She carried several business cards and when her cash ran low she plied whatever trade would best remedy the situation. In this case it was masseuse and Jay was the lucky client. We splurged on a room in the only guesthouse that offered both a fireplace and a hot shower. Melissa dug up several vials of herbal extracts and I cruised the local eateries in search of coconut oil to mix them with. One cook after another wiggled her hands in the direction of China and the coast. We were far too high for palm trees and vegetables were difficult enough to come by - why squeeze them into oil? The woks they cooked with were all filled with great congealed lumps of pig lard. I returned to the room empty-handed and was immediately sent out in search of butter. When I got back the second time Melissa was so pleased with what I'd found that she generously offered to throw in a second massage for me. I accepted, of course.

We lit the fire to ward off the bitter night air. Five minutes later we were standing out on the balcony, coughing up the smoke that had taken over the room rather than escape up the poorly ventilated chimney. We eventually reached an unhappy compromise - a tiny fire and open windows - and sat shivering on the bed drinking cups of hot green tea for warmth. It wasn't the most conducive environment for a relaxing massage and despite Melissa's best efforts, my relief at being allowed to cover up sections of buttery, goose-bumped skin outdid the joy of her handiwork. I dashed for a hot shower as soon as it was over.

I stripped, holding my long hair away from my greasy shoulders, and turned on the hot water tap. Nothing. I experimented with the other tap. A stream of icy water blasted by, accompanied by a swirling cloud of Arctic mist. I bit my lip, climbed into my clean clothes, and slithered down the stairs to get the proprietor.

He personally checked out the hot water tap, clicking his tongue and rapping the pipe with his knuckles. He pointed out that the tiny sink still had hot water and suggested that I use it to bathe, as it was too late in the evening to fix the shower. I reluctantly agreed, wanting nothing more than to climb back out of my now grease-sodden clothes and wash my skin clean.

I showed him to the door and stripped, then turned on the sink's hot water tap. Nothing. I tried rapping the pipes. Still nothing. I struggled back into my clothes and plodded down the stairs.

The entryway was barred, effectively locking us onto the third floor. I hammered on the glass panes until the proprietor showed up, his face twisted into an angry scowl.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Hot water," I said.

"Too late tonight," he informed me. He would look into it in the morning.

"NOW," I said.

"No," he told me.

I looked over his shoulder at the line of circuit breakers along one wall and saw that my room had been switched off. I marched over and flicked it on, and as I walked away I heard him slam and lock the door behind me. I sat on the bathroom floor and waited twenty minutes for the water heater to work its magic, then turned on the tap. Nothing. I marched back downstairs. This time the door was locked and all the lights were out. After several moments of dedicated rapping another guest appeared and let me in. He chuckled when I apologetically told him of our predicament. "I was in your room last night," he told me. "I moved because it was too smoky and the hot water didn't work."

This time when I switched the circuit breaker on I dabbed the connectors with crazy glue. Twenty minutes later, nothing. Jay offered to confront the proprietor with his more imposing six-foot frame. He returned somewhat sheepishly with four thermoses of hot water he had managed to snatch from the kitchen. I found a bucket for a sponge bath, decanted and began to pour. The liquid was dense and black and had the unmistakable odor of coffee. In the end we rinsed out several soda bottles, filled them with water and nudged them up against the dying embers, hoping they wouldn't explode. Jay washed with diluted coffee, I with diluted ice water. We had just extinguished the last of the fire when we noticed smoke rising through the wooden floorboards in front of the fireplace. I pried off the metal strip fronting the stone chimney and discovered that the flames had already wormed their way several feet into the room. The landlord had locked us onto the third floor when he went to bed and there were no smoke detectors. I soused the floor with buckets of water and crawled into my lumpy bed, still sticky, cold, and smelling like a cross between a New York deli and the wrong end of a cigar.