ISBN: 978-1-57143-101-1
When marketing wunderkind Alec Le Sueur signed on for a five-year stint at the Holiday Inn on the roof of the world in Lhasa, Tibet, no one told him the job required the wit and wisdom of a psychiatrist, the nose of an exterminator, the artistry of an emergey medical technician, and the diplomatic talent of a mortician. A staff trained with Fawlty Towers videos (until the comedies were seized by Communist authorities) served an eclectic mix of celebrities, diplomats, mountain climbers, spiritual pilgrims and cognoscenti circumnavigating the world in their own private jets. Le Sueur literally brings down the house with this internationally best-selling account of Communist owners and capitalist managers trying to create a chain hotel in Shangri-La. High prices, high altitutde, high jinks and the ubiqurous Himalayan hamsters help turn the hotel into the set for a Tibetan situation comedy. Take a deep breath as you learn: . The story of an Italian manager, who takes time out from bedding down hotel guests to spend a few nights sleeping with his wife. .What happens when a pulse is found on an apparently deceased guest after staff has extracted an american Epxress card from his wallet to cover room charges. . How Communist managers tried to break up the first Miss Tibet beauty pageant. . The story behind the creation of the Hard Yak Cafe, a cash cow in a land badly in need of hard currency. . Why Chinese owners insisted on turning off the heat in freezing weather when occupancy fell below 20 percent. The Hotel On the Roof of the World offers a rare, politically enlightening look at life behind the yak curtain and is a tribute to the heroic people of Tibet, who give all in their determination to make life at the top of the world a daily miracle. About the Author After a lengthy career in the hotel business, Alec LeSueur moved to his native Jersey where is manager at Mourant du Feu & Jeune, a leading offshore law firm. He has written extensively for magazines and lectures frequently on Tibet.
"Too funny to put down....In Hotel on the Roof of the World by Alec Le Sueur, the author leaves his job at a Paris luxury hotel to work in Lhasa, Tibet at the "unlikeliest Holiday Inn in the world. Treading the confluence of Chinese, Tibetan, and Western cultures, Le Sueur revels in the craziness around him. Meanwhile, he rescues a mountaineer from the People's Number One hospital, launches the first-ever Miss Tibet contest, makes friends among the city's twisted streets, and survives a rat removal program that leaves dozens of frozen carcasses in the heat ducts." -Laura Read, Foreword Magazine
A hilarious account of a clash of cultures...a comparison with Fawlty Towers is inevitable, but this is funnier" -Mail on Sunday
"Le Sueur sees the funny side and provides us with the means of improving our knowledge of Tibet" -The Guardian
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