Don't Take the Stairs, in India

Don't take the stairs in an Indian hotel, unless  you want to be jettisoned out into the street or back lot of a hotel.  Stair cases are used for EMERGENCY ONLY.  No burning extra calories or getting your legs and glutes in shape, nope.  Every door IN has no handle and is locked.  Every door out is one way only, out and down.  Stair cases often unlit / poorly lit.

I initially noticed this in Bangalore in 2009 when I last visited and stayed at the Fortune Trinity (a Utell property).  Wound up in the hotel laundry room after taking the stairs,  No way to exit into the lobby.  I thought it was an anomaly.  I wasn't.  The 4 star Taj Vivanta at which I am staying does the same thing.  Exited me out into the taxi stand outside the hotel.  So much for supplemental fitness.

It is telling that I found this out in my first 12 hours in the hotel... such is my disdain for taking a elevator - or "Lift"as the Britishly trained Indians still call them, especially when it is just 4 floors.  In the Madrid corporate offices HR had posted signs encouraging people to use the elevators and burn "24 instead of 4 calories", which I found amusing but also encouraging.  In Indian hotels, take the lift.