You walk into your hotel bathroom (which is not in 5 star hotel) and you find mothballs in the sink. The first time I saw this was in my hotel in Delhi and my first reaction was *WTF*??
It didn't take me but a second to figure out that they were there to remove unpleasant odors.
But I'm not a person who likes artificial scents wafting through the air....I can't even stand the smell of air fresheners or potpourri so you can imagine how unbearable the strong scent of naphthalene which is the primary chemical ingredient in mothballs.
I grew up with mother who loved to store all our woolen sweaters in drawers where she had thrown in a mothball or two for added protection against moths. While it was nice to not have holes in my sweaters, I never like the stench of the naphthalene.
So, when I saw and smelt the little mothballs at the bottom of the sink, all I wanted to do was flush them down the toilet but so far I have managed to resist the urge. I thought it was just a Delhi thing until I arrived into my hotel room in Darjeeling and found mothballs here as well. There's no escaping them :-( Please let there not be mothballs in any other bathroom on this trip.