We arrived in Delhi yesterday (the capital of India and not the tobacco town near my hometown of Tillsonburg) and already a bunch of craziness has happened. The organizing of a taxi was suspiciously easy and tout-free, however the taxi driver dropped us off at the wrong hotel, which is not unreasonable, as we were booked at the Hotel Balaji Deluxe and around the corner were also the Hotel Baba Deluxe and Hotel Raja Deluxe. It wasn't far to walk.
The hotel room was comfortable in a kitschy sort of way, complete with a ROUND MATTRESS on the bed. I even looked around for the button that would make it rotate while we watched an HBO Special on train wrecks and other miscellaneous disasters.
This morning we thought we'd ease ourselves into the Indian Experience and walked down to Connaught Place, the unofficial centre of the city. We thought we would discover Delhi; rather, it seems that Delhi has come out to find us. We were approached by no fewer than ten young men, calling themselves "English students", offering us directions to the ONE and ONLY India Tourist Bureau (but they were all in different directions), three men offering to clean our ears for us with teeny tiny steel scoops that have no doubt been in the ears of every citizen of Delhi, one man who forcibly tried to give BG his wallet, about fifteen food vendors, a few random children, and two guys with snakes in bags.
My new piece of advice for India:
If a guy approaches you with a burlap sack slung over his back, he probably has a snake in it, and he probably wants to show it to you. Act appropriately.
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