Marco Polo
Aug 18, 02, 3:57 am
Delhi – armpit of India
We have just flown to Delhi on CX. The flight leaves at 2210 and gets into Delhi at 0140 (except we had to do a go-around in the rainstorm) The airport is dilapidated. The departing CX flight back to HKG leaves at 03.10 hrs so that means really you need to add 1 ½ days extra hotel cost to your journey by flying CX. The Delhi airport authority have just one man on the gate entrance to the airport checking passport and ticket so you are in a long queue just to get into the flea pit airport. You must X ray your bags and get a sticker affixed then find CX has just two counters for check-in – one for Business and one for Economy. The CX ground hostesses are less than helpful (we are standing there with CX Diamond name tags, Priority baggage labels all over our luggage and she asks if we are flying CX) and also fails to tell you that you need a tag on all your hand luggage that the Airside security will stamp after examination – without the sticker you have to go out again and find one which is annoying after sitting in the lounge for 3 hours. Oh yes before immigration you must complete a departure form which clearly states “ To be completed by Indians only”. They do not have one seemingly for foreigners so you use the 'Indians Only' one. The Delhi airport duty free will not accept its own country’s currency – Rupees, just foreign currency – everything is marked in US dollars.
The departure Business class lounge is a shared lounge named ITC Sheraton used by Air India, Air France, Lufthansa, CX et alia – they have annoying seemingly non-stop flight announcements and the lounge gets quite crowded. There is no shower and the ‘food’ looks dodgy.
After completing our business (the only reason I had to go to India) my wife suggested we visit Agra and the Taj Mahal. Well the journey by road is just 120 miles but takes 4 ½ hours. The Indian drivers are forever hooting their horns and are impatient, rude and aggressive, and quite often on the wrong side of the highway coming at you. The road is punctuated with small towns where you see filth, open sewers, people urinating and defecating by the roadside; on the road journey we saw and sometimes just missed hitting, camels, donkeys, dogs, black bears, goats, monkeys, buffaloes, rats and of course cattle. The 'sacred' cattle wander freely in the roads and lie in the streets ; they also eat all the garbage. In most of the towns we passed at least one area 20 yards x 20 yards of filth and litter spread over the pavements and roads which the cattle were either eating or wallowing in. The local councils obviously do not have a garbage collection service from the non-affluent areas and the residents seem to be happy to live in filth, excrement, sewerage and general disheveled areas without bothering to clean it up themselves. On the way (105 kms from Delhi) you can stop at the Rajastan motel – they have a tourist shop and a ‘coffee shop’. They switch on the shop lights when tourists arrive – prices ? well as an example for a simple local wooden chess set made from sandal wood they want Rupees 24,000 (US 511) – do you think they ever sell any ?
Agra has a shanty town surrounding the Taj Mahal called the Taj Ganj (which presumably means Dump in English). In the guidebook Lonely Planet it states that the entry charge into the Taj Mahal is Rupees 105 (US 2) - when you get there they try at the entry kiosk to charge you the new rate of Rupees 750 per head. The charge for Indians to enter the Taj Mahal is R20 (US 40 cents) so I guess the Government of India finds it acceptable to rip off tourists, just like the numerous pimps in the streets, and expect them to return. Nearby the Taj on the same road and opposite the leper hospital is the Amarvillas Oberoi hotel resort – when you enter here and find it empty you soon realize why – they politely tell you before you can sit down that US 25 (+ 8% tax) cover charge will be added to your bill per head and that the menu has been priced accordingly (ie each item will be at least US 25). Then we have the Red Fort in Agra, the entrance fee is R350 for tourists (US 7) and R 15 (US 30 cents) for Indians.
The next day we decided to go around New Delhi – the India Gate and the Parliament were quite impressive as was the Gandhi museum. We also went to the Red Fort (entrance fee US 5 for tourists and free for Indians) Nearby the Red Fort was a Native Handicrafts center set up seemingly to rip off any paleface walking through the doors. Again the lights are switched on when you enter and you are quoted ridiculous prices for junk. As an example they wanted R 35,000 for a local wooden chess set and R 15,000 for a smaller one – as we left the guy rushed out and said , OK Rupees 10,000 or what will you offer me ? I suggested he sell T-shirts for US 60 each printed with “Call me Ban Choot, I am a rich sucker tourist. Please sell me your expensive junk”
We were staying at the Grand Intercontinental where we were lucky only to have power outages every 30 minutes or so, and the next day decided to walk out of the hotel to the nearby Connaught Place. This is a large inner and outer ring of shops. The pavements once dug up are seemingly never repaired in Delhi. Zillions of touts pester you non stop so after being polite twenty times to try and stop them walking next to you with incessant banter , tugging at your clothes and arms and aggravation, it reaches the stage where even the wife has decided to belt the next one in the head.
I am afraid that Mahatma Gandhi must now be turning in his final resting place to see what has happened to his beloved India.
We have just flown to Delhi on CX. The flight leaves at 2210 and gets into Delhi at 0140 (except we had to do a go-around in the rainstorm) The airport is dilapidated. The departing CX flight back to HKG leaves at 03.10 hrs so that means really you need to add 1 ½ days extra hotel cost to your journey by flying CX. The Delhi airport authority have just one man on the gate entrance to the airport checking passport and ticket so you are in a long queue just to get into the flea pit airport. You must X ray your bags and get a sticker affixed then find CX has just two counters for check-in – one for Business and one for Economy. The CX ground hostesses are less than helpful (we are standing there with CX Diamond name tags, Priority baggage labels all over our luggage and she asks if we are flying CX) and also fails to tell you that you need a tag on all your hand luggage that the Airside security will stamp after examination – without the sticker you have to go out again and find one which is annoying after sitting in the lounge for 3 hours. Oh yes before immigration you must complete a departure form which clearly states “ To be completed by Indians only”. They do not have one seemingly for foreigners so you use the 'Indians Only' one. The Delhi airport duty free will not accept its own country’s currency – Rupees, just foreign currency – everything is marked in US dollars.
The departure Business class lounge is a shared lounge named ITC Sheraton used by Air India, Air France, Lufthansa, CX et alia – they have annoying seemingly non-stop flight announcements and the lounge gets quite crowded. There is no shower and the ‘food’ looks dodgy.
After completing our business (the only reason I had to go to India) my wife suggested we visit Agra and the Taj Mahal. Well the journey by road is just 120 miles but takes 4 ½ hours. The Indian drivers are forever hooting their horns and are impatient, rude and aggressive, and quite often on the wrong side of the highway coming at you. The road is punctuated with small towns where you see filth, open sewers, people urinating and defecating by the roadside; on the road journey we saw and sometimes just missed hitting, camels, donkeys, dogs, black bears, goats, monkeys, buffaloes, rats and of course cattle. The 'sacred' cattle wander freely in the roads and lie in the streets ; they also eat all the garbage. In most of the towns we passed at least one area 20 yards x 20 yards of filth and litter spread over the pavements and roads which the cattle were either eating or wallowing in. The local councils obviously do not have a garbage collection service from the non-affluent areas and the residents seem to be happy to live in filth, excrement, sewerage and general disheveled areas without bothering to clean it up themselves. On the way (105 kms from Delhi) you can stop at the Rajastan motel – they have a tourist shop and a ‘coffee shop’. They switch on the shop lights when tourists arrive – prices ? well as an example for a simple local wooden chess set made from sandal wood they want Rupees 24,000 (US 511) – do you think they ever sell any ?
Agra has a shanty town surrounding the Taj Mahal called the Taj Ganj (which presumably means Dump in English). In the guidebook Lonely Planet it states that the entry charge into the Taj Mahal is Rupees 105 (US 2) - when you get there they try at the entry kiosk to charge you the new rate of Rupees 750 per head. The charge for Indians to enter the Taj Mahal is R20 (US 40 cents) so I guess the Government of India finds it acceptable to rip off tourists, just like the numerous pimps in the streets, and expect them to return. Nearby the Taj on the same road and opposite the leper hospital is the Amarvillas Oberoi hotel resort – when you enter here and find it empty you soon realize why – they politely tell you before you can sit down that US 25 (+ 8% tax) cover charge will be added to your bill per head and that the menu has been priced accordingly (ie each item will be at least US 25). Then we have the Red Fort in Agra, the entrance fee is R350 for tourists (US 7) and R 15 (US 30 cents) for Indians.
The next day we decided to go around New Delhi – the India Gate and the Parliament were quite impressive as was the Gandhi museum. We also went to the Red Fort (entrance fee US 5 for tourists and free for Indians) Nearby the Red Fort was a Native Handicrafts center set up seemingly to rip off any paleface walking through the doors. Again the lights are switched on when you enter and you are quoted ridiculous prices for junk. As an example they wanted R 35,000 for a local wooden chess set and R 15,000 for a smaller one – as we left the guy rushed out and said , OK Rupees 10,000 or what will you offer me ? I suggested he sell T-shirts for US 60 each printed with “Call me Ban Choot, I am a rich sucker tourist. Please sell me your expensive junk”
We were staying at the Grand Intercontinental where we were lucky only to have power outages every 30 minutes or so, and the next day decided to walk out of the hotel to the nearby Connaught Place. This is a large inner and outer ring of shops. The pavements once dug up are seemingly never repaired in Delhi. Zillions of touts pester you non stop so after being polite twenty times to try and stop them walking next to you with incessant banter , tugging at your clothes and arms and aggravation, it reaches the stage where even the wife has decided to belt the next one in the head.
I am afraid that Mahatma Gandhi must now be turning in his final resting place to see what has happened to his beloved India.