I was to stay over at a friend’s place for the first time. A little conscious, the friend messaged me, “Nero, it’s a bachelor’s room. Don’t expect much. And there is a lot of junk. Don’t judge ;)”.

I grinned. In my travels, I have stayed in all kinds of places, from a fancy hotel in Phuket where Leo Dicaprio stayed in for the movie “The Beach” , to a hostel in Cambodia that costed 2 dollars a night. Abandoned in a Thailand forest, I stayed in a hut for 3 days. All that it had was a bulb and a mattress, in its interior, and 5 elephants grazing in the forest 20 meters away.

In Thangu village (the last village in North Sikkim before the China border), the only hotel had given all their rooms to construction workers. So, I went from door to door to all the village houses at 10 pm, asking to let me spend the night. Finally one sweet family took me to their storeroom. There was a huge yak leg stuck on the door, the room was small but it has a bed and a lot of blankets and I fell asleep almost at once, waking up only to the smell of morning tea.

In Europe, on two occasions, I have slept off on benches at the bus stop at night, cos I had an early morning bus to catch. During the San Fermin Bull Run, i have slept on the grass in a park with hundreds of others.

Heh I don’t really think I could ever fuss about staying in a friend’s house. Or actually anywhere. Ever.