Arrival in Delhi
The plane touched down in Delhi at 9:30, local time. The smog was visible from inside the airport, a haze that drifted through the fluorescent lights, tasting faintly like burnt tires.
I sat on a bench hugging my backpack. My resolve to stay there the night and avoid hotel bills lasted about an hour. I felt small, foreign and on display there, filled as it was with all manners of the unfamiliar: countless languages, turbines, long beards, flashy saris, suits, and people who generally seemed to know where they were going.
At one of the booths I paid 200 rupees for a taxi that would drive me to an over-priced hotel at which I’d just booked a room. “Go to the yellow and black taxis outside sir”, the man said, “and give him your receipt. He will take you to your hotel”.
No problem, right?
My First Scam
Outside the chaos thickened. More varieties of people, more vendors, and every sort of transportation you can imagine was there except my ride, the black and yellow taxis. A face in the crowd hollered at me: “Prepaid taxis are over there”. His finger pointed into the gloom beyond. I walked hesitantly in that direction, memorized by all the weird little cars and the awesome diversity of people and noises. The face came at me, saying, “here, follow me”. So he led me down a ramp into an underground passage, making small talk about where I’m from and whatnot. I remembered that my researches of India informed me that ‘anybody who appears to be helping you is somebody who you should be very sceptical about’. Alarm.
“Do you work for the airport?” I asked him.
“Yes”, he said, followed by some “blah blah blah blah”.
It was a leading question I quickly realized and I should just asked him why he was helping me, or casually asked what he did for a living. Oh well.
Up the ramp we went, surfacing on the other side of the lanes of traffic. He called the so-called taxi driver on his cellular. It felt sketchy.
“So, a yellow and black taxi is coming then?” I asked, trying to feel like I was on top of things.
“Oh yes of course”.
What came was a black car with yellow tape over the top and a yellow sticker on the side with something written in Hindi. When I got in, my discomfort deepened upon seeing that there was not only a driver but also somebody in the passenger seat. We departed. I scanned for weapons and saw nothing.
We drove into the smoggy darkness of crumbling roads and sprawling wasteland while the two in the front talked in hushed tones. One turned back to me, asking, “Is this your first time in India?”
“No”, I lied. “I’ve been here a few times. I’m meeting a friend at that hotel on the receipt. He’s expecting me”.
“Oh. He is an Indian friend?”
“Yes” I lied again. My mouth was dry, palms sweaty—symptoms of deep anxiety. We were well into the slums now and I felt pretty over-whelmed and vulnerable. Out the window I saw dogs fighting, dilapidated buildings missing entire walls and the guts spilled into the littered streets where the many homeless wandered. Fires burned, shadowy figures crisscrossed, neon signs flickered and we were doing circles.
“I can’t find your hotel sir”. The two men stopped the car, claiming that they could take me to another hotel instead, or let me out there, on porch of hell. With a strength I didn’t feel, I told them pretty sternly to take me back to the airport so I could find a competent taxi. They said they would, on the condition that I leave the taxi receipt with them. So back we went.
The airport, which only 20 minutes ago seemed so vast and alien was such a relief to return to, chaotic, uncaring, but comparatively safe. I got out of the taxi and left.
I had to buy another prepaid taxi, and the man at the counter explained that this was a common scam.
The second attempt was a success. I got to the hotel, searched the place for insects or other pests, found none, and slept restlessly while outside the dogs of Delhi barked.
Booking Transportation to Dharamsala
I stayed in Delhi for a little over 2 days, more or less against my will.
I was staying at the International Inn—a hotel which, despite the slummy neighbourhood but likely due to its proximity to the airport, exceeded the budget I’d set myself. It was 2200 rupees a night. In so far that it had a sit-down toilet, I guess it was a classy joint.
After spending a day wasting effort trying to reach my destination, the next morning, full of stoic optimism, I set out for the 3rd time to the airport in the hopes of booking a flight into Dharamshala, home of the 14th incarnation of the exiled Dali Lama of Tibet. I knew that Kingfisher airlines had flights from Delhi to the Gaggal airport—situated a mere 20 km from Dharamsala.
Plan: 1) go to airport, 2) buy ticket, 3) fly.
No problem, right?
Nobody at the airline counter seemed to know what the hell I was talking about. Was Lonely Planet and the internet lying? Had things changed? I went to every airline booth and still, nobody knew where Dharamsala was, or the name of the airport nearby. Three hours later, my optimism frayed at the edges of frustration, I conceded failure and went back to the hotel. A good sleep, more internet research, and I’d figure it all out. I pushed back the urge to just get the next flight back home…not knowing where home was exactly, Korea or Canada. With that thought, I fought back the feelings of being lost, rudderless and alone.
At the hotel the receptionist, a friendly-seeming fellow and surprised to see me again, asked why I was back. Too tired to fake an air of competence, I threw my cards on the table, admitting that I was having difficulties getting to where I wanted to go. “So sir, please book me another room”.
He told me that he could set up the flight for me. A phone call later, he told me to give him 7000 rupees; all I had to do was show up at the airport and the ticket would be ready for me, waiting. Not knowing if I was being paranoid or shrewd, I had no intention of giving him 7000 rupees. “Let me sleep on it” I said.
And I went up to my room to figure things out or at least brood. An hour later a phone beside my table rang. On the other end, the receptionist explained that he can have me on a bus to Dharamsala by 5:30 in the afternoon. The bus ticket would be 600 rupees. Cheap.
The catch: the bus station is a 40 minute drive away; his ‘friend’ would drive me there for 1000 rupees.
Do I trust this guy? I asked myself No. But I weighed my options and found few. Shrugging, I gave him 1000 rupees, thanked him as sincerely as I could, and wished for the best.
The 40 minutes through Delhi were as mind-blowing as they were alarming, a swarming interchange of motorbikes, buses, pedestrians, bikers, cows, rickshaws, cars and the consistent disregard for any sort of traffic rule except for ‘get there first and try not to die’. In every case that a Canadian would courteously yield, an Indian blares the horn and accelerates. At red lights, women beggars ran into the lanes holding their feeble, dirt-covered toddlers or babies into the car windows, asking for handouts. Construction crews patching the broken roads peppered the lanes and children ran barefoot across the debris through which stray dogs zig-zagged and cattle lazed. In the clearness of the day, the smog was even yellower and more obvious.
I realized somewhere along this ride that my hotel hadn’t been in a slummy area; Delhi was generally just rundown and over-populated. It was dusty and crumbling and had gathered its filth and urban decay in such a manner that it was sort of beautiful, in an ancient seeming sort of way. Maybe there was a cleaner area but I never saw it.
“You want I can drive in this car you all way at Dharamsala”, reported my driver, breaking my cycle of thoughts.
“Ha”, I laughed. “No”. It’s a 13 hour drive. The bus would have to be cheaper. His comment casted a cloud of doubt over the alleged legitimacy of what was transpiring.
When we stopped, I told the driver to wait while I got my ticket inside.
The building looks as if it has tried and nearly succeeded in burning itself down. Nothing in its appearance announces bus stop or a travel agency, but things in Delhi, I’ve come to understand, rarely meet expectation. As I go to the entrance, my driver leaves.
Well then. Shit.
As it turned out, this was a travel agency, they were reputable, and a happy ending seemed close at hand. I bought the ticket and had about 2 hours to wait until the bus arrived. Great—I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Outside I found chipmunks, monkeys (!), and a stand that sold bottled water at special prices for tourists, only a 1000% mark-up! I had enough for a bottle of water which I nursed while I waited with the monkeys.
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