Yeah, we know already, like “leave a message after the beep.” But this is odd… “A towel on the rack means ‘I’ll use it again.'” What rack? In this Hilton Hotel bathroom, there wasn’t a rack, a hook, or even a peg for a towel.
Look at the photo. You can see the entire bathroom. No place for towels.
China World Hotel, Beijing— Very nice room. In an effort to think of every detail, there’s a little glass shelf installed on the bathroom wall, toiletside. Lest you load it up with toiletries, which might seem the obvious thing, it’s etched with the image of a mobile phone. And for those over-actively vibrating phones, there’s a tiny guardrail. Cute!
> Even more! See edit at the bottom.
10,000 shipping containers are lost at sea each year! From my naive perspective, I’m shocked by this number. Twice, I’ve sent an entire household from one continent to another by sea. To think of my container just…tumbling into the sea in a storm! Or worse, ordered jettisoned by the captain to ensure the safety of the ship.
Five to six million shipping containers are being transported at any given moment, and it’s estimated that one is lost about every hour. A goner. True, the percentage is low; but the number is high. Ten thousand containers and their cargo, every year, sunk to the bottom of the deep blue sea. Or presumably, the rough gray sea.
Containers dropped from cargo ships are never recovered and rarely reported. There are no legal repercussions for the losses; no accountability.
There are other repercussions though. Hazardous materials are leached into the ocean. Artificial habitats are created for aquatic life, strung like stepping stones along shipping routes, possibly giving species an unnatural ability to migrate across oceans.
And these cargo containers may float for days or weeks before they sink to the ocean floor. Huge farting boxes the size of houses, invisible just below the surface of the sea, they create a deadly hazard for other ships and yachts. “Very, very dangerous,” a ship’s officer told me. “At night you cannot see them at all.”
While this subject matter doesn’t quite fit my usual categories of Travel or Theft, it interests me mainly in terms of loss and responsibility (and also freak accidents). And there seems to be a huge potential for fraud.
Apparently, expediency in loading cargo ships doesn’t allow for stacking containers logically. Therefore, heavy containers may very well ride on the top layer. On the other hand. I read somewhere that top layer positions go for cheap—or was that a joke?
In a global industry represented by straight-laced and corrupt nations and every banana republic in between, I’m not surprised that:
They overload container vessels on purpose, raising the center of gravity of the ship. If there is smooth sailing, you make millions extra a year. If you hit rough seas, you cut loose your entire top layer of containers, lower your COG, and still come out ahead in the grand scheme of it all.
So, if a ship lists or rolls a container or two could go flying. Connecting pins might break or shear off, as they are designed to do at a list of a certain number of degrees. And if a ship is in danger its captain may choose to sacrifice a number of containers in the hope of saving the ship and its remaining cargo.
…essentially the shipping company is not liable for the ‘disposed [of]’ containers, either. If the shipping company has enough losses on a vessel to declare a “General Average,” then the compensation for the losses (including vessel damage, if any) are assessed against the other *customers* with cargo on that vessel.
Basically, the vessel is carrying the cargo as a courtesy; any risk of loss belongs to the owners of the cargo(s) collectively, NOT to the carrier.
So as a forwarding agent, not only do you get the pleasure of telling someone that their container of goods has been lost, you get to tell them that…¨a) they still have to pay freight shipping costs, AND…¨b) they’re going to be legally liable for their ‘share’ of whatever the general average costs work out to be
Other than keeping his average rate of loss low, there doesn’t seem to be much to motivate a captain to deliver his full complement of containers. Would it be an exaggeration to suggest that the odd seaman or two might be induced to “lose” a container now and then?
The potential for foul play intrigues me. I hear the whisper of a thumb gently rubbing two fingertips… The master of a ship turns his head away at the screech of metal scraping metal followed by a mighty splash. What might be in that locked steel box? Incriminating evidence? Treasure, bundled with a GPS transmitter, for later retrieval? Hazardous waste too costly to dispose of properly? A secret marine biology laboratory in which creepy experiments will be activated by contact with water, to be carried out in the cold, dark, compressed environment of the sea floor? Bodies?
> Edited 2/22/14 to add link to interesting article about a cargo ship that lost more than 500 containers in heavy seas.
> Edited 1/29/22 to add link to interesting article about a container collapse in which 60 were said to go overboard.
> Edited 6/2/22: In November of 2020, a ship called the one Apus, on its way from China to Long Beach, got caught in a storm in the Pacific and lost more than eighteen hundred containers overboard—more in one incident than the W.S.C.’s estimated average for a year. The same month, another ship headed to Long Beach from China lost a hundred containers in bad weather, while yet another ship capsized in port in East Java with a hundred and thirty-seven containers on board. Two months later, a fourth ship, also on its way from China to California, lost seven hundred and fifty containers in the North Pacific. When Shipping Containers Sink in the Drink
I have to say, there’s something rather cozy about a warm toilet seat. Definitely got used to that in Japan. I came to expect the full panel of services, too, from waterfall or babbling brook sound effects to various water-jet options. I was a little taken aback the first time I entered and the lid saluted me, opening on its own. And I was just plain amused by a toilet with a lit bowl. Maybe even a little horrified.
Oh, and yes. They flush and close by themselves, too. Any more questions?
I stay in a lot of hotels, some of which are the best or most unique in the world. This one in Hong Kong—not so hot.
Why was there a bucket under the sink? And in the bucket, a smaller bucket.
Fill it up to flush the toilet? Bail out the bathtub? Store up drinking water? I don’t think I want to know…
The Wellington in Madrid is a lovely, old hotel full of charm, the official temporary residence of visiting bullfighters. Our room was large and faultless.
I was puzzled by the sliding glass door in the bathroom, which separated the toilet from the sinks. It was even lockable. Why clear glass? What is the purpose of a transparent door? Isn’t the point of a toilet stall… privacy?
The back wall of the bathroom is all mirror, making the photo confusing but also reflecting the fact that the bathroom does have an ordinary solid door.
Okay, this is priced in Canadian dollars, but still. $6.49 for a bottle of water? No matter how elegant it looks on the nightstand, I’ll drink sink water first. Who would open this? What’s the point?
Hotel hypocrisy. This is certainly not unique to the Delta hotel in Newfoundland, but that is where I was struck by the pretense and posturing of those righteous signs in bathrooms about saving water and saving the planet. What the hotel industry really wants is to save on labor costs.
I’m all for living lightly on our Earth, taking only what’s needed. I believe in the conservation of resources. But some hotels, the Delta St. John’s included, make it impossible to save water. The shower has no flow regulator.
To get hot water, you must run full volume. And in my room, the water pressure was fierce. Far more water than I need or enjoy. Much more than necessary down the drain. Certainly enough to wash an extra towel or two.
Pasted onto our Reykjavik hotel bathroom tiles:
Yes, we came out of the shower quite rancid-smelling—and the fragrance lasts. I imagine the locals: “You stink—just took a shower?”
Go ahead—laugh.
I did.
Is there a more phallic kitchen tool on the planet? Or one more ridiculous?
You should see the thing in action! This is an espresso-maker for the coffee-obsessed traveler. To work it, you grab the black “head” and pump vigorously. I am not kidding.
Of course, first you need a source of boiling water, which sort of spoils its promise of convenience. You can’t just pull to the side of an endless desert road and pump out a shot of espresso; or whip one up on a beach blanket. But in a hotel room equipped with a water boiler, it makes a passable coffee with a nice crema. You need to carry around the coffee, sugar, and the right cups, too. Maybe even a grinder. It’s not my idea of convenient. For all its trouble and the extra stuff that must be carried, it’s not, in my opinion, trip-worthy.
But it sure is amusing to watch a man operate it. I don’t mind drinking the coffee, either.