A Sicilian Nightmare

I had retired this blog some years ago, to concentrate on my fiction, but I need to vent about the experiences of the past five days. Without a shadow of a doubt the worst travel experience I have ever had. And it’s not even entirely down to the fact my better half very nearly died on the island.

We arrived at Palermo’s Falcone Borsellino airport on an early morning flight from Nantes. The flight with Volotea had been rescheduled at short notice from 6pm landing to 10am, and because of the lateness of the change, our car hire company could not move forward the pick up of the vehicle. We decided to make the best of it and take our bags into the city, drop them in lockers at one of the train stations and do a bit of sightseeing, lunch, etc, before returning to the airport to grab the car in the evening.

Already, things began to go wrong.

The lady at the shuttle bus desk was rude, pushy, in a hurry, and missold us tickets to Politeama in the centre of Palermo, rather than to the train station. We tried to stay on the bus til the station as planned, but were forced off, as we had the wrong tickets. This meant a scramble to find luggage storage, and eventually paying almost double what we would have in the station.

But let’s make the best of it, we decided. We had a very nice lunch at a gourmet burger place, then decided to check out an archaeological museum to escape the heat. The museum was lovely. The staff, once again, were unnecessarily rude and unfriendly.

I’ve been to Italy a fair bit and this is quite out of character with previous experiences. We tried to use the limited Italian we know, were always polite, etc. But it was already starting to become a pattern.

When the time came to return to the airport, we made it there and waited for our shuttle bus to the car hire place. Once again, you’ve guessed it, incredibly rude service. The woman pushed the missus into taking extra insurance (she had decided to be the driver on this trip), and threatened her with a totally unrealistically high deposit being needed if she refused.

So, off we went, 150 bucks lighter, and followed the road across the island to our hotel – a vineyard on the outskirts of Agrigento, in the south. The hotel was lovely. Very friendly owners, wonderful dog, great setting, etc.

But, on the second day, my other half began to get a recurrence of abdominal pains from days earlier and, being a doctor, recognised that it was something worth getting checked out. We drove about 45km to the hospital.

When we got there, the huge building masked a bit of a horror show inside. Levels of hygiene were low, almost every sign to every department was incorrect, as locations had changed, but signposting had not been updated. There was a big song and dance at triage about making sure everyone had a covid test and wore a mask – understandable when you consider the way the first wave of Covid-19 tore through Italy – and yet when we got inside there was minimal cleaning going on. Toilets had no soap or hand wash and every single antibacterial gel dispenser failed to work.

After 3 hours in the nightmare hospital, she was seen and given an ultrasound, which indicated a pretty serious problem. She was going to be kept in overnight. I made a call to the car rental place to get the car switched to my name, but they couldn’t find my details, even when I gave them references. The last bus for the day had gone and, apparently, there were no taxi services in Agrigento beyond individuals who the hospital staff told me were unreliable (they were right – more on this later). So, I had to drive the hire car back to the hotel uninsured, and back again the following morning to bring things she needed.

At this point, I decided I could not risk this any further, and so decided to take a bus to the centre of Agrigento in the day and find a cheap b&b in the town. The bus was a 17-seater, about the same age as me, and with half the seats out of bounds due to covid restrictions, but it got me to town. The b&b was fine, and the guy running it was welcoming and friendly.

My missus then was told she would have to have emergency surgery. I continued to attempt to get the car hire changed with no luck, so ultimately decided to hire another car from the following day, in case I needed to fetch more things for her from the original hotel and also to avoid the expense of more b&b nights in the town.

Surgery happened the same day – the surgeons and anaesthesiologist were all excellent, I am reliably informed. I got the news of her survival late that night, and finally had a proper night’s sleep.

The next day, I returned to the original hotel in the new car after which, finally, I managed to speak to someone from the car hire firm who paid attention to the situation and agreed to change over the insurance to me so that the car could be returned.

The next morning, she was discharged from the hospital much earlier than we’d expected, so after breakfast, I set off to pick her up. We drove to a shopping centre, so she could have somewhere comfy to sit while I got a taxi to pick up the original hire car from the hospital grounds and then dropped off the second hire car.

I called one of the highest rated taxis in the area and arranged for him to meet me in the car park 50 minutes later. After an hour and twenty minutes, I called again to ask where he was. He sounded surprised that I was there and came to meet me. Thereafter, he cooked up a story about waiting in a different area of the shopping centre car park (in his huge white van which, naturally, I would not have seen) and that when he was trying to contact me, he mixed my number with another customer. By this time, I just wanted to get to my destination, so I said it was fine and we set off.

The driver drove in the opposite direction from the hospital. I asked him why and he first said it was another way, with less traffic. About ten minutes later, I protested again, and he told me it was my fault for making him wait and he had another 7 customers at the beach, waiting to be picked up. So I got driven to the beach, then the valley of the temples, then the town centre then, finally, the hospital. We arrived around an hour and forty five minutes after our original agreed pick up time. As we drove into the car park, he called someone who I suppose was his mother, to complain to her about the arsehole customer who made him go to the hospital where he wouldn’t get another fair in Italian, thinking the fact I didn’t speak the language well meant I wouldn’t understand.

For his appalling service, he attempted to charge me 25 euros. For an 8km journey which ought to have taken about 7 minutes, had he not been a crook. I gave him the twenty I had and made a note to leave a scathing review for his lack of professionalism and his 90kph one-handed texting and driving approach to life.

I drove back to the shopping centre, returned the second hire car and then went back to the original hotel so the missus could rest. We had a quiet dinner there, then hit the road for Palermo airport with rearranged flights via Rome, the following morning.

As a result of their universally appalling reputation, I’ve never flown anywhere with Alitalia (or ITA airways as they have recently rebranded themselves). Fear not, for the rebranding is cosmetic and they continue to do their best to disappoint at every ponderous step of their existence.

We joined the check in queue at Palermo which moved at the speed of a lichen. When we finally reached the front of the queue, the agent at our desk did not know that indirect flights existed. No, really. He didn’t know it was possible to fly indirectly on one ticket. So it took around 25 minutes for his neighbour to talk him through the process. At this stage, I foresaw my luggage’s disappearance which did, indeed, come to pass.

Boarding the plane was total chaos. A mad scramble, with no attention whatsoever paid to the size of objects being brought on board. Some people had shopping bags bigger than my hold luggage, full of provisions, toys, you name it. The cabin crew yelled across the PA that people should put all remaining bags under the seats in front of them, even though this was an obvious impossibility. Around 30 – 40% of the people on-board had taken positions in the wrong seat and, in the end, the plane taxied to runway with people still standing. Take off happened as the cabin crew were still on their feet finishing the safety demo.

It was surreal.

When we got to Rome, everything was very well organised, the disabled assistance team ready and waiting to help my better half with mobility in her state of recovery. We got quickly to the gate for the flight to Lisbon, and the process from boarding to take off to landing on-board was mercifully properly arranged.

When I arrived at Lisbon, as predicted, one of our pieces of luggage did not arrive and, once analysed by the operative in the office there, it was established it had never been scanned, so never entered the original plane. Another mark against the total shambles that is Palermo airport.

I’ve travelled to a lot of places classed within the so-called ‘developing world.’ I cannot imagine such a combination of utterly feckless incompetence, a total lack of planning and attention to infrastructure, being married to such an open hostility towards people as we experienced in Sicily. There is SO MUCH natural beauty on the island. Some of the food and wine is phenomenal but it makes Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and other places I’ve been to seem like some kind of space-opera-based techno-utopia. Nothing works. And people treat you like garbage, nothing but a target for scamming and rip-offs, coupled with rudeness which is off the scale of anything I’ve ever received.

This place was one that featured on my bucket list. I did not realise the bucket in this case was one left out for someone without toilet facilities.

Avoid.

Adventures in Sri Lanka – Part 6 – Vavuniya

Leaving Trinco on a bus, and facing the prospect of a five hour or more journey across the island to my next major stop in Mannar was just too much to handle. So, book in hand, I elected to stop at more or less the mid point on the way, Vavuniya. Vavuniya is famous for… well, just about nothing, actually. But the Lonely Planet guide assured me it would be a perfectly interesting place to put myself for a couple days. And so it proved.

Boarding the bus at the beginning was a great move. There were rows of free seats and I found myself a comfy one by a window, not far from the front and managed even to put my smaller rucksack on the almost empty overhead. In no time, we were on the road. We retraced the route I had taken in to Trinco to Habarana at first and then, soon after our path turned a little more northerly and the humidity in the coastal air gave way to a dustier area. It was all very sparse and under populated.

Pleasingly, the bus never really filled up and I managed the whole trip in relative comfort, without incident and arrived at the stop in Vavuniya by late morning. I descended from the bus and quickly consulted the map to ensure I was headed in the right direction. The right direction was for the Nelly Star hotel. The book described it as a place with a good balance between price and quality. It even boasted a swimming pool which, at 1500 rupees a night, was a bargain. I arrived at reception and asked for a room for two nights, before my onward journey to Mannar. The receptionist looked flustered. He searched this clipboard and that, before finally telling me that I could stay in one room that night and a different one the night after. I was infinitely less flustered at this prospect. I went to my room and grabbed a quick – hot(!) – shower to get all the dust off, from the journey. After that, I decided to take a walk. The Nelly Star is on one of the East-West arterial roads of Vavuniya. It’s a tiny place and there’s not a huge amount to see, but this meant that I was one of… well… one western tourists in the city at this point. I was pleased, as it meant that hassle was less and certainly less pushy. The first thing I had to do was get some lunch. I walked down the main shopping street, past countless trucks making deliveries, an unfortunately named alcohol store, and then a somewhat odd looking Catholic Church, before finally settling in to a café for a portion of the day’s rice and curry set menu.

“Bubees” – seriously?

I started tucking in to my food right away, of course, and it was a fair few minutes before I realised that the day’s rice and curry was, in fact vegetarian. I hadn’t thought about it before, but this was the first place I’d been where there was a Hindu majority. Nevertheless, the food was excellent and spicy. I drank the last of my ginger beer and walked across the road to find a baker’s. The place was awash with pleasantly decorated little cakes, the first such things I’d seen since Colombo, and probably the first I’d seen at all in non-tourist-oriented establishments. Feeling my sweet tooth, after the hot lunch, I went inside and ordered a milky tea and an iced slice.

As I sat to eat my colourful little cake, a young man of about 20 who was doing something with the deliveries came in and sat opposite me. He first asked if he could join me and then where I was from, if I was married before – a new question – was I a Christian. I told him that I was, in fact, an atheist and he looked not so much upset as worried. He asked me if I’d seen the mosque, which I had and then proceeded to tell me that he wished no ill will to me and that, rather, he hoped that I might find the right girl and, if god finds me, that I might find religion. This was a jolly polite approach and one that seemed more concerned about what he felt was best for me, rather than any god smiting anger or revenge, which I hear from religious people of many backgrounds these days. I decided to make the best of this opportunity and ask him for some information about the mosque and whether I could see it. He told me that I could, outside of prayer times and gave me a piece of paper with his phone number, in case I should need anything while in the town. What a nice fellow.

After this, I decided to walk back across town and, with the heat beating down, I thought I might get myself a haircut and a shave. Just ahead, at the end of the road, I spotted ‘The New Barber Saloon’ – with air conditioning, no less. It seemed like a good bet. I took a seat in the waiting area alongside two guys in their late teens while the two barbers worked on their current customers. One of the men waiting started talking to me and told me that they were in fact Norwegians of Sri Lankan descent on their first visit to their ancestral homeland and so we had a good chat while we waited. They also told the barber what I wanted before they left. This resulted in a nice haircut, an extremely close shave and then an ‘exfoliation and massage’ which seemed a lot like a really severe beating to the head, but did leave both my skin and my joints feeling a lot better, so I suppose he must have known what he was doing.

With my beard and hair trimmed and the temperature now sitting around 42⁰C, enough was enough and I decided to go for a beer. Except that Vavuniya isn’t a tourist town. So you can only buy beer in the supermarket, or the shady-looking Bubees, seen above. So I decided to head to Cargill’s. It was here that I realised that beer is really quite the taboo thing in Sri Lanka. Speaking to some locals over the remaining weeks of my trip, it seems that this is because of a perceived problem with alcoholism in the country. Anyway, the process for buying alcohol from the supermarket is that you pay for your regular goods at the normal till, before going to a very small window and ordering your alcohol, while a security guard stands near you, giving you looks of shame. I was buying one beer, so I didn’t really feel any shame, but the bloke still tried his best. It was all terribly strange. Most importantly, I found the shelter of my room and got my beer. This time Lion stout, a really nice dark lager, but beware – it’s 8.1% by volume! Very strong stuff!

In what seemed like no time, the sun had set and I had the glamorous task of handwashing some underwear and socks to occupy my evening.

Waking up the next day, I found my washing all but dry in the early morning heat, which was already pushing the mercury up to the heights of 38 degrees at 8:15 am. All apart from the t-shirt that had blown off the balcony and was now lost on the wall of a half collapsed building across the street. A three euro Primark t-shirt was not going to reduce me to tears though, and neither was it going to lead me to climb a barbed wire fence into a collapsed house to retrieve it. I walked downstairs to enquire about breakfast. The receptionist was waiting for me. First, he told me that breakfast was not included, though I’d been told the day before that it would be. Then he told me that I would not need to change rooms today, but in fact to move to their other hotel, which was of the same standard and was on the parallel street. I was a bit disappointed, but I went upstairs to pack my things, regardless. When I came back down, the porter was waiting for me and he told me he would show me to the new hotel, but that he didn’t have time to walk. So, rather, I would have to pay for us to take a tuk tuk. When we arrived at the hotel, it was the same price, but the standard was much lower. There was a hole in my wall to the corridor, my door didn’t lock, and the water was cold. I protested, but there were no other rooms available and more or less no other hotels in Vavuniya. I would strongly recommend against staying here for anyone that visits. There was no breakfast here either, so I decided to go to the café next door to the new hovel hotel.

With the Sri Lankan equivalent of two paninis (stuffed with vegetable curry, obviously) in my belly, I was feeling a lot more optimistic about the day, which was to start at the mosque. With its blue poster paint walls and minarets and its onion-shaped golden domes, it’s a beautiful sight, that you notice the moment you turn into the street.

I decided to see if I could get inside to have a look around. I went to the door and asked some men who were just putting their shoes back on after praying. They called a young boy of about 12, as he spoke English quite well and he offered to show me around. He showed me all the chambers and translated some of the inscriptions into English for me, even introducing me to some pilgrims who were visiting from another city and showing me the kitchen where food was prepared for people, to be eaten after midday prayers. I was offered some food, which I declined and, when I tried to give the boy a small tip for showing me around, he refused, telling me it was an honour to show an outsider their temple. I was pretty surprised. Now it was on to the most famous Hindu temple in the city.

To reach the Hindu temple, you have to walk down the side of the railway tracks. When I arrived at the track, there was a stray cow wandering about. It had big enough horns that I wanted to keep my distance from it. Finally, I reached the tracks, checked there was no train approaching and dashed across.

Inside the temple, no photos were allowed, but there was a group of women singing a Hindu hymn, and I circumambulated (in the right direction!)  looking at the many shrines of the different gods worshipped in this temple and the offerings left by worshippers. Leaving the temple, I took the longer road back into town, which took me past a different Hindu temple, which I hadn’t been aware of, with an incredible thatched structure. A puja was taking place at the time and, though I couldn’t take photos, the priests welcomed me inside to witness the ceremony.

Further down the road, past the mosque again, I came to the lake on which the city was built. It had a pleasingly small amount of rubbish and pollution, by Sri Lankan standards.

It was getting on for time to eat, and I’d been strongly recommended to go past the lake, near to the church and to try the Royal Garden restaurant. So I thought I’d give it a go. The restaurant is made up of a banqueting hall which is extremely lavish and is used for weddings or, as on the evening when I was there, a university or school occasion of some kind. The area I was looking for was behind the hall, in an open garden area, and had the appearance of an upmarket fast food restaurant. I looked at the menu and thought I would try one of the vegetarian dishes, and in the end I plumped for “devilled paneer”. The food took a while to arrive, so I befriended a cat (naturally) in the meantime. When it arrived though, it was one probably the best meals I’d eaten on my trip to date.

With dinner done with (washed down with Elephant ginger beer, of course), it was time for bed before the next leg of the journey the next morning, on to Mannar, the sandy peninsula of the north west.

Throughout my travels in Sri Lanka, I leaned heavily on the Lonely Planet Travel Guide. You can buy your copy here: