Airbnb Crash Landing

   No matter how short the flight may be, changing from one country to another is always disorienting--for me at least. The air time between Bangkok and Hong Kong wasn't much over a couple of hours but even so, I was at the airport three hours before my scheduled boarding time and that made for a long day. By the time I called my Hong Kong Airbnb host from the MRT station near my new home, I had logged nine hours in transit, if you count the long taxi ride to Bangkok's airport and I certainly did.
   An efficient woman answered to my host's name (Tm Chan) and told me an old man would come to the MRT exit to guide me to my new Hong Kong room, "It's all right," she reassured me,"He's around 75 years old."
   Eventually a very old man showed up, bearing a scrap of paper with my name scrawled on it. Taking my suitcase, he led me across the road and down another to reach the building where I would be staying for the next ten nights. When we got to the door, he punched in a code. The door remained locked.
  Fortunately another tenant was exiting the building and we entered in his wake. A long staircase led to a small elevator. "Press nine," the old man said. I obeyed. The elevator door remained open and we stood still.
   Repeated button pushing yielded no better results and the old man pulled out his phone. "She'll come soon," he said with no further elaboration. Meanwhile another man came up the stairs, grocery bags in hand. "Oh, no. Not again," he groaned.
   He called another number, explaining the problem and turned to us when he had finished. "It's Friday night. Who knows if anyone will show up? What floor are you going to?"
   When I said "Nine," he grinned. "I'm on the eighth. Looks like we both have a long climb ahead of us."
  At this point another man pulled himself up the stairs. He was on crutches, wheezing audibly, and was clutching his chest by the time he paused in front of the open elevator door. "This is shite," he said, "I've been here two days and this is the second time the damned elevator stopped. I should have found a room in Kowloon. This place is horrible and I have another week to go."
  "What," he asked, "would happen if it stops working when we're in it?"
   This is one of my leading phobias, even when in a building not as dirty and ramshackle as the one we all were standing in. Silently I vowed never to set foot in this elevator once my suitcase was on the ninth floor, just as a Filipina lady approached our merry little throng. She ignored our complaints, stepped in the elevator, pressed the button, and stepped back out. The door closed, the elevator went up, and returned when she pushed the Down button. With a generous amount of trepidation, I followed her inside along with the old man and my suitcase.
   We made it up to the ninth floor, then walked down a half-flight of stairs. The old man lifted up the filthiest doormat I've ever seen and extricated a key. Along with it came the stench of mildew. He opened the door and turned on the light, beckoning to me in a welcoming fashion.
   The room I had seen in photographs had clean white walls, a bed with a substantial mattress, and a small but clean bathroom. The one I stood in had dingy walls, a dirty floor fan, a dodgy-looking air conditioner, and a thin pad that posed as a mattress. The pad was covered with a covering that may have once have been white but now was close to pearl grey. When I pulled it back, the sheet that appeared was stained and dirty.
   I could barely glance at the bathroom, I pulled up a window shade and covered my nose as a fine miasma of dust issued from it.
  "I can't stay here," I muttered and the old man looked concerned. He was only the guide and all I wanted was for him to leave so I could think about my next move. I handed him 50 Hong Kong dollars and closed the door. At least the lock appeared to work.
   Within a few more minutes, there was a knock at the door. A woman stood there and told me she was Tm Chan's assistant. I struggled for poise and coherence before I spoke. "I can't stay here. Chungking Mansions is better than this place."
   "You get what you pay for," she said breezily, "and this room is very cheap. This is Hong Kong."
   "No," I told her, "I paid for small and I expect that in Hong Kong. I didn't expect filth. Look at this bedsheet."
   "I'll bring you a clean one but I won't be back for an hour. Stay here for one night. You're not going to find another place to stay in Hong Kong on a Friday night."
   She left and I made a quick decision. Picking up my suitcase, I made it down the nine flights of stairs to the street, got on the MTR, and was at the entrance of Chungking Mansions within minutes. There a man led me to a room that was very old but very clean and there I remained for that night and the next.
   Airbnb gave me a full refund for that hideous room but my simple faith has been badly shaken. My first Hong Kong Airbnb was everything it purported to be, and I had left wishing I could live in it forever. The second one was far from that. Luck of the draw...and caveat emptor! I hope the old man on crutches survived his stay at 126 Connaught Road West in the On Shun Building.