Prepare to Keep Your Pants in the Upright Position

There is a ubiquitous term for describing India that every person traveling here knows: it is "organized chaos." Initially I was thinking that Delhi was more of organized mayhem, but mayhem sounds more sinister and that is definitely not the connotation I would want to portray.  Delhi has anywhere from 16 to 25 million people living in and around the area (no one really knows how many people live here) and is one of the fastest growing cities in the world.  India itself is set to out-pace China for the world's most populous country by 2030.

We slept soundly through our first night along the Main Bazaar and the following morning we set out to explore the city.  We were immediately latched upon by a young man named Roger and as we walked down the streets he proceeded to tell us that he was not trying to scam us, but that he wanted to work on his English, as he was studying English at the nearby university.  We had heard this exact story in several countries now, but we were enjoying the sites and decided we would go along for the ride.  He asked us what we wanted to do for the day, and we told him that we were looking for some food and afterward we would go to the train station to buy tickets for Agra.  He told us that he could show us where there was good food and then stated that we would have to go to the government tourist information office for the tickets because foreigners could not purchase said tickets anywhere else… yada, yada, yada.  Annie smiled at me as we just kept talking with “Roger” our new friend.

Roger led us to a small restaurant where we had “thalli” for the first time in our lives.  There must have been a rufee in it, though, because we both woke up in a dark room six hours later, tied up on the floor on some movie set in downtown Bollywood :0)  I know, I know… I shouldn’t joke since family reads this; in truth, the food was great and we both ate well for about $3 total, including drinks.  Roger then took us to the Government Tourist Information Center and then had to leave because of previous arrangements.  His plan was to get a commission from the aforementioned GTIC, but we had a belts firmly fastened around our wastes and were not interested in the least when the guy at the tourist place told us that tickets to Agra and the Taj Mahal were $130 for the day.  We left the place and hailed a rickshaw, which is called a tuk-tuk in the rest of Asia, and asked the driver to take us to the train station.

The driver of the rickshaw told us right away that he would take us to a govt-tourist info center but we were adamant and told him to take us to the train station instead.  Again, he seemed to be getting upset and told us we had to purchase our tickets via said info center as (he claimed) they did not sell tickets to foreigners at the train station.  Again, we told him to take us to the train station.  As we drove along he tried to pull over two different times at different info centers but each time we told him to take us to the train station.  We got within a half block and both Annie and I saw the sign to the train station but he stopped and tried to pull into the government ticket reservation center.  We told him to drop us off at the station again and now he was getting mad because he kept saying over and over again that we could not purchase tickets at the station.  It’s kind of funny, because if someone tells you something over and over again, you tend to start believing what they are saying and pretty soon you feel the belt holding your pants up, loosening, and then suddenly you find your butt exposed while someone tells you to just shut up and bend over and take it (I know this is crass but so is traveling in foreign countries and it really is how you feel).

We tightened our belts and told the rickshaw driver to pull over as we were getting out to go to the train station.  We paid him his fare, which was about 80 cents and then made our way to purchase our own tickets.  I mentioned before in South East Asia how getting through some of these places is like the scene from “Airplane” where the captain of the plane is making his way through the airport corridor and is being accosted by the followers of Hair-Krishna; he judo-chops them and sends them through a window; then he is accosted by Buddhist monks and he karate-kicks them in the groin and flips them through the air; next, the Salvation Army lady and some girl scouts hold up their tin cans for money and they meet the same fate… that is how you feel in these places.

The moment we got to the train station several “pant removal specialists” tried to convince us that we could not buy tickets at the station and proceeded to try and take us to a separate area where we could buy our tickets.  We got in line (or as everyone in the rest of the world calls them “Queues”; think letter Q with an S attached) and were told to go upstairs to purchase tickets for foreigners.  One of the guys following us in told us that he would show us the way and instead of going upstairs, he tried to lead us away from the station.  We turned around and made for the stairs.  There was a sign as we headed up that said, “If someone tries to tell you that you cannot purchase tickets at the train station or that we are closed for any reason, they are lying to you… pull your pants up and get your @$$ upstairs (I of course added the last bit).

We got our tickets and you know what they cost round trip?  $4 a ticket to Agra/Taj Mahal .  At the government info centers they wanted $130 total, or $65 a piece for the same ticket.   I couldn’t believe we saved so much money and managed to be nice to everyone we met in the process.  Now it was off to tour one of the largest cities in the world…