Ryan in India Part II: Hotels and Rickshaws

My friends who were getting married – Josh and Liz – aren’t always the best at replying to inquiries. As such I arrived at Delhi without Josh’s address or phone number. I only hoped there was someone at the airport waiting for me. As it turned out they had hired a driver to pick me up so I was relieved to see my name on a sign. My driver seemed kind of pissed off when he picked me up. I found out later that he had waiting at the airport 6 hours for me. I can see why he was pissed. When I landed I didn’t have any rupees so I couldn’t even give him a tip. Oh well.

So I get in the car not even knowing where he was taking me – I wasn’t sure if I was staying at Josh’s house, a hotel or what. People who actually plan ahead for things probably would have been having a nervous breakdown about now – but it was all part of the adventure for me. I figured the less I know, the better the blog story would be.

We leave the airport and the first think I notice is the driver’s obsession with blowing the horn. I soon noticed that all drivers in Delhi seemed to have an obsession with blowing the horn. No less than 25% of the drive was spent with the horn blowing and 100% of the drive was spent listening to other horns. I later found out there is a method to the horn blowing madness. In general, when you want to pass on the right you blow the horn twice. You blow it once for passing on the left. Turn signals are not used.

The drive from the airport exposed me to the thrill ride I will call, “traffic in Delhi.” The roads actually aren’t that bad (by Bulgarian standards) but the problem is all forms of transportation are using these roads. On a typical 4 lane divided highway you will see the following forms of transportation – all using the same road:
1. Walkers
2. Bicycles
3. Hand pedal 3-wheel cycles
4. Bicycle rickshaws
5. Scooters
6. Motorcycles
7. Auto rickshaws
8. Cars
9. Vans
10. Trucks (but only at night – trucks aren’t allowed in Delhi during the day)
11. Camels
12. Horses
13. Donkeys
14. Cows

The cows are the real exciting part. Since cows are sacred in the Hindu culture people just let them do whatever they want. Often what they want is to hang out in the middle of a major highway. Why they prefer a polluted highway to a green field I have no idea. At certain times they will randomly decide to cross the street. Without even looking at traffic they’ll just start to mosey across as a barrage of horns, screeches, neighing and whatever other noises are made as everyone tries to avoid hitting the cow. Sometimes they like to lay down and rest in the middle of the highway. Needless to say it takes forever to go anywhere.

I finally arrive from the airport at a small hotel. I checked in and went to take a nap hoping that at some point someone would come to get me since I had no idea where I was or where Josh’s place was. Luckily Liz stopped by a few hours later to retrieve me. As it turned out, the hotel/guest house was only a block from Josh’s place.

I don’t know what it is with me and hotels air conditioners – but I always seem to get the short end of the stick. This hotel was no different. The air conditioner allowed me to create 2 environmental conditions in the room – I will dub these conditions, “Sahara” and “Antarctica”. Despite having multiple setting on the knob – all of them engaged only two conditions – “high fan” or “high cool”. To turn the a/c off you needed to turn the knob to “high fan”. The first night I was there I had to go digging around for a winter blanket (which they conveniently had in one of the cupboards) to keep from getting hypothermia. I think I managed to sleep ok through Sunday night just because I was so tired. On Monday Geno (another friend from b-school) arrived and was assigned to my room. He did not yet know the full extend of the environmental controls – or lack thereof. I went to sleep with a winter blanket. He went to sleep with a sheet. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing despite my blanket. I looked over and saw Geno had rummaged through the cupboard at some point during the night and found himself a blanket. Still, it was damn cold so I shut down the a/c. A couple hours later I wake up in a pool of sweat and turn the a/c back on. The next morning Geno seemed very confused as to why every time he woke up the room alternated between freezing and blisteringly hot.

On Sunday, before Geno arrived I got to see a bit of Delhi with two of Liz’s friends from high school – Scott and Michelle. We headed down to a well known market – Dilli Haat to poke around for a couple hours. It was basically a crafts market where you could buy all kinds of trinkets and other things I have no desire to own. Still, it was interesting walking around. I managed to pick up a couple small items for Kat since, like most women, she likes items that clutter up your house. Like everywhere in India, everything is negotiable. If fact, if you don’t spend at least 10 minutes negotiating price you are probably getting ripped off. In fact, you’re probably getting ripped off anyway. By the end of the trip I had greatly improved my haggling skills.

Our travel to and from Dill Haat was on an auto rickshaw. Auto rickshaws are like carnival rides that actually take you places. First you negotiate your price, then you then hop in and enjoy the ride. The auto rickshaws fit up to 3 white people or 11 Indians. They are basically everywhere in Delhi and easy to flag down. All auto rickshaws have non-functional meters. Apparently someone had a great idea to put meters in the vehicles, but no one used them. Negotiating a price beforehand was much better because, especially when returning to Josh’s place, the driver got lost 100% of the time. The return trip back to Josh’s place required 15-30 minutes more time than the trip to the destination. Josh lives in C.R. Park – which everyone knows – but then B-block within C.R. Park, which nobody knows. Every trip we would go from corner to corner asking street vendors where to find B-block. Some of our rickshaw drivers had the memory of a goldfish. He would ask one street vendor, get directions, then stop 10 meters down the road and ask again – only to get the same directions. Hardly any of the drivers spoke English so you couldn’t provide any help. You just had to let them get lost and figure it out on their own. One of our drivers stopped to ask a guy with a sowing machine for directions. The guy had no idea where to go. The next day, another rickshaw driver stops to ask the same guy directions. I already knew he didn’t know the answer, but since the driver didn’t know English, I just had to watch the whole thing happen over again and enjoy the ride. I think I’ve seen all of C.R. Park in an auto rickshaw by now.

Sunday night I went out with Josh, Liz and some of their friends. We tried to go to a bar, but everything in Delhi closes down early on Sunday. The nightlife scene in Delhi is strange – the only places allowed to stay open late (2am being late) are bars and clubs in hotels. So basically, all the bars and clubs are in hotels. We tried to go to a bar “Ricks” in one hotel, but it was closed so we had to settle for the café next door.

On Monday we hired a car to see some sights around Delhi, but I’ll talk about that in my next blog posting.

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