Monday, Sept 23, 2008: Delhi
Today was our first day-day in delhi and we disappointingly didn’t do or see much.
Day #2… still healthy, excited, hesitant…disturbed.
Its my believe that the 2nd day after your arrival usually sets the note of the trip and there’s an uncomfortable energy surrounding today. Regina left early to go off Agra so now our balanced group of 4 collapses into a threesome. The breakfast buffet at the Grand Godwin Hotel was outstanding! Their rooftop restaurant had so many food options to choose from. It’s a small comfort to numb my shock of the bathroom in this hotel. There’s no separation between shower, sink or toilet and one drain lets you know that any splash goes to the same place. Also, there’s a large bucket w/ a small bucket inside it next to the shower. You do the math.
My cellphone/WIFI still doesn’t work in this hotel. Not sure if its the hotel or my cellphone but the next place we stay at I will try again.
Pahar Ghanj leaves a lot to be desired.
My first impression on entering PG was “What the hell?…Our hotel isn’t HERE, is it?” In the little area of markets, small dirt streets decorated with trash, an over-population of staring men, cramped hotels, food vendors and crazy honking traffic.. a regurtitated childhood memory surfaces of my very first experience of shabby conditions during an vacation. A hotel room in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early 80s…ugh. Basic, run-down, I remember not being able to drink the water and the streets outside were noisy bustling, dirty cramped! While some memories leave an indelible stain during youth, newer memories come in to eventually take the prize. Paharghanj is definitely now taking the prize.
Male to female ratios in India
I just had a “brisk” walk through our neighborhood which was between a stroll and a jog!…at NYC pace! Sightseeing PG at night is like this is like wolfing your food down at a restaurant that you actually want to observe longer. But this is because there’s a male/female ratio that for once has women at an advantage but not this woman. Lots of men….not your light-skinned Bollywood-babe type but obviously the kind that blends in with the dark and looks scroungy. I see very few women on the streets here. For every 20 men, there must be 1 woman. In India, women and their lives don’t appear to have much visibility here… or at least NOT in Paharghanj. At my hotel, everyone from the cook to the maids (errr…room cleaners) and receptionists are ALL MEN. Outside, the marketplace shoppers, shopowners, waiters, etc… MEN.
Touristing and Breaking Contracts of Relationships
I started off wanting to take a Delhi walking tour given by a children’s community center that Regina had told me started near the New Delhi Station (an 8min walk from our hotel). En route, Margaret and Dan got distracted by a cabbie wanting to take us to the India Tourist Center. Not sure why M&D wanted to follow him, but 2 outnumbers 3. We were taken to “A” tourist center tucked away in the shabby surroundings of an alley in Connaught Place and basically were sold another version (the very same) of the trip itinerary, that M and I had labored over to create! It DIDN’T make sense to spend the money on something we already had, but I knew Dan preferred the safety and cleanliness of a more white-washed India to authentically “roughing it”. Due to my pre-trip fallout with M, I wasn’t about to quarrel, be the bad guy or be made to feel “the cheap one”. Rather than fight it- I agreed.
The cost of being a tourist
The tour cost $518 – a HELL LOT MORE than I expected to be spending for India or what I KNOW we can get by on. And tho I hate being on “touristy tours”, like those monkeys (see no evil, hear no evil...) I’m trying my best to be DEAF, DUMB, BLIND and NUMB! (Mom- you’ll be glad to know there’s no “off-the-beaten track” capabilities for me to get into trouble as there’s little freedom from this itinerary) In a simple summary, it’s about $35/day on this tour but we also visit 1-2 more cities, which is the advantage they sold us. The 2nd selling point was NOT having to use public transportation , which M & D liked but I was disappointed by.
With this tour, we have to break our reservation with the only hotel that I feel we’ve built relations with, Shahi Palace Hotel (a haveli in Jasailmer)! M & I initially planned a cheaper trip where we “experience” more vs “see”, but in this version, we get a driver, “Kul”, who takes the three of us around in a SMALL AC Tata car (Tata‘s are a very popular vehicle brand in India). This is supposedly to our advantage in time and luxury. I’m not sure how much luxury it will be when R joins us and we’re FOUR squeezed into a tiny AC car!
Kul seems nice, speaks good english and is knowledgeable. He is Sikh.. the guys with the turbans and facial hair. We think he must be around our age, but we have to imagine him without the beard.
From the tour agency, he drove us to…
and steered us AWAY from Chandhi Chowk, only to drop us at some mall where we ate at…
That was the extent of my seeing Delhi.
Decisions that are made for you by someone else.
This brings me to Regina.
How will she react when M tells her what we’ve done. Despite my principle: No man gets left or left out, the fact we’re taking this new tour will screw R because it doesn’t leave her with any option but …
1) to pay money to join us
2) be left on her own to fend for herself!
M&D want to wait to tell R of our change when she meets up with us tomorrow in Jaipur! I tell them its totally uncool and fucks her even more. If we let her know tonight then if nothing else, she’s got a small window of time to scramble on the internet for backups. But M&D think they’re being smart in “avoiding conflict” & don’t see how woos-ing on these kind of choices create consequences for others to deal with. M takes for granted R is an experienced traveler and assumes R won’t mind oh… having the rug pulled out from under her in the middle of the India desert! And Dan whom we’ve not heard peep from all these months of research/planning our itinerary, has suddenly developed a voice to how we should deal with things on this trip. While I’ve only just met Regina, no one is being sensitive to the fact R is a “female traveling alone” and that makes her both reliant and vulnerable to OUR itinerary when she joins us. Totally un-cool.
I’m watching this and detaching from myself… too exhausted to fight. It’s like bird shit falling on you and someone trying to convince you that its lucky. But this is a red flag omen. This is my 2nd experience of Delhi.
Tomorrow we drive off to Jaipur where we will be staying for a night. Our driver, Kul will be meeting us at 6A so tonight I should get some rest.
