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Published: November 10th 2013
Our first morning in India found us taking refuge in our hotel room by 11 AM, exhausted and scared off the streets of New Delhi.
The night before, we had a relatively uneventful trip from the airport to the hotel. After over 24 hours of travel from JFK Airport in NYC to Ghandi International Airport in New Delhi, with a 4 hour layover in Vienna, we arrived in India. The first thing I noticed stepping off the airplane into the airport terminal was the smell - it smelled a bit like a campfire that's primary fuel was trash. The smell lingered through the entire airport. When we walked outside, we saw why.
The campfire smell here was much stronger, and everything I looked at was through a thin haze of smoke/smog. At this point we were walking with our driver out to his parked car. We had exchanged currency and cleared immigration and customs with ease (especially compared to some of my previous experiences with customs when returning to my native USA and when arriving in New Zealand for the first time) when we spotted our driver holding paper with my name on it. Before our trip, we decided to spend a little extra at the beginning of our trip to smooth our transition. For 2,500 rupees, or about $45, we booked 2 nights in a double at a hostel in New Delhi, which included breakfast, and an airport pickup.
Our currency exchange was a $100 bill for 5,720 rupees at the airport, with an exchange rate of 57.18 rupees/US dollar, a 30 rupee service tax, and 1 rupee withheld for a combination of the education cess (0.6 rupees), a high education cess (0.3 rupees) and "round off" (0.1 rupees). Not sure if that was a good exchange or what a cess is, but I wanted to have some local currency before entering the city. We didn't have any baggage to claim, having packed everything we think we'll need for 6 months into daypacks, our carry ons for the plane.
Our drive to the hotel wasn't too crazy, considering the stories I've heard about Delhi traffic. The cars, trucks, buses, rickshaws, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, bikes and pedestrians are very aggressive, constantly passing within inches of each other. But arriving at 1 AM had the advantage of there being minimal traffic.
After half an hour or speeding around traffic circles without decelerating, cutting off trucks much bigger than our van, being passed by motorcycles weaving between the cars and lanes, and speeding through police barriers much faster than I would have expected, we arrived at what I would call a wide alleyway, speeding through and honking so that people on foot or bicycle would move out of our way. Drivers in Delhi use their horn instead of their brakes. We soon parked, arriving near our hotel. Before leaving, the driver said "Sir, you give me tip?" I first tried deferring, asking him if I could do it inside. "No, sir, not inside." Not sure what to do, and my brain addled by travel and lack of sleep, I could barely convert the 100 rupee bill I gave him into the 2 or so dollars.
Following him down an narrow alleyway, I couldn't help but wonder how safe it was for 2 Americans walking down an alleyway in New Delhi. But our short walk was uneventful as we arrived at our hostel, waking up the man working the front desk, who was sleeping on a foam mat in the lobby. He took our information, and another man showed us to our room on the second floor, which is pretty nice.
It has a double bed (2 single beds pushed together), 2 chairs, several tables, a TV (Indian TV is awesome and hilarious), a fan, AC, and a private bathroom with toilet, running water, sink and shower. We settled into bed and tried to fall asleep and adjust to Delhi time (9 1/2 hours ahead of NY) as best we could.
We awoke at 6 AM to the sounds of the alleyway outside our hotel coming to life. Honking horns, people yelling to each other, shop keepers preparing for the morning.
We laid low until 8, when breakfast opened on the roof of the hotel - an omelet on the most barely toasted toast, cornflakes with milk, a banana, and a juice box. After breakfast, it was time to brave the streets of New Delhi.
We emerged from the alleyway onto the main bazaar road, hoping that it would be busy enough with people that cars wouldn't use it during the day. No such luck - yes, it was full of people, but it also had cars, trucks, rickshaws, autorickshaws, and bicycles zooming through the streets, honking for people walking or driving slower than them to get out of their way. As I stood surveying this scene, approximately a dozen people descended on us, trying to get us to buy one thing or another - mostly a ride to somewhere else. Flustered, I walked away without a chance to memorize what the entrance to the alleyway looked like to find our way back.
Now battling the mixed traffic while walking in the street, people continued to approach us. My experience studying in Tanzania had taught me that whenever people on the streets of a big city start talking to you, they are trying to make some money off you in some way, shape or form, and the best way to escape them is to ignore them. I tried this, looking straight ahead, while a short man in a Billabong shirt struck up a conversation with Meg. He was talking to us about some random topics, then would always come back to offering us a rickshaw.
"Where you go? You want rickshaw?"
"No thanks..."
"You want rickshaw? Where you go? I get you Indian price! 10 rupees - Indian price!"
"No thanks, we like to walk."
"10 rupees - good price!"
"Thanks anyway. . . Well, have a nice day," we attempted to end the conversation, weakly.
"My home this way, I walk home!" he responded, undeterred, before reminding us that 10 rupees is a good price, an Indian price.
"No thank, we like to walk," we remind him.
He proceeds to flag down an autorickshaw. "Give these people Indian price - 10 rupees!"
We continue to walk forward, ignoring the man in the Billabong shirt, walking next to us, and the autorickshaw, following steadily behind us.
Whenever we stop, either to narrowly avoid a motorcycle nearly running us over, to look at a new sight, foreign and novel to us, or to look at our map and try to figure out where we are, the autorickshaw pulls up next to us as our new friend reminds us that 10 rupees ("Indian price!") is a good price. Eventually, when the pair asks us where we want to go, we concede that we don't have any place in mind.
They ask to see our map. Meg and I look at each other helplessly as we hand over our map to them, against our better judgement. "He take you to government tourist office! Right here!" he exclaims as he points to a random location on the map that is obscured by his finger. "10 rupees - Indian price!" he reminds us merrily.
At this point I know I've lost. I remembered some selling techniques from my brief stint canvassing for the Nature Conservancy in Portland, OR, that people become more likely to donate once you get materials in their hands. Realizing that giving them my map is very similar to the people on the street I got to read about the work we were doing, both locally and around the world, it wasn't much longer before Meg and I were in the back of the autorickshaw, moving through the road at a slightly faster pace.
After 5 or 10 minutes of weaving around pedestrians, cutting off bicycles and rickshaws, and moving out of the way of bigger cars and trucks, we arrived at a tourist office. We gave the driver the Indian price we'd been promised, 10 rupees - less than 20 cents - and walked inside.
When they had offered to take us to a tourist office, I'd thought of a quiet place with helpful staff and information on what to do in Delhi. I'd thought maybe I could ask them about where best to go to get an immunization - there's one more shot I'd like to get before I go to southern India, for Japanese Encephalitis.
But I soon realized that we were in just another place for people to try to sell us stuff - a travel agency. We were greeted and ushered into the back, where we sat at a desk. After initial pleasantries, the travel agent asked us our plans for India.
"Oh, we thought we'd get a bus up to Dharmashala," we answered honestly. We'd read about this hill station in the north, where many Tibetan refugees had fled to, including the Dalai Llama. We thought it would be a nice quiet place to adjust to India, escape the hassles of the city, and to meet other backpackers and learn from their suggestions and recommendations.
The travel agent was quick to explain that now is not a good time to travel to Dharmasala, because it is raining there. It is best to go in December, when the rain has turned to snow. November is the time to go to Rajastan, when the Pushkar camel festival takes place. Rajastan is also a great place to celebrate the upcoming Dewali festival, he assured us.
He then started selling us on why hiring a private car is the best way to see India. At this point I interrupted his pitch to ask how much this all was going to cost. "Well let's first take a look at where you're gonna go, then we'll talk about price." Not wanting to argue, I decided to humor him, confident in my ability to decline the sale when the time came.
We spent the next hour mapping out an 18-day itinerary by private car, first to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, then through Rajastan, where we would see temples and forts and cities and the countryside, before coming back to Delhi, where we would take a train to Amritsar, followed by a bus to (finally) Dharmashala. During this time we laughed at his jokes, looked up pictures and exciting things to do on our journey (a zipline! a safari on camelback! another safari to see tigers!), were offered and drank chai, and were finally given a price.
Three options, from basic to deluxe, starting at $620 per person. When I explained that that was well over our budget of $20/day, and did not include all meals, he countered that budgets can fluctuate - spend a little more per day here, a little less per day there.
It goes to show just how good of a salesman he was, that when I walked in there, I had absolutely zero intention of booking a private tour for 2, but while sitting in that office, having been hassled every moment since leaving the hotel that morning, with the prospect of facing someone trying to sell us something everywhere we go, the option of a pre-booked tour arranged for us seemed rather attractive.
But there was no way we would decide right then and there, while in that office, despite the travel agent's attempts to keep us there. But every time we tried deferring, asking for a card and saying we'll come back if we want to take the offer, he continued on with the hard sell. He showed us a budget break down of the trip being $26 per day (I was too tired from jet lag and constant haggling to realize that $620 over 20 days plus food and site fees works out to a lot more than $26/day), a book of other customers' receipts and a government certificate to show that he was legitimate, and talked about how he has to start booking hotels to ensure availability, especially for the budget option, and offereed some time to let us think about it together on his desk while he went in the back and made some calls.
Standing firm, we said we wanted to leave to think about it and we would return if we decided to do the tour. Well we could go on a day trip of Delhi by private car. Finally realizing that the persistent travel agent would not accept our mere word, we stood up to leave. As we walked away, he continued, "How about a half day?!"
Finally escaping that nonstop sales pitch, we were ready to return to the hotel. We were a little bit disoriented, having arrived by autorickshaw instead of walking, but we found our way back to our hotel within an hour.
And so we ended our brief venture into the streets of Delhi, taking refuge in our hotel room, an hour before lunch time, exhausted and ready for an early end to our first day.
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jeff
non-member comment
Sounds like a rough first day. I wish you both good luck. Hopefully throughout your trip you find something more than a never ending sales pitch.