Hustle and Flow

"The Game is out there. It's either play or get played." -Omar (The Wire)

All right, so we got played a little today. Did I say Mumbai was full of hustlers? I lied. Welcome to New Jack Delhi. Where every swinging joe in the street will offer you unsolicited advice and a taxi ride but seldom help you to your destination. I'm glad I read The Trial if for no other reason than because I am now able to describe the "Delhi Experience" as Kafkaesque.

You are met at the train station by a man. He says he has a cab. You need a cab. You follow him. He says you have to go to his booking counter to prepay. You know there are prepaid cabs so you follow him, but in the back of your mind you wait for it: Lonely Planet told you about this. He's on commission trying to steer you to book your hotel through his agency. As soon as you're through the door you see it's true and tell him to get lost. You race out the door past his objections and find an autorickshaw who takes you to three different hotels before the one you told him, insisting no matter how often you interrupt him that these are better. You take a ride to the gigantic, beautiful mosque, but everyone wants to stand next to you. Have a few words. Give a little sage advice. And of course, steer you into a minor scam, relieve you of a few rupees.

After dinner you decide to book your train ticket. This is apparently almost impossible if you don't know exactly where the booking office is. You get in a cab. "Train Station" You tell him. You haggle on price. He asks if you need the booking office. "Yes." You tell him. He takes you to a travel agency explaining that this is the only place in town approved by the government to sell you advanced tickets. But you know this scam as well. So as he shouts his objections you walk in the direction you know the train station to be. On the way there, no less than FIFTEEN different individuals, with varying degree of subtlety and cunning directs you to various other dead ends and travel agencies. Sometimes someone will approach you and someone else will come "Save You", telling you to beware of shady characters and then direct you to his favorite travel agency which he swears is the only place to book a ticket. A man follows you across the parking lot explaining where you need to go. "Why are you following me?" You ask him. And he stops. Finally you find your way back to the train station (from which you have already been lead away once) and you manage to fight your way past various tricksters who jump in your path shouting "It's not that way! It's over here!" and you've found it: The Promised Land. The Foreign Tourist Ticket Counter. After a wasted afternoon you book your ticket out of this funhouse.

We'll hit the Taj Mahal tomorrow with a tourist group along with various other sights. Looking forward to someone else directing my travels for a day.