3 weeks backpacking India: transition day in Delhi

After my turbulent travel by train from Mumbai and going around in Delhi to buy a new phone, I reached my hotel in the evening.

Hotel was quite shitty, but for the price which I paid, it isn’t fair to rant too much.

The night in the hotel

That evening I was quite busy, I had set up the minimum things that I needed in my phone; email accounts, Google maps, downloading ticket trains, etc.

The hassle to losing my phone wasn’t only for the value of the devise, I lost a few pictures and videos which I didn’t have the change to upload to the cloud besides the Indian SIM card which was a pain in the ass to get it and to get it back a new one, with all the services which I had paid, I had to wait 3 days and I wasn’t going to be in Delhi again until 6 days later so at the end the SIM card only was going to be useful for the last week of the travel.

The SIM card had to provide me an Internet connection to easily walk in the cities, find the places and the way to reach them, search information but most important thing which I could not replace for any offline medium was the access to my email and online tickets.

So part of that night I had to download every possible thing that I’d need, tickets, hotel bookings and off-line maps; moreover I had to check how to go to the Spanish embassy in the morning, to report the issue and how to return back to the hotel to take my luggage and go the train station, where my train was going to departure to Agra.

One day transition in Delhi

Before I had my train to Agra around 17:35h, as I commented above, I went to the embassy on foot because I wanted to take advantage and those parts of Delhi that which were on my way.

I did it and I’m proud; I could visit a few places besides to report the issue to the embassy and stretched my legs after 25 hours stuck in a train.

Train to Agra

My journey from Delhi to Agra was 5 hours and half, I bought a ticket in AC Chair class.

The train it was supposed to departure at 17.35h but it was delayed until 18:45h, hence I was stuck in the station for almost 2 hours; locals had told me that delays happen frequently, in India, so I wasn’t surprised and I think that it had to happen to achieve the goal to have a real Indian experience.

The problem wasn’t to have to wait in the station, it was that I would get in Agra by 23:20h, then it was going to have a more unpleasant time to walk from the station to the hotel.

Reaching the hotel in Agra

When I arrived to the station you can imagine what happened, it was full of rickshaws and tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) approaching me, in very tiring way, to get me to my hotel or whatever hotel which they may have commission.

I tried to avoid them, the hotel was supposed to be not far, so I could walk even though they are quite cheap for Western people; in Agra, as I had read, people push a lot of more to sell or hire services than any other place in India, but I had got used and dealing with them and ignoring them had become easier.

To reach the hotel was a nightmare, the Google Map point was wrong and it was close, it was in other street connected by a road; I was walking around the place for half an hour that without success; I wanted to call them, but my UK line didn’t have signal.

The streets and roads were full of rickshaws and tuck-tuck(s) which were still approaching me constantly but none of them seemed to understand the name of the hotel until one of them seemed to have understood me and offered to carry me for less than the minimum rate, so I surrendered to the deal.

At the beginning of the journey, I thought that he didn’t know because we were moving far away very fast through the main road. After several meters he took a street and I started to ask him several times “are you sure? that you know where it is”, he always replied “yes” and yes, he knew it as he stopped just in front of the hotel.

It was 1.15h, I got in the hotel after 30 minutes filling forms and I wanted to check internet to reply some message that I may have received but the staff told me that there was Wi-Fi in the rooms and only upstairs, even though they mentioned on Internet they had the service. Therefore I took a shower and went to bed straightaway.

Conclusions

Rickshaws can be useful to bring you to the place, you have to insist a lot where the place is and if you know that it’s close, don’t trust in them if they tell you that it’s far; if it’s close and they want to carry you, negotiate a fix price below the minimum rate so you will make sure that he knows where the place is as they don’t want to have a long journey for less money than the minimum rate.

One thing that I had learnt at that time, in India always negotiate hard.

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