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It was raining as we neared Delhi, its suburbs reminiscent of a Western city, with high-rise hotels, shopping malls, and fast food joints. We gawked in anticipation: perhaps we’d great a break from “India”. We didn’t, since the only break from India is outside India, but we did get a break from shabby budget rooms at $3-10 when, after spending a dreadful night in a room that basically fit only our bed, we decided to splurge $35 for a room one night.
The room was amazing: the shower not only worked, but, as promised, had scorching hot water that could be balanced with the right amount of cold water; a huge window on the wall facing the door allowed sunlight to pour in on a small coffee table and leather sofa; I could watch 300 channels on a flat screen TV; the mattress was soft, but with the right amount of firmness; and the sheets were clean, as was the floor. There were even little shampoo bottles, toilet paper and soap. Ahh… the little things we take for granted back home. We ventured out that day, but only around the Main Bazaar to eat; we spent most of the later
afternoon and evening enjoying the room. The only issue we had with the hotel – in India, every good thing that happens will be balanced with something negative: as I’ve mentioned, it’s a country of extremes – was our laundry. Klaudia specifically asked them no less than 5 times to confirm that our clothes would not be dry-cleaned, but laundered in cold water, by a washing machine, with the answer being that our laundry would by done by machine in cold water. Well, it was dry cleaned and ironed. Sure, it smelled just fine, but our clothes were now everlastingly sooty.
We awakened to budgetary realities the next morning and found a budget guesthouse, deposited our bags and did something atypical for us: we booked a tour of the city. I think we just wanted a break from traveling – to be vacationers for a short time and to save some time - but we soon realized why we do everything – from finding places to eat, to figuring out the bus system, to walking in circles till we find the sights we’re searching for – ourselves: time management. Not that our time management is in any way flawless, because
we spend enough time lost. What I mean is that if there is insufficient time for us to see something as fully as we want to see it, we just put it off for the next day. Furthermore, it is a source of satisfaction to finally discovering a site, or a museum, or a pub one’s spent some time hunting down, staring at a bad map that is of no assistance because there are no street signs, arguing about which way to go, and asking people for directions. In doing so, one frequently happens on things that aren’t on the road usually traveled, such as a good dive bar, or the perfect samosa, or a pleasant conversation with a local. A tour bus just hurries you along from point to point; and in our case, not even that efficiently. I must also add at this point, that the travel agent from whom we’d booked the city tour remarked that tourists usually hire a private car, while Indians book the tour bus.
“Do Indians care if we’re on the bus?” I asked.
“No, of course they don’t care,” was the response.
Well we saved 3700 rupees…We then awoke
at 6 am to be down in the lobby, from where the tour guide was supposed to pick us up a half hour later. After being an hour late, we gave the guide’s phone number to the guesthouse “concierge”, who gave him a call. After some discussion in Hindi, he told us to exit the guesthouse and turn left; we were to keep walking till we reached the busy road at the end, and our guide would be there to greet us. We did so, reached the road, and waited… Another half hour passed, when finally an empty tour bus stopped on the other side of a concrete median. A man got out and waved to us. We crossed in the middle of the busy Asian street as cars and motorcycles whizzed past us, jumped over the median, then crossed the other busy side of the street to reach the bus. We announced our hotel name, he bobbled and we were on the bus. We then spent the next hour picking up Indian passengers around Delhi before finally hitting the sites.
We visited most of the places we were supposed to, including the Laxminarayan Temple, the Indira Ghandhi Museum
- where a poignant glass walkway somberly portrays her last steps before her assassination by her own security (a similar walkway can also be found in the Ghandhi Smirti, the place of Mahatma Ghandhi’s assassination) - and the Lotus Temple. We also visited the Raj Ghat, which marks Mahatma Ghandhi’s place of cremation. However, there were also several places on the itinerary we were supposed to visit that we did not, such as Ghandi Smirti and - perhaps more importantly, as the chief site of Delhi - the Red Fort, even though we’d confirmed with the travel agent literally five times before we booked that it was on the itinerary. It was entertaining to watch an Indian who lived in the States complain about the management of the tour. Naturally, when we returned to our guesthouse, we complained to the agent, and demanded some form of recompense.
Klaudia and I find that too many tourists just let things go when it comes to traveling in developing countries, with common excuses like it’s not worth the time, you won’t teach them anything anyway, it’s only X rupees, there’s no standards here, they’re poor (what do you expect?), etc. We, on
the other hand, don’t buy into any of these: the nonchalant reactions of typical tourists breed the sort of behavior against which tourist later fulminate or for which tourists make excuses. Tuk-tuk drivers behave a certain mishchievous way, for example, because tourists - preferring to both avoid confrontation and make excuses like “it’s easier to just pay the extra 50-100 rupees” - allow them to behave that way. Having standards is a state of mind, and you can demand a higher level of service, even from the people of developing countries. And if you do so, it’ll make mine and Klaudia’s lives simpler. Obviously, this is opinion, but I say all of this from a perspective of reasonableness, without being a spoiled tourist: it wouldn’t be fair to demand electricity from a hotel proprietor if there is a city-wide blackout, nor would it be polite to demand a certain type of food in the event a local invited you over to dinner. What’s important to us is that we receive the service as advertised; that we pay for what is promised. In our case with the travel agent, with a little complaining, he compensated us with a free tuk-tuk ride
(we could only manage one-way of course!) to the Red Fort after our visit to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.
We jumped the gun a little and ended up also booking with the same agent an Agra tour at the time we booked our Delhi tour. In hindsight, we should have first experienced how the Delhi tour was managed, as the Agra tour ran into some of the same time management issues. However, we took our time with our Taj Mahal visit.
The Taj Mahal is probably on the bucket list of many a person; I agree that it should be. It’s an amazing structure with a fanatically romantic history. I actually felt awe (quite uncommon for me) witnessing it for the first time, and a feeling of deep reverence when walking around the tombs of Shah Jahan and his third wife, for whom the mausoleum was built, Mumtaz Mahal. Yes, I would say it’s a sight everyone should see at least once.
On the way back to Delhi, we made a brief stop to Kesava Deo Temple, the birthplace of Krishna. Unfortunately, we were too late to be able to go inside (bad time management
on the part of the tour guide), but I was ok with it as I was beginning to develop a fever, which I incorrectly self-diagnosed as another cold.
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Zbigniew
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Nice cliffhanger Tony!
Looking forward to the end of the story ;)