Dynamic Delhi

So - we're on the road to Delhi. Our final stop in India. We have completely failed to be Intrepid Travellers so far, and have piked out on most things due to the heat and a general lack of enthusiasm for all things Indian in general...

But we are looking forward to Delhi. Why you may ask? Is it because it's the capital of the nation? Huge bustling crowds? Largest mosque in India? The famous red fort? Huge cosmopolitan food and night life?

Nope. We were looking forward to it because we were staying at the Intercontinental as a treat, and were going to live it up in 5-star style, with Indian prices of course!! We were going to go over the budget but we didn't care anymore...

So we were definitely not in a good place in terms of being avid tourists. Certainly were not sitting there eagerly looking forward to all the sights, smells and sounds that Delhi was inevitably going to throw our way. It's somewhat strange how you can be in the middle of the most magical journey of your life, and suddenly, all you really want is to be back home, and maybe wake up and go to work ;)

But first we had to survive the train station at Delhi. We had arrived at Delhi pretty late at night - bad idea! Unlike all our hotels so far, the Intercontinental did not pick guests up at the train station :( I don't understand why crummy cheap hostels will, but nice places don't. I'm sure if I'd asked nicely they may have, but I'm sure we would have paid dearly for the privilege!! So - being the scrooges that we were, we were going to have to negotiate our own way to the hotel!

When you get to the station you see all these signs warning tourists to ensure they catch 'prepaid' taxis to ensure that they don't get ripped off/mugged. Prepaid taxis are generally a good idea - you buy the ticket from a 'booth' of sorts, then you take the voucher to the driver, and he only gets paid after you're safely at your destination. They're really good for making you feel safe and secure.

So we step out of the station. Attracted by our backpacks and my wife's white skin, a horde of marauding taxi drivers descend upon us, proffering their services. Now you've got to watch out for these hordes... to start with, there probably is a pickpocket or two in the midst of them. And there undoubtedly are some taxi drivers among them who just want to get you into their car so they can have their merry way with your possessions! So we tell them that we are disinclined to acquiesce to their request :) and start to hunt for the prepaid booth.

Not too easy. The train station is a crowd of people (mainly taxi drivers surrounding us!) - and we can't see any evidence of a booth for taxis anywhere! Asking a few locals didn't help, nobody seemed to know (why would they?? They've got friends picking them up.) The only help we did get was from one guy who told us not to go with any of the taxi drivers (who were still surrounding us!) as they were all thieves and murderers. Hooray. So now we don't have a prepaid booth and we're possibly surrounded by thieves and murderers.

There was an information booth, but that wasn't helpful - for once, Indian rail let us down and the guy didn't speak much english. We managed to get the idea that the booth was outside the premises (weird) - but at this point we didn't have too many other options - so off we went!!

Now it's not easy to walk around in low season as a tourist. The whole horde followed us. Some were probably morbidly curious. We must have been pretty entertaining to watch. Others had figured out that we were looking for the prepaid taxi booth, and offered to take us to the booth (yeah right!). A couple of really clever ones got into their taxis and would drive up and park in front of us, while their friends told us that these were prepaid taxis!! Fortunately for us (and unfortunately for them) this wasn't our first stop in India.

So we're walking along this dark road to the exit of the premises. The power seems to have failed, and we're not really having fun. Scanning hard for the prepaid booth, that oasis in the desert of marauding taxi drivers. And we finally leave the premises, take a look down both sides of this rather dark street and... no booth!! But even more taxi drivers all coming towards us. So we stop, face each other, and start to debate what we should do. With all our 'friends' standing around watching us. It was quite hilarious really!

In the end, we decided to throw caution to the wind. Picking the smallest taxi driver in the crowd, we asked him to take us to our hotel. This stirred up angry murmurs amongst all the others but hey, someone had to be the winner :) So we get into the taxi, arrange our bags and off we go!!

Thankfully the guy appeared to know where the hotel was. But we were very on edge as he was driving us through lots of dark streets. But it turned out he was a good guy, and we got to the Intercontinental in 5 min!! Yay!!

The Intercontinental was great. So nice to walk in, have someone take your bags off you... even though we had to stand in queue for half an hour to check in, but we didn't care. Hooray for 5 star!!

We had planned 3 days in Delhi. That was plenty of time to see all the sights, while taking it at a fairly relaxed pace. But we'd forgotten about the disgraceful heat. The very first day we headed out to an Internet cafe - it was so hot, we basically spent an hour in the air conditioning, had lunch, and gave up on the ridiculous weather and spent the rest of the day at the hotel. The second day, we went out to see the famed Red Fort, saw it in record time, cursed the heat, and gave up and went back to the hotel for the rest of the day. And we didn't even leave our room on the 3rd day... :)

So not much to report on delhi!! Lots of traffic. Being stuck in traffic in blistering heat is twice as bad. You don't get much air conditioning in tuk-tuks :( Food was great (as always). Red Fort was red. Um... the hotel room was really nice?

Don't get us wrong. We really loved India. The sights, smells and colours are just something else. It's great to sit in the eye of the chaotic whirlwind that is India city life, and watch everybody else. Food is absolutely fabulous. And it's very easy to travel in - cheap, great services, etc. The people are fantastic - once you get past what they're trying to get out of you, we found people to be pleasant, well-read, and really nice to talk to. Especially if you talk about the cricket. Just don't visit India in June.

So much for being intrepid travellers. But we had vowed to do better in Cambodia, where we were going to see the fabled Angkor Wat!!

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