A day in Delhi

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Delhi

First impressions

15 June 2007

We arrived at Delhi Airport to find that our hotel taxi didn’t show, so we were left to the mercy of the touts. They didn’t swarm us as I had expected (as they do in Manila) but had a good try at ripping us off.
Our first tout asked 800 rupees and we agreed to go with the second guy for 350 rupees (USD7.50). The guy was as dodgy as I expected.
He got us in a car with another bloke and drove incredibly slowly while talking on the phone to some friend and to the hotel. Unfortunately, Anand had made the mistake of telling him we hadn’t pre paid, which meant that we were ripe for a scam.

Not surprisingly, when we arrived at the hotel which Anand had booked on the internet the guy there told us it was full. Even less surprisingly, the taxi guys seemed to know him pretty well. He showed us a booking sheet of all the people that had checked in that day, and sure enough it was full. I don’t know what the odds are of twenty guys called Robert from several countries all checking into a hotel on the same day, along with twenty Indians all called Kumar, but I’m sure stranger things have happened.

The “receptionist” promised that there was another hotel near by for only 1900 rupees and the taxi driver kindly offered to take us there free of charge. They started to get annoyed with Anand and me five minutes into our cigarettes and tried to prevent us talking or thinking rationally by continually interrupting.

Eventually I simply told them that we had booked a room for 1200 and that anything above 1200 would be unacceptable, after which the manager of the hotel magically appeared and apologized for the mix up (was he in on the scam as well?) and offered us rooms in the other hotel for the same price. Interestingly enough, the rooms were very decent and I think we got a good deal in the end. Welcome to India!

A day in Delhi

After a staff of three showed me to my room (one to carry my bag, one to show me the room, and another to clean the floor) and I was shat, showered and shaved, I met up with Anand in the lobby to make plans for the day. The sum total of our plans came to: Buy a ticket to Manali.

The owner of the hotel wanted a conference with us before we left to warn us of scams, especially taxi drivers and travel agents. Thanks. We covered that subject this morning. He also sent us to the office of the bus company that had the best buses to Manali. A trip in the Delhi Metro (great system) and a half hour walk in 39 degrees and 95%!h(MISSING)umidity (stupid idea) took us to a closed office. Neither Anand nor I were surprised. Another office was in walking distance but sanity prevailed and we got an auto (local speak for auto-rickshaw) to the correct address to find two companies with the same company name facing each other in a corridor. That stumped us momentarily, but we shrugged and chose one for no particular reason. The last two bus seats available were in the second back row and I told the guy I wasn’t interested, at which stage two better seats were suddenly vacated. Ok. I’m starting to understand India.

Heading back we noticed the Imperial Hotel nearby and decided to stop in for a beer or two. Two, actually. What a place. It was grandiose colonial with the best service I’ve had in a hotel. Sitting in an enclosed patio having a beer and too engrossed in conversation to remember to light the cigarettes we were waving around and a waiter comes over with a box of matches. I was impressed. Going to the men’s and having a guy turn on the water, pour soap in your hands and hand you a towel is something I’ve already gotten used to.

We dropped into a bazaar on the way back to the hotel where Anand derived endless amusement watching the peddlers chase the Big White Wallet.

One guy selling a chess set showed me his product, which was pretty neat, and told me “Only 400 rupees” after I told him I didn’t want it. Ten metres on, “Sir, I give you for 300.”; twenty metres on, “Ok, 200.”; thirty metres on, “I sell for you only 100 rupees. Very good present. You give to your friends….” Etc.

Five minutes later some guy is showing me a book with written comments from foreigners and pictures of ears. Seeing my bewilderment, “Sir, I clean ears. I’m number one. See, many foreigners like getting ears cleaned by me. Where are you from sir?”
“Straya”
“Oh. Number one cricket team. Very good.”
Anand was pissing himself by now, having already warned me that I’d be getting this response throughout the country.
“Let me look in your ear sir. No charge. Just let me look.”
I shrugged consent and leaned over so this 4’8” guy could see.
“OH MY GOD. You need to have your ears cleaned. Let me look in the other one.”
There was no way Anand was going anywhere, so I shrugged my consent again and leaned 20 degrees to my right.
“Yes, very bad.” Gestures to Anand, “You look. Very bad.”

At this stage he had out a slim metal tool with a disconcertingly pointy end and a wad of cotton wool, so we made a run for it. You can run, but you can’t hide your white skin, so I had another good half hour of fighting off peddlers, much to Anand’s delight.

By the time we got back to our hotel I was already getting sick of the traffic (human and motorized) and tired of jumping puddles, but we stopped for a few minutes to watch a small Sikh festival where they were playing music and giving out free food. Great for beggars, but not for me. I was just wandering whether or not to go and relax in my air-conditioned room when a blob of warm stuff fell on my shoulder and dribbled down my hand. Looking up, I was relieved to see it was only a bird that shat on me and decided to go back to the hotel before anything else decided to target the fat white foreigner.

After showering and washing my shirt I hit the hay and got a well needed fourteen hours sleep.

Leaving Delhi

16 June 2007

We spent the morning relaxing and using the internet until the brownout (a daily occurrence in Delhi) killed the computers and grabbed an auto into Caunnaught Place for lunch. I joked with Anand about getting a rickshaw into town but we rejected the idea as being way too slow. However, our skillfully negotiated auto, probably the slowest in Delhi, eventually stopped and the driver spent ten minutes pretending to fix the engine. Magically, it was “fixed” just as we started signaling rickshaws down to get us the rest of the way. To his credit, though, the guy did manage to overtake a couple of rickshaws on the way.

Lunch was good and cheap and a walk in Central Park gave us a chance to meet a few of the locals, who were extremely shy but very happy to get onto the common ground of cricket. Once again, Anand was happy to sit back and watch. He had his fair share of the same in Korea.

We picked up our bags at the hotel and got an auto to the bus stop where, somewhat to my annoyance, I found that the government Himachal Travel Service was only ten metres past the private Himachal Travel Service where we booked out tickets.

The bus, however, was bloody good. Recliner seats, foot rests, reading lights, controllable air vents, call buttons for the steward, and TV. Ok, so the reading lights and call buttons didn’t work, the controllable air vents were broken, and the TV was blaring a Bollywood mock buster film, but I was impressed nevertheless. It was also the best bus Anand had seen in India.

Like all Asian buses with aircon, there is only one setting: arctic. I asked the steward when we got on if there were blankets, as did Anand, to which he replied to the affirmative both times. On Anand’s second time asking, the guy answered, “Ten minutes” and when I asked him an hour later, he gave the cryptic reply, “Dinner.” Anand described this as “The Indian Mind Fuck”, which I thought was a rather fitting description. An hour later at the next water stop I was rummaging through my bag looking for anything warm when another passenger asked me if I was looking for blankets and pointed to a huge pile of them right next to my bag. Indian Mind Fuck indeed. We grabbed three and laughed about it for the next couple of hours to dinner.

Totally unexpectedly, dinner was at the best roadhouse I have seen anywhere in Asia and was good food and cheap. Fantastic. With warm food in my stomach and warm blankets over it I reclined my seat and passed out for the next eight hours.

I awoke to someone banging on the side of the bus and groggily clambered over all the paraphernalia blocking my exit (mainly my stuff) and stepped into paradise.

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