Delhi station

Your friendly Rupee loving driver :)








Well, we almost made it to the station when our driver stopped at another shop... it was easy to see how they get their commission now. We decided to humor ourselves by going in. Stepping in, we noticed about 10 guys in there mid-30s who definitely weren't shopping. ha, i guess they all worked there to help haggle foreigners. Seriously, these guys must have nothing else better to do. Upstairs, we saw an awkward japanese guy reel his hand away in disgust when the shop lady tried to touch him. Finally, we had enough and walked out the door while the one shopkeeper was still talking to us.

Outside, the driver looked surprised and was like 'you didn't find anything you like?' uhh, uhh, no. We just wanted to go to the station. Finally, he took us there and we started seeing the multitudes of people we had been expecting. He let us off at a side alley but not before demanding 2000 Rps! seriously... that's 4x the amount we agreed on outside the rug store. More arguing and then basically it was take it or leave it. And, another reason to want to choke Indian people.

Noticing we had some time before the train, we walked down the main street in front of the station which was half a bazaar and half people...everywhere. There were interesting shops displaying there wares on the street. Further along there was a circular setting with a large transformer. Not the robot kind. How could this be safe? there were literally people sitting next to it, shops with rugs hanging over it, and crap surrounding it. Hazards don't stop India.

We made our way back to the station and had to put our bags through a metal detector and a station worker wanted to see our tickets. I showed him our internet reservations and, of course, this wasn't the right one. But, in actuality no one knows anything about their own policies. At another tourist station we cut the guy off when he tried selling us the same as before.

We got another tuk-tuk to the rear of the station. And basically left the driver while he was still yelling at us for more money. We found ourselves waiting in lines for the metal detectors when one seemed to stop working. Some Indian people just took the initiative to walk through while the officers just shrugged and played with the detector. We just went with the flow and ended up in the station.

What was the point of those metal detectors/security officers?

Response:
This is all true. I'm not sure how many times we are going to write about indians trying to rip us off, but be prepared for about 100 more times, cause literally, at every f.u.c.k.i.n.g. step, there was some india hassling us for money, or after soliciting their services, trying to rip us off...I don't usually condone going to a foreign country and acting like a total asshole, but these guys were so relentless to fuck us over, hahn and i had no recourse but do as the romans do, and basically start not giving a god damn about the people or the country...its like the game who can shit on who first...sorry, that was a rant, but thinking about this trip is making my blood boil all over again...

here is a case in point...in about a 2 hour span, on a random tuesday or some shit:

1) last ride with this tuk tuk driver, we ask him to take us to the train station, and he takes us to a shop (where he gets a commission either by just dropping us and we go in, or perhaps a percentage off of whatever we buy)...whatever, he leaves to get gas, and we go inside since, well, its hot outside...we mull around, and the 20 guys working inside on the first floor shop look at us knowing we aren't going to buy a god damn thing...we head upstairs, where, as hahn puts it, a japanese dude flips his nut after an indian woman touches him...hahn speaks to him in japanese, and they have a laugh at the crazy woman's expense...at that point 3 other ladies basically grab us and try to con us into buying silk, where by we literally walk out of that shop and head to the 3rd floor...its full of instruments, and after wanking about there for a bit, we head down all the stairs and walk out of a side door cause i dont want to get fucking hassled by the 20 guys in the first floor shop again... so out on the street, our tuk tuk driver is baffled that we didn't get conned into buying something, and after much pleading, he finally drops us off right outside the train station...after agreeing on something like 500 rupees in the morning for him to drive us around for the day, he tries to hold us up for, exactly as hahn said, 2000 rupees...after he said it, he even put his head down in shame cause he new he was trying to rip us off...we talked and spent the whole day with this guy...he had a good time, we had a good time, we werent dicks about a single thing, answered all his questions he asked us, and went in all the stores he wanted us to...and still, he tries to bargain out of the deal we made earlier and straight bend us over, no lube style...
I let hahn handle him while I quick stole away to buy us water for the train, and hahn also owed me one for earlier having to buy a magic carpet I didn't really need...anyway we basically ended up just throwing him the 500 and telling him to fist it...

2) We have about an hour to burn before we need to board the train, so we head down what seems to be a main road with some shops...we get eyed up by the locals, and hollered at relentlessly to buy their plastic shit from china... we also see another pair of white hippies pass us in the opposite direction, and wonder if they are having the time of their lives like hahn and I are, and by time of their lives, I mean also have a sinking feeling in their gut they aren't going to get out of india alive...so we get as far as we want to go, and on the way back we get slightly separated as a beggar latches on to hahn, and i get some indian kid my age speaking to me in english, telling me he's a student, and basically giving me bunk information about the train and trying to get me to go to some tourist shop (where by directing tourists he of course gets a commission)

3) We get to the train station, but we can't get in, cause some security guard looks at are our printed out internet tickets and tells us those don't count, or work, or are legit, or whatever...and we can't get inside until we have a ticket (which would turn out to be 100% wrong, our tickets were fine, and there are hundreds of people in that station without tickets...and he's a fucking security guard)...so he takes us back to the street to his 'friend' tuk tuk driver (another commission) and tells us we have to go to the tourist bureau down the street...well now hahn and i start to panick, cause our train leaves in something like 25 minutes (we didn't know how the train system worked in india yet)...anyway, the tuker takes us to the bureau, where we talk to an 'official', an older gentleman who looks at our tickets and scolds us, not because there is nothing wrong with them, but because they aren't "1st class"... and tells us we will basically get robbed and killed if we go anything lower (later to be discovered to be...you guessed it...100% bullshit)... so yep, just like the rising sun, as hahn and i are trying to get the fuck back out to the street to get back to our train, the 'official' sits us back down and tries to sell us the 'golden triangle' tourist package (another commission)... we respectfully decline and tell him we are just going to wing it, and do our own thing, in which we are again scolded and told we whities are going to get robbed and killed if we don't follow his rules...peace out asshole, we have a train to catch

4) we literally run out to the street, and flag down another tukernugz to take us to the train... we set the price at something like 40 rupees for the short ride, but this time we get taken to the back of the train station, which is just as busy as the front...we roll out of the tuk tuk, where by he claims we agreed to something more like 400 rupees...you start thinking hahn and i must be lying about this shit, no people on earth as a whole are this shady and corrupt .... go there we say ... get ripped off for yourself ... anyway, with no time to spare, hahn and i literally throw the guy what we initially agreed on, and tell him to get fucked ... so what does the tukker do? ... he starts shouting and trying to cause a ruckus in front of like 1000 moving people, coming and going from the station...and what happens?...nothing, there is no law in india...not a single guard with a machine gun standing 50 feet away came to his defense....why you ask?...cause everyone sees a cab driver with 2 travelers and knows that he just tried to rip us off...I think it's this point in the trip I officially stopped caring about tuk tuk drivers...

So that's 4 times in 2 hours...and we were there for 10+ days...yeah, don't go to northern india...

Anyway, so at this point we are waiting in line to go through the metal detectors to get into the station, and hahn and i are sweating our balls off cause our train leaves in something like 90 seconds...and just like india, the fucking detector (looking like it was made in 1970), takes a giant shit, and people just start walking through...the guards...what do they do?...literally, and i mean literally, just put their hands up in a non-caring motion and watch everyone walk by...hilarious...so hahn and i skate through, get inside the station (which smells like a giant new york city troll bum took a giant new york city troll bum piss over every wall and in every corner of the place) ... and run up the stairs, over the platforms, and down to our train...only to be 1 hour early... we now learn that there isn't a single train in the history of that country that has ever run on time...and to add insult to injury, as we stand there, taking off our packs, leaning up against an old concrete wall, bathing in our own sweat, pissed as hell but elated that we didnt miss our train, we watch a 30 some year old guy hop down off the platform, right onto the middle of the train tracks, and take a giant piss all over the exact rails our train should arrive on............................. right in front of everyone ............. dong waving in the air, with about 500 indian travelers 10 feet away........................... and not a single man, woman or child could have cared less.....seriously, we couldn't make this shit up

Sightseeing in Delhi

Gate of India

A national monument with a pile (or two) of trash in the distance. Looking through the gate you can see the capital building in the distance. Strangely, we (foreigners) were an
attraction. A lady got her picture taken in with us by her boyfriend and then a bunch of
school kids took our pictures...while Tim mockingly whipped out his camera and took pics of them, haha.

Himayun's Tomb

In the heart of Delhi stood a complex of tombs housing some previous kings of India.
Walking through the complex saw an open pipe gushing water that smelled exactly like the drink we had at havemore...

We also met an English man who just started a contract in India. He told us the dangers
of "Delhi belly" (Diarrhea). This further instigated my fears that I'm going to crap my brains out. He was staying in an upscale hotel and even the workers there said they wouldn't drink the tap water.

Response:
This giant gate our tukernugz took us, while a very nice giant monument, was surrounded by trash, and fountains...with stagnating water that looked like death if even a drop absorbed in your skin...those pictures hahn posted above, are actually backwards...the girl asked us to get a picture (which i initially thought was going to be some scam...everything is in india) which we obliged, and as normal when the picture was over she walked away...but by the time the picture was taken, all those fucking kids gathered around and were staring at us as if we had giant dongs growing out of our foreheads...they then all hooted and hollered at the girl as she walked through the crowd, embarrassed, as the picture hopefully relates (they might have been just hooting and hollerin' cause she was hot...who knows?)...anyway, for whatever reason, i assume cause we have white skin, people wanted to get our pictures taken with hahn or myself, or both...and this was our first encounter with such a request...

later at another area of interesting structures, we did meet that english bloke who was round enough to be american only if it wasnt for his accent...if i remember correctly he told us he had a half pound bag full of meds to help him treat 'delhibelly' and something like a palate of food he also brought with him (and here the only medicine i brought was a pepsi from the airport, and hahn brought some russian energy drink that was like half cocaine or some shit...delicious by the way)...so of course this was right after hahn and i just drank the local river water at the restaurant (way to order that green sewage-sulfur laden liquid hahn, i probably still have a fucking worm the size of my arm floating around inside my body somewhere...no wonder im also hungry)...so we had a good laugh about that and walked around the grounds with the guy as it was nice to just speak the queens english with another human being...and of course we got some more pictures with randoms...

The Rug - Part II

NegotiationsNormally the price is $355, but because it was near their holiday it's 20% off... talked it over but decided it was still too high. Chai. After more deliberations, we said we would come back when our travels were over. The price suddenly dropped down to 220 because we reminded him of his sons. He went through a nice dialogue with Tim how he hadn't seen his son for many years, met him again, noticed the changes (while touching Tim's hair)... ya know, the usual stuff you talk about with your clientele. Another Chai, please. Alas, 220 was still outside our price range, and we prepared our backpacks to leave. He then sat us down, handed us the calculator and told us to input our price.

Hmmm... how low could we go? We both pondered this thought to ourselves... I think we put in 150 but he said its not possible. We put on our backpacks again to leave when the power suddenly went out. The light was shining through window that had a rug hanging from it... creating a beautiful sunlit image. Just like in the movies! This seemed to tickle Tim's pink and we sat back down again. I think we felt victory on the horizon. Chai. This time he handed us the calculator upside down so it looked like 091... flip it around - 160. Prompting him to say this was the lowest he could go. And just to make sure we believed him he told us something that other people in his religion might frown upon... "I swear to god, I married a christian woman." How can you not believe this guy. He even went over to his manager who gave a dirty look in our direction. While they were preparing the rugs and the paperwork we couldn't sit there empty handed and chai was, yet again, consumed. We got our carpets and wrote our names on the back with an wax pencil. Snagged a business card and promised to come back before we left India. +1 in the Win column, and maybe another half a point for all the chai we drank. Response: That is a pretty perfect rendition of what went on. The tuker stopped, and ushered us into this shop with all types of clothing in the first room, and we just kinda happened to get sucked into the side room with all these rugs, and people tossing them around left and right. We were quickly nabbed by Joe Magtegna and his understudy, and sat in a corner and got bombarded with questions about us and what we were looking for. Hahn's pupils immediately got huge, Requiem Dream style, as he wanted something nice for his apartment... cold winters in Japan equals cold floors in apartment... or some haiku i once read...anyway, the best part was watching Joe Magtegna order around his underling like the poor slave he was...yelling at him to "show us this carpet, then that carpet, no not that one you ass, that one over there...dont pick that up, they dont like that"...i could only imagine what Joe was really saying, but you could tell by the disdain on his face that he probably flogged the rug slave after we left...only worse was the chai slave, who just constantly got yelled at to bring us more chai...by the time we left i was floating in chai, and quite wired...two other things to note...when the power went out, we were sitting right underneath the only window in the room, and had our backs to it, which also had a translucent carpet over it. Looking into the center of the room, which probably had about 8 other people in it, we couldn't see a damn thing...I thought at that moment we should probably head towards the door before we get rolled and thrown in the gutter...luckily, everyone kept the clubs in their pocket and hahn and i walked out of there unscathed...other then my credit card...nothing like throwing around the plastic in a semi-shady store in a third world country...

The Rug - Part 1

Next stop, the rug shop (not like we chose this shop or had a choice in the matter...). To us this was our first accomplishment in India. Of course, we had no intention of buying a rug but we were ushered into the adjacent room. We were given chai, continuously, and were being shown rugs by the guy from the money pit. He resembled the architect who kept saying '2 weeks'. Anyway, he was probably the most likeable and charismatic Indian guy that we met.

We were probably in there for an hour while he gave us detailed descriptions of the various types of rugs. Rug after Rug- silk, yak, big, small, thin, long - was shown to us. We narrowed it down and then inquired about the pricing, determined to come out on top. Silk 150, yak 355, 550, 750... the upper echelon was out of our range and the silk looked cheap. The 355 yak was decided on. But first, more chai.



coincidence? just so you aren't fooled... the guy on the right is from the money pit

Havemore

Our first taste of true Indian cuisine at Havemore. I'd say it was a mid-upscale restaurant situated in the slums of some random part of delhi. We parked outside this slum next to trash, sleeping bums, and a half-collapsed shanty village. Actually, quite interesting... there was this guy who looked like he was 100 years old sleeping a blue couch. The sage of the slums? who knows, but it was a surreal scene.

The food was pretty good, actually, very good. We had nan, chicken marsala curry, and some other things. We also had a delicacy known as "The Ganges Drink"... straight from the Ganges... I wish i remembered the name but it was basically a green, murky, chili drink with strange things floating in it. The smell was sulfur and chili... only the pictures can describe what words can't.

We were greeted by some street performing children as we left the restaurant. The boy played a drum while the girl did cartwheels and hand springs.



Just another day in india

Response:
I wanted to get a picture of that old man in the alley sleeping on probably the most worn down couch in the world, but decided to just nab a shot when we got back from eating...of course, he was gone...not sure why, its not like that bum had really anywhere to go? Anyway, that drink that hahn ordered in the restaurant, really did smell and look like the ganges...i didnt taste the ganges personally, but im sure the drink wasn't that far off...hahn only got a quarter of the way through it, and he handed it over to me...i only had a couple sips, and was promptly defeated...we invited our tuk tuk driver to dine with us, but he declined. He was too busy getting his handout for taking us to the restaurant. This is how all of india works. Tuk tuk drivers ask you, the traveler or tourist, 'have you ever been to india before?'...you should say yes, and then pull out a knife and tell the driver 'if you take us to any shops, ill shiv you in the back'...but of course we said 'no', and before you know it, the tuker is taking you to all the places he knows (possibly personally or through some contact) that will pay him to bring americans/britains/australians/whities to said shop or restaurant...so this happened the whole trip, regardless of whether we told the fucking guy to take us somewhere else...welcome to india...

tickets

We checked out of the hotel at about 10 and picked up a tuk-tuk and decided on 550 rupees for 5 hours. We had a train later that day to Varanasi... and he said we had to get our ticket confirmed. We protested to no avail and the next thing we are in front of a different tourist office. And they said that we dont have to confirm it... no shit.

This wouldn't be the last time...!?
ps - we should've taken elephants

Where's the shoehorn?

I awoke to Tim marveling at his giant turd that wouldn't flush down the toilet... he was still going on about properly disposing of it by mashing it down the drain. Strangely, the shower room had about 4 drains that look like potato mashers... evidence for his theory. He dreamed up this crazy plan for fear of having to deal with more Indian people. India had already defeated him.

Unlike Japan, there was no shoehorn to break apart the loch ness monster. After repeated flushes, some progress was made. And finally, it was defeated.

The victim can be seen in the background.
(Photo by Tim Hahn - Reuters)

Response:
Sadly it seems the diet in India is one that causes everyone's bowel movements to be one of liquid...since we did not encounter a single toilet in our travels (if there was a toilet at all and not just a hole with two foot pegs to help you squat over), that could take solid waste. So that first night in the hotel had a western style toilet with very little flow. Now granted, most of the places we stayed in were not 4 star hotels...or even 2 stars for that matter...but after 20+ hours of plane flights and layovers, with the airlines stuffing me with food to keep me from losing my mind during long plane flights...well...i had to poo...badly. So that night I did my business, and went to bed feeling defeated as who ever had to clean our room the next day was going to get an extra surprise...But anyway, we later learned that the drains in the floor was for the water to wash your hands after the fact, since a majority of Indian people don't use toilet paper...it didnt click right away since there was a sink, so why not just wash your hands there?...I guess they were trying to cover all their ethnic bases. Anyway, after letting the 'lochness monster' roam freely for the night (as hahn put it so eloquently), and soften up, it flushed down right away...so at least that morning started off well, and India, after starting off 2-0 against Tim & Tim (one for getting ripped off by the cabbi and the hotel, and one for rejecting our waste), was neutralized to just 1-0. Awesome.

(As far as speaking of shoe horns, if you don't know the whole story from Tokyo, it was pretty much the same situation as here, except i used a shoe horn to tame that monster and send it back to hell from whence it came...hahn that bastard wouldnt stop laughing, so i put a real smile on his face by poking him with the very same shoe horn, causing him to almost jump through the ceiling of the hotel...luckily for him im not a complete wanker, and made sure the shoe horn was clean before i went after him, although he did not know it at the time...needless to say his smile turned into a diatribe of profanities hurled in my direction...you think hahn would be used to disgusting things since japan is the land of crazy/bizarre/disgusting porn, and not to mention he dates a japanese chick...hahha, just kidding hiyo, youre cool...anyway, the look on his face was priceless, and now that i think about it, i should have never washed off that shoe horn. This remains one of my most favorite travel stories)

Dags

Whilst we were pissed, tired, and negotiating with the hotel guy(where's Samuel L. Jackson when you need him...) tim suggested we sleep outside... perfectly timed, some stray dogs passed, howled, and I dreamed of being mauled in my sleep...

your cheapest room, Mr. teabaggington

Response:
That is true. We knew we were getting totally ripped off by the hotel guy behind the desk. Everyone claimed 'the commonwealth games' or the 'who gives a shit games' made all the hotels booked, so all the prices were jacked up...which was total horseshit, just one more way India can rip off tourists...so after arguing the price of a single nights stay with this jackass, i turn to hahn and say, "lets just sleep outside", since there were plenty out of the way alleys in the area...and as soon as i got done with that last syllable, we hear what sounded like two packs of stray dogs going at it over god knows what in the alley beside the hotel. At that moment I thought hahn was going to hand over all his money to the hotel guy just to let us upstairs...talk about growing a set, sack up hahn!!!

Arrival in Delhi

Shannon had already landed a few minutes ahead of me; he was waiting for me outside of customs - hanging out by the perfume section. We talked about all the backpackers that were sleeping in the hall that connected to the immigration... and the fact that there were 2 soldiers with an AK-47 and another machine gun with a perforated barrel complete with side clip ready to mow these bums down.

The first thing you do when you arrive in a foreign country: exchange money and buy water. We met some guy who offered us a taxi. He got in the taxi with us and took us on a mind opening taxi ride.
Someone could write a book about how to survival guide on driving through India. Statistically, it has the highest amount of vehicular deaths in the world. I don't understand why they bothered to paint lines on the roads or even make licenses... the horn is the universal tool; used for turning, passing, and telling people to get the f outta the way. The driver was right when he said its just like a Playstation game.

Surprisingly, we didn't see any accidents as tuk-tuks (autorickshaws) and bikes weaved in and out of traffic. Though, we did see the remains of a car that went straight into a tree. As we got into the city, around 1 am., we saw people and stray dogs wondering around. A stray dog made desperate lunge for one of Shannon's arms dangling out of the window. Windows up and hands inside!

We requested to go to Parahganj, the backpackers paradise... but as we soon arrived it was obvious we weren't near that place. The lack of hotels and closed streets gave it away. Perhaps the most surprising part was that literally, everything was shut down. Road blockades, closed shops, nothing was open. The driver didn't stop as we went by multiple hotels and took us to an Indian tourism center. The driver waited as we consulted the tour guy.

This guy was a freakin scheister. According to him, the cheapest hotel we would find would be between 200-300 USD... pfft! After, telling him we just need something cheap he didnt budge. Its because of the goodwill games... yea, but they dont stay in cheap hotels. We tried explaining this to him. Next, he tried to arrange a travel package for a mere $1200 a person! dude, this is India - 1200 dollars here would buy us 500 goats. Then he lowered the price to 500... but we finally just got the shits of it and left to walk around and find a hotel.

However, we had to deal with the taxi driver... god damn, trying to screw us again. After going back and forth for about 10 min we got that monkey off our backs. He tried charging us per person and won. Now, to negotiate our hotel... which was situated right next to the travel agency (supposedly there were no hotels nearby). Overpaid for the hotel but had a place to lay our heads.

Traveling Lesson - Always negotiate your prices beforehand.