I arrived at the Indira Gandhi airport this morning at 6:30 from an excruciating long flight that started from Los Angeles to Heathrow and then from Heathrow to Delhi. The entire trip for me was like going without sleep for two nights (essentially that’s what it was). I was suffering from some pretty bad headache maybe due to dehydration and lack of sleep but I was somewhat relieved when we landed in Delhi. The airport looked modern but for some reason or another lacked air condition. And even at 6:30 in the morning, Delhi was already quite hot. The pilot said that it was already in the 80s when we arrived and that it was going to get hotter in the day. Although I sat in the middle, the view of Delhi from above was hardly impressive. There was a lot of smog and pollution.
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| A beggar woman who was happy letting me take this picture. |
My driver drove me from the airport to the budget hotel that I will be in for probably a few nights. Haven’t never been to Delhi before, I was very disorientated seeing so many people approaching me asking whether I needed help or where I was going. At first I was eager to let them guide me until I suddenly realized that I was almost tricked into buying a 3 day tour for the price of $600 dollars from a supposedly legit “Delhi Tourism” agency. Realizing my precarious situation, I quickly asked permission to leave and that was almost even hard to pull off given how persistent the agent was to selling me something that I felt to be a ripoff.
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| that's right...a stall with a shower and toilet |
Once I left the place, I didn’t know where I was and how I was going to get back to my hotel. And I felt this tapped on my shoulder from a young man who was the one who led me there. He quickly asked what happened and where I was going. I told him that I declined the tour because I don’t have that kind of money and that I was going to go find a pharmacy for my headache and then grab some lunch. I guess he could tell that I was not interested in parting with my money. So we parted. Trying to find a pharmacy that can help is next to impossible. And trying to find a place to eat is very much the same.
Maybe I walked into a neighborhood full of touts or something but once I stepped in, it was almost impossible to be left alone. What scared the bejesus out of me was this one man who followed me trying to have me ride someone else’s auto-rickshaw. I told him that I was not interested and wanted to walk but that didn’t keep him from following me everywhere I go. I tried catching a cycle-rickshaw but he said something to the guy and drove him off. I then backtracked to where I was at a bus stop and saw an old man driving an auto-rickshaw. There I asked him to drive me to the real Indian tourist office but all of a sudden the same man came again and said something as if to persuade him not to take me. This time I got really angry but I looked at the old man’s face and touched him on the shoulders lightly as if pleading him to drive me away so that I don’t have to deal with anyone which was exactly what he did. I don’t think he understood much English, but there was something very sweet and grandfatherly about him. Maybe he felt that I was desperate hence we took off. We drove around in Connaught Place for probably around 15 minutes trying to find this tourist office. Even the old man had to go around and asked for it. When we finally found it, I decided that it was too much for me to venture out again with this state of mind, and the heat of it all so I asked him to please drive me back to the Paharganj neighborhood where my hotel was located. I gave him 100 rupees for the trip and 50 rupees for saving my life. But it was fun riding in an auto-rickshaw around the central part of Delhi and meeting him was so well-worth it.
I finally decided to forget about trying to find these hard to find Indian tourists agency and just book a tour at my hotel. At least the manager seems to give a decent price for the tours. 200 rupees for a tour of Delhi tomorrow.
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