Some of you have realized that we weren't exactly telling, "the rest of the story," as we narrated our time in India. Now that we are safely in Istanbul, we figured it was time to fill in some of the gaps and share some of our general reflections.
Honestly, the first couple of days in Delhi were probably the most frustrating and overwhelming thus far in our journey. We spent the first night at a hotel near the airport, and that was actually an OK experience. The next day, we took a metro train to the downtown Delhi train station, where we planned to walk or catch a tuk tuk to our hotel. As soon as we walked out of the train station, we were overwhelmed by people asking us where we were staying, and did we need a tuk tuk, which we were kind of used to from our time in Southeast Asia, but this was on a totally different scale. When we named our hotel, every single person told us we needed a "permission" to enter that area, because of security concerns. I mean, everybody said that, from tuk tuk drivers, to people that looked halfway legit in the train station. So, we hopped in a tuk tuk and were taken to a tourist information office, where our "permission" would be processed. As we waited, Mustafa asked us about our travel plans, and before long, he was laying out a travel itinerary that included trains and lodging for the entire 10 days leading up to our time in Mumbai. Obviously, we were skeptical, and I was fairly frustrated as I realized that the "permission" thing was a total scam. We were also on our guard, because we had heard about fake tourist bureaus. We said we needed to get some lunch and would come back after doing some online research. We were in a strip mall area, so we tried for wifi at McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Domino's. The wifi is available for those with an Indian phone number. We finally asked someone to input theirs. We were able to see online that train tickets were unavailable, there was a long waiting list.
At lunch, a couple of nice young guys noticed we were looking at maps and our phones, and offered to help us out. They gave us some good advice, and said they would walk us to the real tourist office, which ended up being Mustafa's place. Looking back, they were probably in on the scam and were sent to calm us down. And yet, they were sitting next to us before we sat down with food.
In the end, we did purchase a travel package from Mustafa at a price that seemed fairly reasonable, which included our train to Amritsar, a driver for Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, and our train tickets to Udaipur and Mumbai. That first night, in the hotel Mustafa somehow worked out for us as a "swap" for our other hotel, we wondered if we were going to arrive the next day to get our train tickets and find an empty storefront. But, our driver showed up that next morning, took us all over Delhi, and when we went back to the office, they had all of our tickets. Everything throughout our time was legit, and with the exception of Jaipur, the hotels were really nice.
Here's the thing, though, we spent at least an hour each day when we had a driver being driven to shops we didn't ask to visit, or being pressured to do so. The way we figure, there are a lot of kickbacks going on with drivers, tourist agencies, shops, restaurants, and other businesses. Everybody will offer to help you, and then work to divert you. We would agree on a price with a tuk tuk driver to take us somewhere, and he would spend the first 10 minutes of the ride trying to sell us a tour of some sort, or suggesting a market we could swing by on the way.
There was a lot more that went into those first few days being difficult, including a general lack of respect for personal space, creepy staring, poor air quality, and people spitting all over the place, but the worst part was feeling like we couldn't trust anybody to give us accurate advice/information, unless it was the guys at the front desk of the hotel, and even they would often suggest something other than what we asked.
We openly admit that we don't know enough about the cultural norms/expectations/tensions of India to say much more than how we felt, so this is not to be taken as some sort of authoritative commentary on such things. We just wanted everybody to know that even in the midst of a wonderfully grand adventure, we sometimes struggle with how to navigate and negotiate the world.
Honestly, the first couple of days in Delhi were probably the most frustrating and overwhelming thus far in our journey. We spent the first night at a hotel near the airport, and that was actually an OK experience. The next day, we took a metro train to the downtown Delhi train station, where we planned to walk or catch a tuk tuk to our hotel. As soon as we walked out of the train station, we were overwhelmed by people asking us where we were staying, and did we need a tuk tuk, which we were kind of used to from our time in Southeast Asia, but this was on a totally different scale. When we named our hotel, every single person told us we needed a "permission" to enter that area, because of security concerns. I mean, everybody said that, from tuk tuk drivers, to people that looked halfway legit in the train station. So, we hopped in a tuk tuk and were taken to a tourist information office, where our "permission" would be processed. As we waited, Mustafa asked us about our travel plans, and before long, he was laying out a travel itinerary that included trains and lodging for the entire 10 days leading up to our time in Mumbai. Obviously, we were skeptical, and I was fairly frustrated as I realized that the "permission" thing was a total scam. We were also on our guard, because we had heard about fake tourist bureaus. We said we needed to get some lunch and would come back after doing some online research. We were in a strip mall area, so we tried for wifi at McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Domino's. The wifi is available for those with an Indian phone number. We finally asked someone to input theirs. We were able to see online that train tickets were unavailable, there was a long waiting list.
At lunch, a couple of nice young guys noticed we were looking at maps and our phones, and offered to help us out. They gave us some good advice, and said they would walk us to the real tourist office, which ended up being Mustafa's place. Looking back, they were probably in on the scam and were sent to calm us down. And yet, they were sitting next to us before we sat down with food.
In the end, we did purchase a travel package from Mustafa at a price that seemed fairly reasonable, which included our train to Amritsar, a driver for Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur, and our train tickets to Udaipur and Mumbai. That first night, in the hotel Mustafa somehow worked out for us as a "swap" for our other hotel, we wondered if we were going to arrive the next day to get our train tickets and find an empty storefront. But, our driver showed up that next morning, took us all over Delhi, and when we went back to the office, they had all of our tickets. Everything throughout our time was legit, and with the exception of Jaipur, the hotels were really nice.
Here's the thing, though, we spent at least an hour each day when we had a driver being driven to shops we didn't ask to visit, or being pressured to do so. The way we figure, there are a lot of kickbacks going on with drivers, tourist agencies, shops, restaurants, and other businesses. Everybody will offer to help you, and then work to divert you. We would agree on a price with a tuk tuk driver to take us somewhere, and he would spend the first 10 minutes of the ride trying to sell us a tour of some sort, or suggesting a market we could swing by on the way.
There was a lot more that went into those first few days being difficult, including a general lack of respect for personal space, creepy staring, poor air quality, and people spitting all over the place, but the worst part was feeling like we couldn't trust anybody to give us accurate advice/information, unless it was the guys at the front desk of the hotel, and even they would often suggest something other than what we asked.
We openly admit that we don't know enough about the cultural norms/expectations/tensions of India to say much more than how we felt, so this is not to be taken as some sort of authoritative commentary on such things. We just wanted everybody to know that even in the midst of a wonderfully grand adventure, we sometimes struggle with how to navigate and negotiate the world.
Hugs, friends! Your experience sounds like a huge, frustrating challenge.
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