TCG favorite, Fox News Channel war correspondent Steve Harrigan, tells the New York Times what it's like to use bedding as a barometer of just how in danger your life is on any given night in the paper's "Frequent Flier" biz section feature today. And like his reporting and all his other writing, you've got to check it out:
YOU know you're a frequent flier when you wake up and don't remember where you are. You have to look at the hotel phone to figure it out. I've had to do that a time or two.
But as a war correspondent, my first question in the morning isn't, "where am I?" It is: "safe or not safe?"
I can tell by the sheets. Clean white sheets mean "safe." You turn in them, hear them rustle, look at them and you know you're all right. Maybe you're close to a war zone, like Iraq or Congo, but the hotel is out of harm's way, and there is nothing to worry about.
Dirty sheets — or no sheets — means you're in trouble. You're on a dirt floor of a hut in Afghanistan, waking up to the sounds of Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenades or car bombs.
Same thing goes for sleeping bags. In a Pakistani village where everything was made of mud, we discovered that our presence was not welcome. Our translator said, "We have to leave." So we began packing our belongings, and he said, "You don't understand. We have to leave now!"
We had to abandon our sleeping bags in the room we were renting. I watched the mob gathering in our rearview mirror as we high-tailed it out of town in a cab.
Few hotels stay open in a war zone, so we often have to improvise. In Chechnya, my crew and I slept on desks in an elementary school. In addition to facing the constant risk of Russian air assaults, we shared our accommodations with a driver who snored loudly. When he would start, we took turns throwing shoes at him. Manners are often the first casualty in a war zone.
Probably the worst hotel I ever stayed at was in Armenia, which at the time was a country without electricity or heat. In the hotel's public bathroom, several inches of urine covered the floor, creating a dilemma. Do you wade through the sewage to reach the toilet or stand on the edge of the lavatory and do what everyone else has done?
Substandard lodging is something you get used to in my line of work. In Baghdad, when I first checked into the Palestine Hotel, something would blow up and I'd be wide awake. I'd jump out the door and follow the smoke, and then, after a little while, I'd go back to sleep. By the time I left Baghdad, only a direct hit by a missile would wake me up.
But not every hotel in a war zone feels dangerous. My favorite place to stay in Jerusalem is the American Colony Hotel, a historic mansion where, in a cavernous tavern called the Cellar Bar, Jews and Palestinians actually talk to each other without all the checkpoint tensions. In a city where buses blow up, you can feel your guard drop at the bar.
If only we could find a way to expand that cellar.
