In the quality totem pole of on-the-road accommodation, motels rank towards the bottom. Rooms are often dirty, bed linens might be left unwashed from the previous tenant, the service can be very unfriendly, and strange goings-on abound in almost every room.

But this does not mean to say they are without their advantages. Firstly, for the indiscriminate sleeper, they are extraordinarily cheap and accessible. Secondly, some allow their customers, usually middle-aged businessmen and their fifteen year-old 'nieces', to pay by the hour, which is handy if one needs a place merely to do business for an afternoon. Thirdly, one is likely to meet a more diverse and interesting array of people than in some five-star hotels: everyone from truckers to illicit lovers to criminals right down to the ordinary fellow traveller.