I knew India was going to be a shock to the system after Bhutan. I knew that. I really did.
But I didn’t now how much of a shock.
Reality started to set in on the flight from Paro. We landed in Kathmandu for a stopover and I couldn’t believe the amount of pollution hovering over the city. I thought, uh oh. I’ve heard Delhi is the most polluted city on the planet but I thought no way it could be worse that what I’m seeing from the window in Kathmandu.
And then we land in Delhi and I start hearing Gina Davis’s voice from Thelma and Louise in my head. Let’s keep going. Go! Please Mr. Pilotman, just put this baby in drive, floor that gas and let’s go, just go!
But he did not hit the gas, and we did not go anywhere else, and just like that, I am in Delhi.
I had a friend in undergrad many years ago tell me that I should not go to India alone. But that was many years ago and I’ve traveled some since then and I know a bunch of yogi-types that have been and made it back and I really figured I was ready. After all I would only be solo in Delhi for three days before my tour starts. I should be able to figure it out for three days, right?
Wrong. Delhi totally kicked my traveling butt.
As soon as I get inside the airport I realize I’ve forgotten to exchange my last few Ngultrum in Paro. No problem, I’ll just swing by a money exchange inside the terminal, right? Once in I find the brightest lit money exchange I can find, get to the desk, pull out my Ngultrum and the guy yells at me. No Bhutanese dollars! Ok, no problem. (Geez) Where then I ask? Gate 4. By Gate 4 he says. Ok, no problem and I walk to Gate 4. Ask that money exchange. Nope. Not at that money exchange either (but at least they didn’t yell at me). Ok, where then I ask? Go to Thomas Cook. Ok, thanks and I go to the Thomas Cook desk (confused that they’re still open, but they are, and all I really need is to exchange my Ngultrum so whatever is going on with all of that, good luck). Hey Thomas Cook, do you exchange Ngultrum? No, did you try that place? and points to the first exchange I tried. Yeah, no. So I go to the information desk and ask them and they tell me Thomas Cook. Yeah, no. Round and round I go until I try one more exchange on my way out and get my final no and think, ok Delhi, so it’s gonna be like that.
Thankfully my transport was at the airport and got me to the hotel without any excitement, other than the fact that I was silent the whole ride in complete bewilderment at the smog. I can’t believe anyone lives here and I sure can’t believe 24.5 million people live here. It’s apocalyptic. Truly end of the world, apocalyptic. The haze is everywhere. For some reason I keep thinking there must be a nice part of town where the smog magically goes away but we drive by there on the way and the thick haze is as dense as ever. There are no clouds in Delhi, no blue sky and a strangely red sun.
We finally arrive at the hotel. Now the hotel I’ve booked was recommended by the tour company I signed up with and I went with it thinking it would just make things easier. I was wrong. So so very wrong. I get to the hotel and think, hmmm, that security scanner has little paper cutout figures on it but maybe it’s a funny joke that I just don’t get yet. And I go to the check-in desk. Hi I’d like to check in. Ok, let me show you your room, and by the way if you need to exchange any money you can do that here. (Great, ngultrum problem solved! Maybe this place is going to work out after all.) Until I get to my room I think…hmmm…this room doesn’t look anything like the pictures. And come to think of it, where are the windows? And what is that bucket in the shower for? (I’ll be honest, I never asked because whatever it was for was not something I was going to do with it). And I think for a minute about getting a ride straight back to the airport and scrapping this whole India idea and then I say, stop. It’s just a few days and after all they can exchange your Ngultrum and it’ll just be a real, authentic experience in Delhi. So I grab the residual Bhutanese bucks and head down to the check-in desk and he says, oh no we don’t exchange that. You have to do that at the bank. Ok…well then where is the bank (since he sounds like he knows what he’s talking about) and I venture out into the street to find the bank. I find the bank and they barely let me walk in before turning me back out because they don’t exchange money at all. Ngultrum, USD, nothing. Ok, you got me again Delhi, sending me in circles. And given the neighborhood that the hotel is in I decide that I’m not walking a foot further than I need to and turn back to the hotel as soon as possible. Fine, I give up on the Ngultrum, but I am hungry. So I ask the reception desk, is there somewhere near here to eat? We have a restaurant here he says. What a surprise I think, realizing I’m not going to get anymore information from him than that and say fine, I’ll just eat at the restaurant here, at least it’s convenient. I walk down to the basement and the guys sitting in the dark turn on the lights to welcome me and offer me a seat. This place might have seen good days twenty years ago, maybe, but I don’t know where else to go so I can stay and see what happens or leave and take my chances on the street. Stay wins. The waiter comes over and says what would you like. Do you have a menu I ask? Sure I have a menu he says. I’ll tell you what we have. At which time he tells me what I’ll have, butter masala and prathata, and that is done. No menu, no prices, but what else am I going to do. The hustle here is endless.
I’m not kidding. They’re little paper cutouts.
I finish lunch and have to go to the reception desk to find out what lunch cost, and thankfully the price wasn’t awful – only twice what it should be. So I try my last and final time with the reception desk. Is there a store nearby where I can buy some food? Sure he says, go out and go to the left and there is a market. So I go out and go to the left and there is a market. For car parts. And I decide that I’m going to just plan on surviving on the oreos that are in my room for the next two days since I’m never going to ask the reception desk another question and I’m never leaving the hotel again. Now mind you, the guy has also said that he can arrange a car and driver for me just let him know but at this point I don’t believe a thing he says and decide to pass on that offer. And I go back to the hotel and sit in my windowless room and think, ok Delhi, so it’s gonna be like that.
Thankfully there is Uber in Delhi should I decide I need to go somewhere, but I have no idea where to go. By the afternoon I decide I need a map of the city and find a tourist information center, hoping they’ll give me a map. I think hey, this place is sponsored by the government, I’m sure they want to do a good job, I should be ok here. So I walk in and ask for a map. And I get a black and white photocopied map and I think hmmm…that’s a little strange. You think they’d just give me a real color map but maybe costs are tight and there are probably a lot of people who need maps so maybe this makes sense. Photocopied map, no problem. Then the guy tells me about all these tours I can do and while they seem expensive he shows me the website of the tour company and then shows me all the people on his phone who’ve been on the tour and love it and they’ll pick me up from my hotel and I think, why not. It will get me out of the hotel and I don’t have any other options, so sure, a walking tour of Old Delhi sounds like a plan. Thanks for your help and the photocopied map. I’ll fast forward to the punchline on this one. Turns out the Tourist Information Office was another classic bait and switch and while a guy did show up at my hotel to pick me up turns out I’d been sold an extremely extremely overpriced taxi driver for 4 hours. He had no idea what I was supposed to tour or see and kept trying to get me to go shopping while dropping me off at places to go take pictures while he waited at the car. Then to pour a little extra salt on the whole experience at the end of it he asked me for gas money. He did not get any. Ok Delhi, so it’s gonna be like this. (This ridiculous tour story reminds me of a story a friend told me that she called ‘One Fucking Dollar’. It went like this. She got mad at a water taxi one night that she needed to take her across a raging river. It should have cost $.30 but the taxi driver wanted $1 because it was close to dark. Out of pride she refused to pay $.70 more and decided she’d just cross the raging river on her own. By a miracle she and her friends made it to the other side of the river, realized they could have died doing so and then realized it was all over one fucking dollar. Why I stayed on this ridiculous taxi ride was pretty much something like that, although I didn’t feel unsafe, just really annoyed). OMG the hustle…
Now when I get back to the hotel I’ve decided that I am just not good enough to figure out Delhi so I am never leaving my windowless hotel room again until the tour starts (my friend Nikki started a three week-tour from Delhi a few years ago and she said she didn’t leave her hotel room for five days when she got here), when I have a conversation with a friend who says hey, I used to live there, this is a good area, why don’t you just look and see if there is another hotel near there. Seems like it’s not worth all the trouble to stay where you’re at and I think, you know what, you’re right. Now I didn’t have one bit of hope left for my time in Delhi at this point but decided to use the good old tried and true method of selecting quality room and board – pets and plants – and ended up booking a place called La Sagrita. So I pack up, pray for the best and get the hell out of Hotel Metro Heights as fast as I can.
And then I meet Hemant.
Hemant is the owner of La Sagrita. He used to travel to Venezuela and loved the islands. When he decided to convert a Delhi property in a higher-end, gated residential area into a boutique hotel he wanted to name it La Margarita. Then he thought it might be too attractive to the party crowd and realized that if he combined his mom’s name with his dad’s name he got Sagrita, which was even better than Margarita, and the Delhi-oasis of La Sagrita was born. Not only does my new room have a window, I also got a map at check in (a real map, with color), the restaurant has a menu with prices and the taxi rates are posted for my enjoyment. Hallelujah is an understatement. All I can really say is ok Delhi, I’m ok with it being like this now.
Me and Hemant 
Now at this point I am perfectly content staying in this nice room, in this nice hotel, with nice people, in a nice neighborhood, looking out my nice, big window and never going into Delhi again. But Herman says this would be a waste and at minimum, I should consider going to see the light and fountain show at the Akshardham Temple. The entry fee is only $1USD and they have a good, safe driver and it’ll be worth it. Ok Herman, I’ve lost faith in just about everything in Delhi but you at this point so I’m really trusting you here, and I agree to go.
That evening I end up at the most unbelievable temple, that you realize could only exist in a place like Delhi, to watch a light and fountain show about Krishna. While I’m sitting and waiting for the show to start a group of women and children sit down next to me. There is a girl, about twelve or thirteen, that wants to take her seat right next to me. I see that she has henna on her hand. We make eye contact and I gesture to her hands and she shows me her henna. She is so proud and I try to show her that I like it. She smiles and I notice the intensity of her eyes. She keeps staring at me and I try to acknowledge her at times and then just let it be (staring at outsiders is common in India). She keeps engaging with me and at one point starts talking. I try to explain that I don’t speak Hindi but try and follow her inflections to see if I can at least engage. Eventually she gives up on me and stops talking until she decides she wants me to hold her baby brother. He, however, wants nothing to do with this as his cries get louder the closer he gets to me. Meanwhile, all the women in the group are finding this all quite entertaining. Then the show starts and it is pretty amazing. I say ‘wow’ and she smiles and says ‘wow, very nice’ and looks at me for approval and I say, ‘wow, very nice’ back to her. And she gives me a high-five and watches the show and then watches me a little bit more, every now and then offers another ‘wow, very nice’ and there’s a moment when she decides to just gently rest her hand in my foot, as if she’s comforting me and I’m somehow doing the same for her, and when the show ends she looks back up at me with those sweet, deep, enchanting eyes and we high-five again and she says ‘bye’ and looks over at her mom and giggles. And in the space of a second I experience a very different side of Delhi, and I think, ok Delhi, so it’s gonna be like that.
Love,
rk
After all that, I’m too tired to write about everything I eventually did do and see in Delhi with La Sagrita’s help. To add a little clarification on my tales above, I never felt physically unsafe in Delhi, thought I didn’t travel outside without someone after 4pm. There is just a complicated culture here in Delhi that operates by and entirely different system that in the west. And yet there is a tender, raw honesty that mysteriously flows through the complex hustle and chaos. After three days here I won’t even say I get it. I doubt I could ever say that, but I’ve softened to it and learned a few worthwhile lessons and oddly enough, it’s starting to growon me. And now, enjoy the pics.
A Paneer Wrap! 
It’s Veg!
Buddha & Boots 