The (Mis)Adventures in India... Pt. 1

I previously posted an entry about a negative aspect while vacationing in India, so now I think I'll take a different angle and share the funny and interesting stories that occurred to my friends and me. They might not necessarily be that funny (and maybe even caused me some stress that piled on top of each other... along with the being an interpreter issue... which eventually caused me to lose my cool at some points in my trip)... but these are stories worth sharing regardless. Maybe people will learn from my experience in India, thus being better prepared than my friends and I were. If anything... I'll find them funny at some point in my life... heh heh...

1-
Nothing really sets the tone of your vacation like having trouble straight out of the airport. Booking a hostel from online is always an issue for me. Yeah, it's cheap and convenient... but it has that mysterious factor of you not knowing what you're getting yourself into.

As mentioned on the site (hostelworld.com - a website I actually strongly do recommend for finding cheap places to stay around the world), I asked about free airport pick-up. India being infamous for foreigners getting ripped off and/or cheated, especially when it comes to transportation (whether it's a taxi, Tuk-Tuk, rickshaw, bus, train... etc.)... I wanted to avoid all issues with taxis... especially upon arriving at midnight after a full day of travel.

I emailed the hostel and they confirmed that we could be picked up at that time and gave me a location to wait at. Well, when we arrived and showed up at the rendezvous point... wouldn't you know it, nobody was present.

... well, not nobody... there was this shady man standing there. He immediately started asking if we needed a ride somewhere and slowly but surely, nudged us towards a car. I repeatedly told him it was okay since we were waiting for a pick-up. He realized... as we had... that nobody was there to pick us up. He asked us where we wanted to go... and I said I didn't know (which was actually the truth... I didn't know the hostel's name nor address).

I then remembered that I had print-screened the email from my iPhone... so I had a telephone number. The man then pulled out his phone and "dialed" the number... no reply. He "dialed" again... no reply. He then asked if he could take us... and we said there was another number. He "dialed" this number and somebody replied. He spoke in Hindi before giving me the phone. The dude told me that we had no reservation listed and needed to find another place...

... what?!?

Confused... I found my other friends and told him how shady the situation was. We decided to try calling again... ourselves... but there were no telephones in sight. We approached a guard at the exit of the airport and I asked him where the phones were... and he said inside. Before we could even ask, he then said that once we exited, we couldn't enter again...

Well, that's awesome. We then tried looking for an "unshady" looking person to lend us their cell, and came across a nice lady. She gave us her phone and we dialed, thus actually talking to the hostel. He said that they hadn't received any calls and he immediately asked if we were the four coming from Japan. YES! This is legit!

A big relief comes to me and he tells us that he couldn't contact his driver and that he might've fallen asleep. He told us to the take a black and yellow taxi... that those were safe and that he'd compensate us the 350 rupees it would cost us.

We hung up... and made our way to find the yellow and black taxi.

2-
The next misadventure is actually a separate one, yet kind of a continuation of where misadventure 1 left off.

So yellow and black taxi is what we needed to look for. What comes to mind... NYC-like taxis. Well, needless to say, we didn't see anything like that around. We thanked the girl, and went in search for this sacred, "trustworthy" cab. Of course, a wave of shady people washed over us as we looked.

"Where are you going?"
"I'll take you!"
"Need a driver."

"No no... no... no no no... NO DAMMIT!"

We finally found a group of BLACK and YELLOW cabs... and figured that was the best we had. Two guys approached us again and we asked if that was the right cabs. He said yes, and began leading us away from the group of cabs.

Uh... wait a sec...

He started making small talk... but we were obviously very hesitant. We told him again that we wanted a yellow and black cab... and he said it was coming. We asked him how much and he said only 300 rupees. Seeing that we were still hesitant... he reaffirmed that it was okay and we could trust him. We nodded and figured it was for the best... especially since we were tired and just wanted to shower and sleep already.

A cab pulled up, and we realized he got us a bigger one since there were 4 of us. We checked again that we were only to pay 300, and the driver agreed. Relieved we got in and began to relax.

Fast forward 20 minutes and it seems as if we'd be arriving at the hostel any minute. We show him the hostel's address from the picture I took earlier, but the driver seemed confused. He went to an officer to ask... and returned to tell us that the address was incomplete. We were missing the specific location of the hostel... so we only knew that it was somewhere nearby. He then also told us that the officer said some roads close at night since it wasn't safe at night to get there... so we might not be able to go to our hostel.

Truth or lie... we didn't know...

The driver drove around a bit more and finally stopped at a travel agent where we could get help. Being the English speaker of the group, I went in, by myself... with the driver to speak to the travel agent. Unlike the guy at the airport... he seemed trustworthy.

He called the hostel and said there was no answer... he tried the other number and then said it was a wrong number...

... what?!? I just talked to them like half an hour ago... or did I?

At this point... I didn't know who to trust anymore.

The travel agent called again and said he reached the first number after all... the dude must've been sleeping. He said something in Hindi, before passing the phone to me.

I started telling him that we need the rest of the address... but then a grumpy person replied telling me that there was no vacancy. No rooms were available and we had to go somewhere else.

No... we have a reservation... I just talked to you and you told us to come. Well... I was actually a bit unsure since the airport was loud and I couldn't hear the guy perfectly... but, I began thinking it might be a different person.

The grumpy dude just kept saying no no... and I told him we had a reservation and had already paid a deposit and were to get our rooms. Grumps kept being a jerkface... so the travel agent kindly offered to talk to him. He said some things in Hindi... before hanging up.

The man then repeated what Grumps had said... and upon seeing my face... he comforted me by saying he'd tell the driver to drive around for a bit more to find the hostel... and if he failed, he'd take us to a safe place to stay. I agreed... so he spoke more Hindi to the driver (which I thought weird since our driver spoke English and should've understood what he just said).

The driver looked disappointed... but agreed. Was he disappointed cause he'd have to look for the place... or cause the agent told him something he didn't want to do? I'll never know.

All I know is... that within 10 minutes and a little luck... we found our hostel... the sign shining brightly... beckoning and welcoming us in.

We paid the 300 rupees and thanked the driver... which he replied to with...

"Now you give me a good tip since I did a good job..."

Uh... at that point... I couldn't care less. We were at the hostel and had nothing but 100 bills and up... so we gave him 200 rupees not knowing if that was actually too much.

We walked in... and a man standing at the desk asked with a smile... "You four are from Japan, right? I've been waiting for you."

Huh? But you told us there was no room.

Turns out the only call we actually made to the hostel was the one when the lady lent us her phone and we, OURSELVES, dialed the number.  The other calls were all fake calls that people tend to do.  They call this specific number and tell them the situation in Hindi, then pass the phone to the unsuspecting tourist who goes along with the person willing to help them and claiming the previous reservations were shady and unreal... even though this person "helping" you is actually the one cheating you.

Lesson learned: Dial numbers by yourself.

Suspicions I Began Having: I did not trust a person who, when we asked them a question, checked with someone in Hindi, before replying to us in English.

Edit: I hope people don't interpret that comment to mean I actually think Hindi is a language of distrust.  I meant it in the sense that when we were talking to two Indians who knew we only spoke English and who were speaking to us in English to begin with... but, then spoke to each other in Hindi when we asked something before answering us... I distrusted that.  Since we didn't understand... they were capable of working out a scam on the spot... without us realizing.  This seemed the case many times... as confirmed by our Indian driver.  He told us to always ask him things we wanted to know before and not in front of other Indians, since they'd then speak Hindi to him or get mad at him for not going along with their lie and not being "patriotic" and helping them to scam us.

These are things that played in throughout the trip... but what matters was that we were at our hostel... a welcoming and trusting man checking us in... no hassle, no problems.

Such a nice dude.

We pooped, we showered, we slept. End of Part 1 of The (Mis)Adventures in India... hopefully you readers have learned a thing or two... heh heh... stay tuned for Part 2 in the near future!