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| Arriving by Quétinbec 07/05/2009, 7:32pm PDT | ||||
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| Before I went to India, I planned and researched because I wanted to reduce the number of situations where I'd be forced to rely on Indians, as I suspected they were the worst people on earth, and to my knowledge, they are.
The Indian who was supposed to pick me up at New Delhi airport at 2am hadn't replied to the emails I'd sent him two days before my departure. I'd read that there was no government transport operating at the airport at that time of night and if you used a private taxi, they'd ignore what you told them and drive you out to some village where there'd only be one hotel and no taxis and they'd charge you ridiculous amounts of money and you'd pretty much be kidnapped. Fuck that. My plane was an hour late and I'd been awake for more than two days because I took the cheapest flight which had two half day stopovers on route. Of course my Indian wasn't there. He was an Indian. It's not as if I'd be stupid enough to trust an Indian, though. Before I left, my plan was that, after the Indian's probable noshow, rather than throw myself at the mercy of the private taxi mafia, I'd walk out of the airport with my bags and find some cheap airport hotel. Flying into Delhi, though, out my window I saw the airport was surrounded by a massive slum district. There were fires throughout it. Fires at 2am! Mad Max shit. Where could I go overencumbered and almost asleep? I was fucked! FUCKED. I listened to Elton John's 'Daniel' to calm myself down. It was pretty effective so I listened to it about three times. Delhi International Airport doesn't even have toilet paper in its toilets. In the foyer, dirty men kept grabbing at me to come with them. I wanted to find a corner to put down my bags so I could get my head together and think up some kind of awesome plan, but there were people sleeping everywhere and there was no space. How can an international airport be this shit? I couldn't think with people clawing at me and me constantly worrying about my bags. I went back to the toilet, but it stunk, so after a short while I returned to the foyer. I eventually found a space where I could have my back to the wall. I put my bags down and sat on them, but I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't wait for 5 hours until government transport started because I'd probably fall asleep and my shit would be stolen. Also, it would be torture trying to stay awake for that long in that shithole after being up for 48 hours. I decided if I spent 30 minutes just sitting there blowing off taxi drivers like I knew what I was doing, when I eventually came to them, they'd think I wasn't some rube and hopefully they'd fuck with me less! Hahahah! Great plan! I went with the guy who spoke the best English. He asked me if it was my first time in India. I KNOW you're always supposed to answer that question "No, I come here all the time!" or they'll think you're an easy mark, but I was scared he'd test me in some way, or that I'd do something retarded and it would be obvious I didn't know what I was doing, so I answered that it was my first time. :( It turned out he wasn't a taxi driver but a taxi driver pimp. He passed me on to a driver who spoke no English. I told this driver where I wanted to go because, worryingly, the pimp hadn't passed this on. The driver didn't seem to understand or care where I wanted to go. Fuck. He wanted to put my bag in his boot (trunk?), but I knew from other shitholes that if you do this, you're at the taxi driver's mercy. They have your bag as deposit so they can take you whereever the fuck they want or charge you whatever. If you keep your bags with you and they drive you somewhere freaky, you can jump out at the lights and if they want ANYTHING for the taxi ride, they are at your mercy. This was my plan and I'd executed it successfully in other shitholes. It gave me confidence. Sure this guy is going to try to fuck me over by driving me to some distant shithole, but we won't get halfway there before I jump out at the first set of lights after I see a normal hotel and hand him $5 for his troubles. BRING IT ON INDIA! The problem was Delhi shutters up completely at night. There's pretty much a 1am curfew and even before then it becomes a ghosttown. Also, there weren't any traffic lights, and even if there were, I couldn't see any hotels. The car never stopped. I tried to make sense of where we were relative to the airport on my map, so I could escape in a taxi the next day, but I was too tired and everything was moving too quickly for me. I decided to brace for rape. I'd already made it look as if I only had $30 worth of Rupee and the rest were $US travellers cheques which were worthless to them unless they were willing to put a gun to my head at a bank, and anywhere that has a bank would have regulated taxis, and where there are regulated taxis, there's freedom! He drove me to a 'Government Tourist Information Kiosk' in some little shithole I never found out where exactly. Amoung the many many reasons this 'government' Kiosk was such an obviously bullshit thing: what government tourist kiosk (or government anything) is open at 4am on a weekday? The guy at the desk asked what hotel I wanted to stay at. I pointed to one in the Lonely Planet. He wouldn't let me dial the number. He dialled it and a sleepy guy answered, checked to see if there were any vacancies, and then told me there were no vacancies. If there are no vacancies at your hotel, you don't need to check. It's obvious to you. I didn't think this at the time, though, because I was so tired. Stupid Indians. I picked another hotel out of the book, he dialed AND THE SAME GUY ANSWERED. I told the desk man that it was the same guy. He said it wasn't, but he said it like he didn't give a fuck whether I believed him or not because what am I going to do about it? He told me the only hotel available was just down the road and it cost $US100/night. I was like, "I'm going to walk to see if I can find anything else, then!" and reached for my bags. They both laughed at me and told me there was nothing, and I was frightened because I'd seen nothing coming in and everything was dark and scary. So I backed down immediately and asked them if they knew anywhere cheaper because I only had $30 worth of rupee. I told them I only had this much because I'd heard hotels here only cost $7/night (they cost $5) and I emptied my wallet for them to show them my sad situation. Perhaps I can sleep here for the night?! They said they might be able to find a room for cheaper, and OH WOW, WE FOUND ONE FOR EXACTLY $30! HOW LUCKY YOU ARE! I got like four hours sleep before they woke me up and told me the hotel had a 9am checkout. I asked if I could get it for another day and they said no. There were a couple of hotels in the shithole and the guy was pimping me out between them. He led me to the other which he said was more expensive. The guys on the door of this hotel would call him whenever I tried to leave and he would intercept me. The first time he caught me, he asked me where I was going. I told him and he lead me to the internet cafe (four shitty computers in a guy's basement). He stayed with me watching what I wrote. I was writing to my Indian connection asking him where he was. The kiosk asshole was constantly trying to sell me tours of the city and other touristy bullshit and I made him think I was keen on this and that I trusted him. I was scared if he thought I was going to leave without doing some bullshit tour, he'd jack up the hotel rates. If I went to a shop on that main street without him, the shop people wouldn't talk to me. They'd wave me off and turn away from me. It was such a big mafia style fuck cunt rape. I'd asked him to show me where we were on a map of Delhi so I could try to figure out how much I should pay to escape if I ever found a taxi. He made it seem like we were outside of Delhi, but I don't think we were. A couple of times I did manage to leave the hotel without him intercepting me. During these occasions, I'd get fucked over by strangers. I was amazed at how badly I was getting fucked over. What the FUCK, India? I went to the internet cafe again to check my email. My Mum had sent me an email and up until now, I didn't really give a shit about the kiosk guy's bullshit - I was just playing along to buy myself time - but for some reason it REALLY fucked me off that this guy would read an email from my Mum over my shoulder. He'd grown pretty bored by this stage, but still I'd pretend to read other websites until he started talking to someone else so I was sure he wasn't looking, and then I'd talk to my Mum. Also, at some point, I got an email from my Indian connection who apologised and said he couldn't make it to the airport for "family reasons" but he gave me the address of a homestay I could stay with until they found me an apartment. With this address, all I needed now was a taxi to escape. The next day, I snuck out of the hotel again. I was much better at getting away from him now. Either that or he was less concerned about me walking freely about his bullshit village. I spent the day looking for a bicycle rickshaw driver who spoke English well enough to tell me where I could find a taxi. One said there was a spot about 30 minutes away and he took me there and then took me back to prove it, and I saw a taxi with my very own eyes! Freedom! I told him I'd give him 5 motherfucking dollars (they'd usually get 15c for a half hour ride) if he'd wait behind the corner near my hotel and then take me and my bags to that same place so I could get a taxi. I thought $5 was enough of an incentive that he'd be able to ignore any threats by the door staff or the asshole, but I also made him promise he'd do this and I was such a bitch about it that I must have looked crazy to him. When I came downstairs with my bags, a door guy said it was law that I had to sign to checkout which was bullshit. You only have to sign in and he was just buying the Kiosk asshole time to intercept me, but at the time I didn't know that and I signed. The Kiosk asshole got to me before I left the hotel and asked me where I was going. I said I was going to visit my friend now. He asked me, "What about the tour?!" and he was getting angry. I said I'd do it later and I was getting angry too, which was great! I could get angry, now! I had options! He started talking to my rickshaw driver in Hindi so I told him to fuck off. That felt really good! He was cursing at me and I was like "Whatever. Enjoying fucking people over in your shithole. Bye." ANYWAY, after three days with the homestay, eventually I got to my apartment. I shared a room with a short Romanian girl who knew lots of jokes about the Pope, so I fell in love. THE END |
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