a bathroom offering a shower with cold and hot water.
Of course it was not a bathroom as found in a Hilton Hotel, but for the money, 30 Euros (47 $) a night, it was more than OK.

This Hare Krishna bathroom in Mumbai was remembered when arriving in Nowy Sanz, Poland, in the beautiful house of cousin Jerzek.
He and his family love to have guests and family in particular.
Hence, he has a comfortable guestroom available.
And recently he had a new bathroom build in the house especially for the visitors.

This bathroom must be one of the most luxurious ones in Eastern Europe.
It is in a space as big as a house in Mumbai, India where a family of 6 is living.
With tiles on the walls and the floor suggesting a bamboo covering.
All done with exquisite taste.
A high-class designer must have been involved.

Besides the regular objects usually found in a 5 star bathroom like a sink and a toilet, cousin Jerzek’s bathroom offers also a whirlpool and a sophisticated unit serving as a shower and a sauna.


Both the whirlpool and the sauna/shower are equipped with remote controlled radio and CD players, ambient lights and temperature control.



The concept of a shower needs redefining when using cousin Jerzek’s one.
And a crash course because operating it is no simple thing.
Especially after having become used to the rudimentary Hare Krishna shower.
There are so many options, knobs and buttons one feels an astronaut in the Spacestation circling the Earth.
As there is no instruction book, one can only find out how the thing works by trying.
There are no symbols on the knobs and buttons indicating what purpose they serve.
Simply trying is a dangerous method though as was painfully and shamefully learned.



Logic dictated that somewhere must be a knob to start the whole machine and have the water flow.
Preferably at a temperature above the one of the own body.
In spite of the fact we have arrived in 2008 and that we can develop an atomic bomb, artificial curly hair and boobs, the most sophisticated shower is unable to produce water at the right temperature from the very beginning.
How disappointing.
One has to wait for the ice-cold water to become slowly warmer.
If one has selected the option of being sprayed from all corners of the unit, one has a rather shocking and unforgettable experience.
It feels like being attacked from all sides by Eskimos spitting.
And there is no way out.
Because when opening the doors of the unit while the water sprays from everywhere, the bamboo bathroom becomes quickly a swimming pool.

Hence, the courageous bather has to go through the experience and see shrivelling and shivering first before to enjoy the capsulating with warm and gentle water.

Meanwhile the whirlpool waits but will not be used.
What to do sitting in a whirlpool by oneself?
There is music but no TV.
Some people take a dip in the whirlpool and enjoy laying in the bath feeling the water bubble and trickle for hours.
But the level of ADHD in this particular case is too high.
A whirlpool makes nervous.
It feels like loosing all sense life can make and missing more important events.

This is different in the shower/sauna unit.
Taking a shower is an activity.
There is a lot do.
Soaping, rubbing and cleansing.
And as many fervent and loyal blog readers know, there are many places the body has that need thorough soap and water visits before one can claim to be clean.
Next, there is the hair.
Not an issue in a whirlpool, in a shower it can never be forgotten.
Washing the hair is also an activity calming the ambitions to speed ahead in life as it makes ultimate sense.

One thing about cousin Jerzek’s sophisticated shower/sauna is that it is so big it could have two persons at the same time.
The sharp and always keenly observing photographer had this quickly figured out.
Feeling a sharp pain in the heart and elsewhere because the person to share the exotic experience is momentarily rather far away.
But it is put on the list of experiences to have.
Two persons, for sure of the opposite sex, at least in this case, in a sophisticated shower/sauna hearing wild stereo music from the water proof build-in loudspeakers, seeing the bluish ambient lights above and being sprayed from everywhere with soft and soothing warm water.


Assisting each other in the cleansing process and it is more than OK if this gets out of hand.





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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow. Very cool.

Find an economical way to replicate that bath in the US and and you'll clean up!