Juniper
After dinner in an Istanbul restaurant, we proceeded to our (finally!) 5-star hotel, Gonen Hotel. By this time, I had become very angry and anxious as had to brace myself for another 2 nights of sleeplessness no thanks to my serial snorer roommate who really gave me no respite for the past 3 nights in Bursa and Cappadocia. If I had known before the trip that I would be stuck with someone like this, I would have gladly paid the RM800 surcharge for a single room. Getting just 5 hours of sleep every night before waking up with snoring that can wake up the dead is just too much.
You can tell Gonen Hotel is posh just by looking at the revolving door. It has an expansive lobby with ample seating. We assembled in the lobby to collect our room key cards from our tour guide and I wanted to be the first to get the key card as by then, my emotions had simmered to boiling point as regards my roommate. For those of us who had to share a room but not related to each other, they should have given us 2 key cards. With the key card safely in my hands, my roommate was left with no choice but to follow me into the elevator. What mattered was that I was 1st into the room and could choose my bed. I was in no mood to speak to her as I knew the torture she would inflict on me in the early hours of the next morning. As expected, that was the worst snoring I had ever heard since I was FORCED to share rooms with her. She gave me severe PTSD and I hope and pray never to meet her again.
It was nice to finally have toiletries in the washroom such as shampoo, conditioner and shower gel, even a small bar of soap, all of which were absent in the hotels in Bursa and Cappadocia. The only flaw was the shower cubicle which didn’t have a door that could close. When I washed my hair, the water flowed into the bathroom area, so very flooded. Then there was a knock on the door, someone came in with a mop because the water had flowed into the corridor.
