Tourist-trapped

It's 3:30am. We arrive in Delhi after a wonderful day in wonderful Istanbul. We've slept for about an hour, and haven't eaten in a while. We negotiate a pre-paid cab, as we've read that taxi drivers can double as touts in Delhi. We ask to be taken to our hostel that we booked beforehand.

So, we think we're really smart. What we haven't done is read far enough in the guidebook. Basically, we fall into every single (and we cannot emphasize this enough) tourist trap in the book. We get taken to various "tourist offices" all claiming to be affiliated with the government tourist office, get sold a trip to the mountains, get told the plane there is "full," get taken to a hotel to stay the night so we can "leave the next morning." Finally we decide to take control of the situation, find the real and ONLY government tourist office in Delhi, and file a complaint.

We meet our hero/surrogate Indian father at the tourist office who is just a dream: an amazing mix of reprimanding dad, police officer, and just super kind person. He has undoubtedly heard the exact same story a million times from a million other tourists. This story ends, however, happily. We amazingly get our money back (our father figure tracks down the shady scammer), and more importantly, we learn a really important lesson.

But seriously, I don't mean to trivialize the story at all. It was a pretty scary experience and we really got lucky and managed to get out of it, by staying calm but also mostly with the help and kindness of others.

And that aside, we actually are really enjoying Delhi after that insane first day. It's hectic, hot, chaotic, colourful, rainy, and personal space has a whole new (and perhaps non-existent) meaning. We are also, as two veggies, in veggie food heaven. Today we went to the Jama Masjid and the Lal Qila (Red Fort)--two amazing Mughal legacies in Delhi, and just as importantly, spacious and quiet (one learns to appreciate space and quiet in this city). We've passed Jain and Sikh temples and countless Hindu altars. We're learning how to cross Delhi streets without being killed--by cars, rickshaws, tuk-tuks, bicycles, horses, carts, and cows.

So, vi lever fortsatt. And the metro, that's our anchor in more ways than one (it can't scam us).

Love and miss you
Elise og Lixian