Delhi --- 14 to 19 January 2003
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Virginia and I flew from New York by Air France, our fourth trip to India, flying overnight
to Paris and there taking a connecting flight to Delhi. When we arrived it was almost
midnight local time, after a trip of more than 24 hours and a time zone difference of 10.5
hours.
At the Delhi airport we bought a prepaid taxi coupon to the Hotel Gold Regency, located near
the New Delhi railway station. As our taxi approached downtown Delhi the driver told us he
did not know how to get to the hotel and stopped at a "travel agency" (strangely open at
1:30am!) to ask for directions. He and I went inside while Virginia stayed in the taxi to
watch our luggage. The man in the "travel agency" offered to call the Hotel Gold Regency
for directions. After a brief phone conversation in Hindi the caller said that the hotel had
told him that despite our reservation that hotel was completely full but that they had
arranged for us to get at the same rate a better room at another hotel. Suspecting a scam I
insisted that the taxi take us to the Hotel Gold Regency, where we arrived eventually. Our
Hotel Grand Regency was not full, had the room we had reserved over by email, and had
received no calls from the "travel agency". The whole taxi and "travel agency" charade was a
scheme to switch us to another hotel which would give our taxi driver a commission; a familiar
Indian scam.
On their website the Hotel Gold Regency (www.goldregency.com) looked great but proved to
be a disappointment. Our small room was windowless, musty, dirty, and poorly lit. But
2:00am at the end of a 24-hour trip is not a good time to look for another hotel for what was
left of our first night in India.
Early the next morning I took a neighborhood walk and checked out three other nearby
hotels listed in our guidebooks ("Footprints India Handbook" and "Lonely Planet India").
We then switched to the Hotel Ajanta (www.indiamart.com/hotelajanta/), located in an
interesting area of small shops and restaurants near the New Delhi railway station; although
definitely a budget-type hotel, it has a restaurant, an ATM, a travel agency and a very
helpful staff accustomed in dealing with foreign travelers. This became the hotel at which
we generally stayed on subsequent visits to Delhi.
On previous trips to India we had gone to most of Delhi's tourist sights generally visited by
foreign tourists, so on this trip we went to several museums usually visited only by locals.
We spent several hours in the excellent National Museum, visited the Nehru Museum
depicting the life of Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indira Gandhi Museum dedicated to Nehru's
daughter who became Prime Minister until assassinated by two of her bodyguards. We also
were impressed by the size and beauty of Humayun's Tomb and also had the good fortune of
accidentally finding a magnificent large Gurdawara, a temple of the non-Hindu Sikh religion.
We easily found our way around Delhi by using our two guidebooks and taking a number of
autorickshaw taxis, three-wheeled motor scooters with the driver in front and a small bench
in back designed for two passengers but often occupied by more. These vehicles have a
canvas top and open sides with curtains which can be dropped during rain. Like most Indian
towns, Delhi is flooded with these "tuk-tuks", with the drivers weaving skillfully through the
heavy traffic. Every ride is subject to prior rate negotiation; although we probably paid
much more than a local, the cost of our rides averaged around 45 rupees (US$1.00) or less.