Dealing With Delhi — New Delhi, India
It was with much anticipation that we left Kathmandu. As suggested by our e-ticket, we arrived at the airport three hours before our departure. As soon as we entered the terminal we got our first security check which involved a bag scan and a brief pat-down. The airport is small and simple and I can imagine the queues can be very long and slow. I’m glad we came early. Nothing stresses us more than the idea of missing a plane. In the past both Vinh and I have had mishaps with planes and airports so whenever we have to fly anywhere we’re very much on edge.
What didn’t help put us at ease was going through immigration. To go to India you need to get a visa in advance. If you’re from a random collection of countries (There are nine of them: Finland, Japan, Laos, Singapore, Luxembourg, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and of course New Zealand) you can get a visa on arrival, or so we had read on countless websites. However, the immigration officials did not know this and we had to convince them to let us go though to the boarding lounge. It caused a huge kerfuffle. They were running around checking with each other and in the end had to ring the head of the airport (who still didn’t know). Luckily they let us go on “at our own risk.“ The man waved us though with an unconvinced smile.
We weren’t feeling all too sure of ourselves either. In our minds we made back-up plans in case we were deported. After two more bag searches and pat-downs (one out on the tarmac when were were getting into our plane) we were off on our way to India. What ever happened we would just have to deal with it.
Our first impression of New Delhi was of the airport which was so modern and almost void of people. The bathrooms were clean and the lady cleaning them gave me the friendliest “namaste” I had ever received. We arrived in the immigration lounge and to our relief found a sign directing members of the nine privileged countries to an office where they could get our visas.
Now, a few things about the visas on arrival. They can only be for 30 days. The time starts the day you arrive. We did not know this so now we have to change the flight we booked on the 24th of November to the 23rd (we arrived on the 25th of October). Gutted. The man was really friendly and helpful though and he let us change the date on our form without having to change the actual flight.
The fee for the visa is $60USD, or the equivalent in Indian Rupees. A man from Finland was trying to pay in Euros but they do not accept this. USD or rupees only. Also, use big notes because they take note of the authenticity code on each one. He would not accept our $10 notes and was even reluctant to take our $20’s.
Otherwise it was a seamless process and our passports were stamped with big blue blotches. But, when we arrived at our hotel the owner was unconvinced of the authenticity of the stamps. C’mon people!
Anyway, so we had arranged a hotel pick-up but they didn’t come. Luckily we suspected this may be the case, so we thought we’d take the metro that takes people from the airport to New Delhi railway station in 20 minutes. This was not working. In fact, it had not been working since the 8th of July. The shiny facade that the Delhi Airport put up was crumbling. As we had been told, India is a chaotic place and no modern buildings or smooth marble floors can disguise it.
Thankfully we had made a plan C and that was to just catch a taxi from the pre-paid taxi booth. Even though this decreased the chances of us getting ripped off at our final destination the guy at the counter still tried to pull one on Vinh, swapping the 500 rupee note that Vinh gave him with a 100 one, and then asking for more money.
“I gave you 500” said Vinh matter-of-factly.
The man didn’t protest. I’m sure this trick works on many jet-lagged new arrivals though.
Still, this and all of the other events of the day had really made us nervous. We very much wanted to enjoy India and show to all of those who say it’s too chaotic and crowded to enjoy that it wasn’t difficult at all. I looked out the taxi window and what I saw didn’t seem too bad. In all honesty, with everything I had heard about India, I was expecting to have to claw through crowds of people and livestock to get anywhere, while limbless beggars lay strewn about the place like beer cans on a bogans lawn. I mean, it’s no Japan, but it didn’t look threatening out there. No more crazy than Vietnam.
Our hotel was in a random part of town near New Delhi Railway Station in a back alley somewhere. It was half decent and we settled enough to go out and get some food. We hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and it was five o’clock already! Our hotel, although basic, offered room service and the manager was heartbroken that we were not ordering room service from the menu in our room.
From our walk around the area we realised that, despite the huge quantity of hotels about, it wasn’t exactly tourist friendly. It wasn’t a terrible area but most of the shops were just places that sold statues. The carvers would sit at the doors grinding stones into hindu gods sending muddy water over the wonky pavements. No one paid much attention to us which was good, but we were the only foreigners around. There were no restaurants or anything that you’d expect in a place so full of accommodation. For some reason both of us felt very uncomfortable there and at these times it’s best to trust your instincts. We decided to go and order food from the safety of our room as it was getting dark very quickly. The manager was thrilled that we had come back.
“I’m very proud” he said as he laid the extensive menu out on the front counter for us. Despite his hot and cold attitude towards us, I could not dislike him at this moment.
Our strategy is to book a place for two nights before we arrive anywhere new, just so we have a place to crash after a days travel. Sometimes we find a great place in this way and stay longer. Other times we move on. It was dawning on us that we were in a very local area and that the hotel had not dealt with many foreigners before. Even as I’m writing this someone has tried to force their way into our room. It’s just a bit strange. We decided that we would move on from this hotel.
But without any internet we couldn’t even find out where we were. After some food, which was delicious, we were feeling more optimistic and consulted a bootleg copy of Lonely Planet. We found that, although we were in the general area for hotels, we were in the wrong place for tourists. Two blocks away was a bazaar with all the restaurants, hotels and shops we could wish for. The area we were in now was regarded as a little dodgy. Our instincts were right. We resolved to find a new hotel in the other area the next day and with that thought in our heads we tried to fall asleep to the sounds of dog fights, fireworks, horns and rowdy people outside. It sounded wild out there and we were glad we had gone back to our room before dark.
The next morning, the manager called us asking for money, even though we had prepaid through Agoda.com (which is what we usually use for pre-booking anything - a great website for that sort of thing). He was completely freaking out as there was no money in his account. After Vinh explained the misunderstanding to him he calmed down but was not apologetic. With money issues and being the only foreigners in the hotel we were feeling very insecure so we packed all of our valuables and took them with us on our new hotel finding mission.
I can see why most people are shocked and appalled by the streets of India. They are very dirty and you can catch whiffs of some pretty revolting smells. There are poor people lurking everywhere and nothing seems to follow any rhyme or reason. However, because Vinh and I have traveled so much in Asia there was nothing really surprising to us. It was all very interesting though. As soon as we came to the bazaar area the madness really began. A man came up to us trying to sell a sleeping bag.
“Very good price for you,” he said, automatically assuming that we’d be in the market for a sleeping bag.
I mean of all the things to just pick up on an impulse buy! And it’s not like we’d add sleeping bags to our shopping list along with toilet paper and milk.Can you imagine? “Honey, we’re out of sleeping bags again, can you pick some up on the way home?” Ha ha! Poor guy, I guess he didn’t know any better when he got into the sleeping bag business.
The next thing was this raggedy lady, who looked like she had crawled out of a gutter. She came up to me asking to sign a protest to save a village. I was still feeling residue of my “everyone’s so nice” buzz from Nepal so I actually stopped to sign. Vinh came over to see what the hell I was doing with this old women.
“I’m signing a protest,” I said defensively, the glow of charitable self righteousness radiating off me like angel wings.
Vinh looked down at the scribbles that weren’t even signatures on the piece of scrappy paper I was holding.
“No, she wants money,” he said, pointing out the fake pledges of 500 rupees by each of the scribbles.
Man. I’m an idiot.
I quickly switched into defensive mode.
“No money! No money!” I said handing the bit of paper back to her.
She snatched the pen off me and made a rude ******* noise with her mouth as Vinh grabbed my hand and led me away.
I am far too trusting and naive but I do find it really hard sometimes to ignore the poverty around me. At the same time though, I find it insulting that whenever they look at foreigners they see people with more dollars than sense and make the assumption that we don’t mind hemorrhaging money while they trick us and lead us astray at every opportunity. I can imagine how it looks though, happy foreigners with so much money they can fly to the other side of the world just out of curiosity. It’s a strange and unfair world we live in but I still don’t feel it’s right to be fooled into giving away money.
We looked at four hotels, one very expensive place (with a fish tank in the room), one very basic hotel, and then another couple of medium hotels. After a delicious lunch on the rooftop with a little cat, we made our decision. We made our way back to our funny little hotel in the seedy part of town glad that we’d be leaving to a much more manageable place the next day. Once we’re settled there we know that we’re going to enjoy exploring this exotic city.