Another toddy, honey?

by Yeoh Siew Hoon

It’s a few days before we kick off WIT-Web In Travel and I am sitting in Room 826 of the Taj Mahal in Delhi, drinking hot toddy.

It’s my 10th glass of hot toddy, I think. I’ve lost count. I was introduced to it by the staff who took my room service order the evening I arrived.

Nursing a sore throat and a cough, I ordered chicken soup and, alert to my croaking voice, she said, “Let me prepare you a glass of nice, hot toddy. It’s very good for you.”

Where I come from, toddy is “Malaysian moonshine”. It’s made from coconut palms and growing up in Penang, I used to hear of stories of “toddy binges” on the rubber estates and incidents of “toddy poisoning”. It was a drink my mother forbade me from imbibing.

“Is it alcoholic?” I asked the girl tentatively. I didn’t want to the girl to think I didn’t appreciate her kindness which as we travelers know is always appreciated when you are in another person’s country.

“No,” she laughed. “It’s made from herbs and it’s very good for your throat.”

She is right. It’s like Mother India in a glass – the scent of cinnamon, ginger and other spices all blended into one brew and it is instantly soothing for the throat.

Since then, news of my condition must have spread like wildfire throughout the hotel – “Room 826, Ms Hoon (that’s what they call me here and as I didn’t bother correcting them when I checked in, it’s a name I have decided to adopt as my persona in India), Toddy special” – and I have found that wherever I am, the staff have been offering toddy – even at a cocktail party yesterday evening when everyone else was drinking whisky and wine.

So as taken as I am by the old-world charm of this hotel, I am more impressed with the thoughtfulness of the service and the graciousness of my Indian hosts.

Outside the hotel is another story of course. I arrived in Delhi five days before the beginning of the festive Diwali season and two days before the Commonwealth Games delegation, here on an inspection visit, was due to leave the city.

I am told these were the two reasons for the worse-than-usual traffic jams – residents shopping for Diwali and road blocks to facilitate the movement of sporting officials around the city as they turn over every brick in the city to ensure it will be ready for the Games in October 2010.

A ride to the Red Fort that would normally take 15 minutes turned into an hour. And when we got there for the Sound and Light show which had been planned for the Commonwealth delegation, everyone was later than we were, and so we actually left before the entertainment started.

It was wonderful though to have this ancient 17th century fort all to ourselves for 30 minutes.

A girlfriend due to visit me did not make it because a normal 20-minute drive took her nearly two hours. “I don’t know what is happening,” she said in as much bewilderment as everyone else.

Well, the Commonwealth Games delegation now wants to know everything that is happening and has called for a monthly review in the lead-up to the event.

It’s the first time such a review has been insisted upon and it reflects the concern among officials that things might not be ready if they were left to their own devices.

“It’s like being back in school and the headmaster’s watching,” said a New Delhi resident.

It’s a school that everyone wants to be part of though. At the Taj Club, I overheard a conversation between a visiting European (he sounded Danish) businessmen and his two Indian associates. They were discussing the production of honey and whether they should build a factory in India.

“We think India’s going to be as a big a market as China for honey,” said the European.

I agree. Toddy tastes even better with honey, by the way.