The Travails of India Again

Sunday, Aug. 5, 2007--Bangkok (Continued)

After resting at the hotel in the afternoon, I decided to go out. I went back to the nearby sauna I visited two days ago. I arrived around 17:00. It was packed. I left around 7:30 when it started really dying down for the night. I guess everyone was getting home to be prepared for work the next day.

Just down the street was a street stall with noodles. Several people were eating there and it looked good. I stopped and had soup--noodles, shrimp, slices of pork, vegies, etc. It was delicious and cheap. Then I went to the hotel for the evening.

Monday, Aug. 6, 2007--Bangkok to Delhi

I dreaded the day. It's always a hassle to go to India. My flight wasn't until the evening, so I had lots of time to kill. I ate the last of my good buffet breakfasts for the year at my hotel. I watched a film on TV in the room until 11:00. Then I took local transportation to go to the airport--a local bus to Victory Circle followed by an airport bus from there. It took a total of 1 1/2 hours from door to door which isn't bad for a trip in Bangkok on a workday. That's what it took to make the much shorter trip from the weekend market to my hotel on Saturday! I spent much of my time at the airport either walking and watching people or reading.

I was lucky on the flight. One of the few empty seats on the whole plane was the one between me and the other guy in the other aisle seat of the center section. It made it so much more comfortable to have that empty space there. The flight went fine, but I didn't expect problems there. The problems occurred as expected when I arrived in Delhi.\:

1. I had trouble getting a taxi. I used the pre-paid taxi stand where I was told to get in any yellow and black taxi. Well, the first taxi in the line of the yellow and black taxis was really black with a green stripe. The questions sounded right when they asked if I had a prepaid slip, where I was going, etc. But then they wanted to know exactly WHERE my hotel is located (although I had given them a street address). They said they needed an intersection. Well, it wasn't YELLOW and black, and now they were saying things that fit one of the tricks used on tourists here: a suggestion that the hotel doesn't exist or that it is full and that they will take you elsewhere. I jumped out, grabbed my bag from the trunk, and headed for another (yellow and black) taxi. They weren't happy with me, but I wasn't going to take chances.

2. The second taxi driver wanted me to give him my prepaid slip--first by asking to see it, and then by asking for it for the police to stamp it as we left the airport. Well, all the travel books warn against giving the slip to the driver before arriving at your destination. So I held it in my hand as he looked at it. Then I got out and walked over to the policeman to show it to him. The driver wasn't happy, but I didn't care. He asked if I would give it to him when we were there, and I said, "Sure." What use would I have for it then; my money was already gone to pay for it.

3. Because I had created a bit of a hassle, I thought I would tip the driver a small amount when we got to the hotel. But he didn't take me all the way. The street is blocked for cars. Only pedestrians and rickshaws are allowed. I had to walk the last couple of blocks to the hotel and find it on my own. I knew we were on the right street, though, and I knew approximately where it would be from maps I had seen. So I gave him the prepaid slip, kept the tip money myself, and headed off for the hotel.

4. I had reserved an air conditioned room. At 22:00, it was still 34 C (about 95 F) outside! Well, the room was not as nice as it looked on the website. (They never are in India.) And the a/c didn't seem to be cooling. I went out to find bottled water. When I got back, I was sweating, and the room was still hot. I told them the a/c was not working. A guy tried to fix it and finally concluded it would have to wait for the next day. He said there were no other rooms available for the night and that he would let me have that one for the non-a/c price. It was 23:00, so I stayed. I left the a/c blowing normal air and put the ceiling fan on high. I got through the night.

5. My nose was very stuffy. From arrival at the airport, the air smelled like fertilizer. It still smelled the same at the hotel. I awoke in the night barely able to breathe. I had to use the nose drops left over from my ear infection treatments. Finally, I slept well after that.

Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007--Delhi

As soon as I went downstairs at 9:00 this morning, the man at the desk had a new room for me. It was the same kind of room (one floor down from where I was last night), and it was COOL. How nice. I moved my things and then headed out to deal with travel planning.

I spent most of the morning going to three government government travel agencies (one for India, one for Jammu and Kashmir, and one for Himchal Pradesh) to get information. I'm worried about the travels I have planned. I need a plan that isn't so tight as far as the schedule is concerned, and I need to be sure I will be back in Delhi in time for my flight out of here for Europe on Sept. 3. I've considered various possibilities for dealing with this, but I keep running into problems. I've identified 2-3 stops I can skip if necessary, although all of them would be nice to see. I finally decided to skip ONE of the stops and FLY to Kashmir; that should allow me to see most of the places and take buses coming back so I would be only an 8-10 hour bus ride from Delhi the day before my departure flight. But the airline does not accept non-Indian credit cards online. Now I have to go to a travel agent and pay him a fee if I go that route. I also considered skipping my first planned stop and taking an overnight bus to the second stop (14 hours from Delhi). Right now it is all up in the air.

I tried to eat lunch at a restaurant where I ate when I was here before, but it wasn't open at 11:30. So I returned to the area of my hotel and ate at a backpacker place operated by people from Nepal. I had vegetarian momos (Chinese dumplings). They came with a very nice spicy dipping sauce. I had a lemon soda to drink with them.

After resting in my new cool room at the hotel, I headed out for the cyber cafe to update the blog and try to buy an air ticket. As I wrote above, I now have to find another way to get the air ticket. Life is never easy in India.