|
It had been fourteen years since I last visited India. Monika
wanted to go to India, especially to meet our family, so I started
planning
for it. I assumed tickets wouldn’t be too expensive but the rates had
gone up quite a bit and the lowest tickets now available are close to
$1400 a piece. I had received a low quote from a Timesindia travel
website and had received 3 or 4 calls a day from them,
until I convinced them that I had not finalized the dates I would
travel and so I couldn’t buy the tickets at that point.
Inefficient and
Incompetent Indian Business: When I
finally knew the dates we would be traveling, I emailed them and got
many calls including one saying that they could not give me the low
rate quoted earlier. Interestingly, I had sent them my info saying I
wanted two tickets (one for me and one for Monika) and they had sent me
two emails quoting $1370. I thought “Great!” only $685 each! However,
when I called them back, I realized that they had sent two emails each
quoting the price of $1370 for each of the passengers!
The man at the end of the phone who went by the name
of Kunwar (they do not give out their last names - but are idiotic
enough to sometimes email you using their own office email account
which has their last name in it); he first told me that he could get me
the tickets for $1380 and told me to hold. He came back and said he
can’t get me tickets for that but maybe for $5 more. He again told me
to wait and finally said the total price would be $1390 each. I agreed
to that and gave him my credit card info.
I got several calls back, confirming I was buying
the tickets and a couple of emails. I then got a call from a Rohit Dass
(yes, I got his last name from his email - he wouldn’t divulge his last
name when asked) who appeared to be a ‘supervisor’ calling to confirm
what his ‘associate’ Kunwar had sold me. I said “Yes, I have bought the
two tickets.” He then said I had to send him a ‘credit card
authorization form’ which he enclosed in an email. I filled it out and
authorized $2780 (1390 times 2).
The next day I got a call from Rohit again, who told
me that they were going to charge me $2852 - I told him “I have not
authorized that”. He then told me that they would charge me the $2852
but refund me $72 in 2 weeks. I told him to send me an email saying
this otherwise I wouldn’t let him charge more.
This was the biggest mistake I made - I had the
hardest time dealing with these idiots, including their bosses (anyone
I could find the name of), their customer care and complaint desks who
all end up doing ... nothing!
After 4 weeks of waiting for my refund, I sent
emails and followed up with phone calls - I asked for Rohit as he had
been the one who had sent me an email saying that I would get my refund
in 2 weeks. When I talked to him, he said my money will be refunded
‘this week’.
I asked him, “How?”
He said, “We will wire it in your account.”
I said, “What account?”
He said, “Your bank account.”
“You mean my Visa account?”
“No your bank account.”
“But you don’t have my bank information! How would
you do that?”
“Yes, yes, please give me your routing number and
account number.”
I had bought the tickets in mid August, the above
exchange took place in mid September. After that I kept calling every
week and talking to either Rohit or his boss Kanchan Yadav (yes same
old story with the last name) or her boss Smrity Sarin. And every week
they told me either that I will have my money ‘today’ or ‘this week’
and to call back if I didn’t get it by ‘Monday’.
At one point I called my bank (credit union) and
asked them why a wire transfer was not coming through to my account and
they told me that if it is from a foreign bank then they need to use
three sets of numbers instead of two (this only applies to credit
unions apparently) and I sent this information to the Timesindia people
also. And yet, nothing happened.
We left for India on November 5th . I had told my
nephew
about these idiots and he had a friend who worked in Times of India
Mumbai office, who told one of his counter parts in New Delhi to call
my nephew - it was Smrity Sarin who was still as incompetent and
useless as ever. I and my nephew talked to her three or four times and
I sent her the same information again and again. I even told her to
just send me a check in rupees (Indian currency) to my sister’s home in
New Delhi. I eventually told my nephew that I was getting very angry
and annoyed with these idiots and didn’t want to talk to them again.
We came back to Denver on December 12th and a few
days
later my nephew emailed that they had received a check in dollars at
New Delhi and that they will send it to me. I told them to deposit it
in their account but they told me that they can’t do it - the Indian
banks wouldn’t allow this. So, I am still waiting for the check to
arrive here after which I will send back a check for the same amount to
my brother-in-law. I had paid him for all the train tickets, car rental
and hotels he had booked for me, but had not paid him the balance of
$72, hoping that he could cash my check.
Never, ever deal with Times India Travel; if you do,
never pay them a penny extra and never trust any of their employees -
they are absolutely incompetent. Their word means zilch. They are
dishonest and absolute liars from one employee to the next.
.....
We flew into Amsterdam via Minneapolis on November
5th. We had a five and a half hours wait. It was terrible, because it
was early
morning and the time change was already affecting us. The planes from
Minneapolis and from Amsterdam were packed - it was not very
comfortable but we made it pretty much on time to New Delhi.
A crooked Indian: We Monika did some
shopping the
next day (our first day in India) and we went to a restaurant for
lunch. The food was very good and Monika left the restaurant “to do
some shopping”. She came back with two toothbrushes. (I had forgotten
our toothbrush charger in Denver.) When I asked her how much she paid -
she had basically given the man a 500 rupee note and he gave her back
340 charging her 160 for the 40 rupee purchase - basically he pocketed
100 rupees when giving her the change.
.....
We went sightseeing (and shopping) the next day and
went to the Quatab Minar and the Lotus Temple. Traffic in New Delhi is
absolutely horrible - I have not seen it this bad ever - every time I
go there, I keep thinking it can’t get any worse, but it does! We went
to see the sound-and-light show at the Red Fort in the evening, but
there is unbelievable congestion all over the city and especially near
the Red Fort area - the nearest parking was a mile or more away - we
didn’t want to walk in the pollution, dirt, garbage and traffic, so we
decided to come back without watching the show. It was Diwali the next
day and my brother Vijay, his wife Anita, son Anshal and my other
nephew, Anuj, were all in Delhi and we had a fun time lighting the
candles and watching the fireworks.
The next day the rental car for our Rajasthan
trip arrived (with a driver) and we packed in and left for Rajasthan.
My nephew Anuj sat in the front, my sister Sudha and brother-in-law
Prakash and I, sat in the second row of seats and Monika in the third
row with
half the seat full of our baggage. Most of the Indian cars and SUVs
have little or no trunk space, so almost always, you need to put your
stuff on the top of the car and tie it down. We were not carrying much
and we made do this way. Earlier in the morning when we were leaving,
my brother and his family also left and took three (out of our four)
suitcases with them to Chandigarh.
We stopped at Amer Fort and had to hassle with
people that have jeeps that they want you to hire to go the next mile
to the fort. Our driver had stopped there saying, “This is how far the
car would go.” This sounded strange to Prakash and my nephew, who made
enquiries and found that we could take our car up to the fort. So we
drove up to the entrance and walked in after buying the entry tickets.
The fort is also called ‘Amber Fort’ and is stated to be very pretty
with gardens and a lake, etc.; but it was under renovation and there
were no gardens or lake. It gets a ‘zero’ in my opinion.
We got to the city of Jaipur and decided to go to
the Jaipur Palace (or City Palace). It’s quite nice and has a lot of
clothes, weapons and other memorabilia on display in the palace. The
fee for foreigners is higher than that for Indians and they hassled us
to buy the higher priced ticket for Monika. There is also an additional
charge for carrying a camera; these people sure know how to nickel and
dime the tourists for every cent. There is an observatory Jantar Mantar
next to the palace and we walked to it. It’s not very big and we
decided not to pay the entrance fee and just saw it from outside. We
drove and saw the Hawa Mahal and took a few pictures. The Hawa Mahal is
basically a facade and nothing more. Jaipur is over-rated and deserves
only one star.
We drove to our hotel and spent the
night there. The next morning we took off for Udaipur. On the way we
stopped by at Pushkar. Pushkar is a lake and a holy site for Hindus. It
is said to have been formed when gods released a swan with a lotus in
its beak and the swan let the lotus fall on earth where Brahma would
perform a grand yagna. The place where the lotus fell is called Pushkar.
Religious con men:
Pushkar, as many other places in
India, is full of con men. First there are people that tell you that
you can’t drive your car to the site (as at Amer fort) then they say
they will take you there for a fee and then of course you can drive
your car because they are with you. The con doesn’t end there. The
religious men in Pushkar are all frauds; they con you saying you can
throw some flowers in the lake for eleven rupees. When you take the
plate with the flowers and go to throw it in the lake, other religious
men stop you saying that you have to perform a prayer for the dead and
living of your family before you can do this and of course then they
want you to pay anywhere from 50,000 rupees for each of the temples
there (there are 52 temples - so that would be $70,000) to as low as
100 rupees ($3)! The lake is green with filth (it’s stagnant water) and
some people bathe there and some people pray while others steal from
the tourists including from Indian tourists. No one is spared in this
religious land of the gods!
Lies, lies
and more lies: There is a Brahma
temple next to Pushkar Lake, and we saw that, too. The guides and the
holy men in Pushkar say that this is the only temple to Brahma but
searching the Internet reveals that “The common assumption of there
being only one temple to Brahma is untrue. There are at least four
major temples to him still in use today. They are at Pushkar in Ajmer,
Rajasthan; Dudhai in the state of Madhya Pradesh; Khed Brahma in
Kerala; and Kodakkal in the Malabar region of Kerala-Karnataka.” There
are actually two other temples to Brahma - one in Goa and one in
Combodia.
It was getting very late (about 1.00 in the
afternoon) and we had not had any breakfast. So, we ate at a restaurant
near the temple. This may have been the beginning of our stomach and
other problems - thanks to the holy site of Pushkar and the creator God
Brahma! Monika also did some shopping and among other things she bought
some copper and brass bracelets for her hypochondriac friends who want
these to cure their arthritis! (I got one too!) Ah yes, Pushkar and
Brahma temple are over-rated and get a zero rating.
.....
We then drove to Chittorgarh. There’s an ancient
fort mostly in ruins and two towers, a victory tower Vijay Stambh and a
tower of fame Kirti Stambh. The fort is associated with Padmini, a
queen who was famous for her beauty.
The story - around 1303 when she was the queen and
what’s his face was the king. No one ever remembers his name - so I had
to dig it off the Internet also - his name was Ratansen. The muslim
king of Delhi, Allah-ud-din Khilji, heard about the queen’s
beauty and wanted to see her - the king let him see the queen’s
reflection in a mirror. On his way to his camp (outside the fort)
Allah-ud-din kidnapped the king and demanded that he be given Padmini
in
return for his release. He was told that the queen is coming and
several soldiers hiding in palanquins rescued the king. Allh-ud-din
then laid a siege to the fort and after several months, when their
supplies were running out and there was no hope left, the women of the
fort performed Jauhar in which a large pyre was lit and the women
jumped on the pyre committing suicide. The men then raced out of the
fort and attacked the Mughal army. All the soldiers from the fort were
killed and of course when the Mughal king and his men, elated to be
soon ravishing the women of the fort entered - they found just
ashes.
The fort is huge and has many buildings, most of
which are in ruins. Another thing that I should mention, a lot of these
forts and palaces have a large number of steps going up and down to
different parts of the palace or fort and it becomes very tiring to
just see one palace. We learned to not go up all the steps to each and
every part of the fort/palace that we visited and yes once you have
seen one fort or palace you have seen them all. They all seem to be
similar in architecture and content. I give this fort a two mostly for
the history associated with it, and if you want to see a nice fort,
this
is pretty good.
.....
From there we drove to Udaipur. We had a hassle with
our driver again. He said that the car can not go to the hotel, that we
need to hire an auto (a three wheel taxi) or a rickshaw to get to our
hotel. Anuj called the hotel and was told that we should be able
to drive to the entrance of the hotel without too much problem. The
streets of Udaipur (especially the old city) are very narrow and
congested with cycles, rickshaws, camels, elephants, cars, autos,
trucks, buses and heaps of garbage every where.
We got to our hotel and liked it. The name of the
hotel is Mewar Haveli. The rooms are small but clean and I liked it the
most of all the hotels we stayed in. It’s beautifully decorated and has
a rooftop restaurant with the view of the Pichola lake. The Pichola
lake has the Lake Palace (now a hotel) and is surrounded by the city
Palace, temples and family mansions. The view from the rooftop
restaurant was fantastic and it was great to sit there and eat our food.
Food - yikes! By now Monika and I had a bad case of
diarrhea and were eating just toast or rice, lentils and yogurt. We
would take an anti-diarrhea pill and increase the dose if it didn’t
help. Every couple days we would feel better and then we would eat some
of the normal food and get sick again. It got really bad in
Khajuraho, but that comes later.
We had reached Udaipur late in the evening and had
dinner and hit the sack. The next day we started with a visit to
Monsoon Palace located on a hill nearby. It has a nice view of the city
and mountains but the palace itself is not impressive, though I
understand that the James Bond movie Octopussy was filmed here (maybe
30 seconds of it). In the city of Udaipur they have several restaurants
where they show Octopussy every nigh as part of their claim to fame!
So, you can have your dinner and watch the movie.
We then went to the Maharana Pratap Memorial. It is
a memorial to one of the fiercest warriors to fight the Mughal
(Muslims). Monika saw couple of camels outside and sat on one of them
and I took some pictures. The guy wanted her to take a ride but she was
too scared. There was a museum there with paintings of Rajput men and
women with interesting stories attached to them.
There is a painting of Padmini
performing Jauhar (suicide
to preserve her honor).
A painting of Maharana Sangram Singh
(Sanga) who was the
greatest Mewar warrior and lost an arm, a leg and an eye in his many
battles. One of my good friends was named after him and died in an
accident on my scooter. Another friend of mine Manku, who was driving
that scooter at the time of the accident, survived with a broken leg
and other injuries. My sister told me that I do not remember the facts
as it was I who broke my leg in that accident. When I tried to tell her
that I was not even on the scooter when the accident happened, she
said, “You may not remember it but you were very lucky to survive with
just a broken leg!” She was not pulling my leg, just breaking it.
There were two paintings of Panna
Dhai - Dhai is Hindi for wet nurse; she was a wet nurse for
prince Udai
Singh who was the target of assassination by his uncle Banbeer. When he
went to kill him to ascend to the throne by killing the last surviving
heir; Panna replaced the prince with her own son. Banbeer killed the
wet nurse’s son thinking it was the prince. Panna hid the prince in a
basket and carried him out of the palace to safety.
There was another
painting depicting a king tell the prince
(his
son) to honorably return the ladies of the house of Ajmer whom he had
captured in the jungle and to ask for the governor’s pardon.
I enjoyed seeing all these along with the replica of
Haldighati.
The battle of Haldighati has
gone down in Indian history as
one which showcased the great valor of the Rajput troops led by
Rana Pratap. The result was indecisive, but the battle was truly
symbolic of the raw courage, spirit of sacrifice, and loyalty of the
Rajputs in their heroic defense of their motherland. (Hey! Some of this
stuff I have copied and pasted from the Internet - These are not all my
words.)
From there, we went to Sahelion Ki Bari (The Garden
of Friends). It has a fountain with a statue of a princess and a nice
garden.
Indian Assholes!
We then went to see the City Palace
and encountered the worst mannered crowd of Indians. After buying the
tickets, we entered the main entrance and saw a few things. The palace
is very big and has a lot of courtyards, rooms and artifacts on
display. You are supposed to move from one area to another (one way
only) till you finish, but the people were pushing and shoving so badly
that there was no time to see anything. We just wanted to get out. We
had to ask a guard how to get out and he told us that every door that
says ‘no entry’ will take us back to the last court yard and so we went
back three courtyards to make it to the outside.
We learned to never ever get into a crowded area
like that again - it may be the most beautiful and awesome sight but
most Indians have no self respect and no concept of personal space. For
them it’s normal to be touching or pushing someone. I even had an
argument with a guy who kept pushing his stomach into my back, until I
stuck my elbow for him to push his stomach on.
We took a boat trip of the Pichola lake - Pichola
means ‘back’, as I deducted form my recollection of Bhojpuri - the
guide
in the boat confirmed it much to Prakash’s surprise. It was
getting dark and the lights on the different monuments and hotels being
reflected in the lake were very pretty. We had heard about a cultural
program that’s held nightly near the hotel. So, we went there. There
was some singing followed by several dances. It was the best! These
were local artists, doing local, traditional dances and doing them very
well. We enjoyed the colorful outfits and great dances that included
dancing with water jugs on their heads, lit lanterns on their heads
among other traditional Rajasthani dances.
I liked Udaipur the most because of the lake and the
view from our hotel. There are several hotels and restaurants that have
a view of the lake. My advice; do not go anywhere else in Rajasthan -
just go to Udaipur for three to five days and enjoy the scenery and go
visit
the forts and palaces if you want, but enjoy the ambience of the city.
Do take a trip around the lake during daytime and in the evening, if
possible, for the night lights; go to the cultural program one night
and
maybe watch Octopussy another night while drinking chilled Kingfisher
beer - not child beer!
Child beer:
Monika and I had been taking many
pictures (I carried an extra memory card) and some of them were of
shops with the name ‘Monika’ in them. A lot of Indians try to translate
and write in English to attract foreign tourists. There was a sign for
“English liquor store” in Hindi and then right under it additional
information in English “Child Beer”. There was another sign saying
‘Chief and Best’ instead of ‘Cheap and Best’. When we got back to Delhi
there was an article about the poor English signage in India and yes
they had the picture of a similar sign in the article.
The next day we went to Ranakpur and visited a 15th
century Surya temple (sun temple). As my sister entered the temple, she
put her hand on the threshold and put it on her head as a common
gesture
done by people entering a holy site. Monika was following behind her
and she did exactly that and in the same motion she crossed herself! I
almost
fell down laughing.
Right next to the Surya temple is a modern Jain
temple - Adishwar Temple. It has fine sculpture work and statues - no
photography is allowed and one can not go inside in shorts. Anuj,
Monika and I were in shorts, so we decided not to bother. But my sister
said that the temple is very pretty so Anuj and I put on our jeans and
went in. Interestingly the temple has a unique practice of shouting the
names of people and the amounts they are donating to the temple! It’s
started by the main priest and I think it’s relayed by others so that
everyone in the nearby area can hear about the great religious
endowments of the people, or perhaps, it's repeated loudly to get
through
the ears of the deaf gods!
We then drove to Jaiselmer in the Rajasthan desert.
We got there at night and stayed at another nice hotel, Hotel
Moonlight, that Anuj had found on the Internet. We talked to the
Australian owner and her Indian husband - another con man. He told us
about this beautiful sand dune camel ride with great food and fantastic
song and dance show for only Rs 500 per person (or did he say Rs 800?).
We didn’t commit to it, deciding to make other enquiries. Later we
found out that the shows and food are not really very good (unless you
do get lucky and find that one genuine person who has the good stuff)
and that many people pay as little as Rs 100 per person for the
mediocre food and show. The next morning we went to the Jaiselmer fort
-
which is basically an old fort inside which many people live. It has a
lot of restaurants and shops, The streets are narrow and slippery when
wet, but you get nice views from some points and it was interesting to
walk through it. We avoided the rush by going early at 7 A. M..
However no restaurants were open for breakfast. We found one outside
the fort, where it took forever to get our food - Monika and I ate the
standard chow - Toast with no butter.
Vultures: We
walked to a Haveli - a mansion -
Salam Singh Ki Haveli. It was built without water (or mortar or cement
or mud) using interlocking mechanisms within stones as well as ‘Lego’
type joints. Walking up and down the hard steps made my feet hurt.
Thankfully this was the last stop before lunch and so we had a good
lunch. In the evening we went to the ‘Sam’ sand dunes and were swarmed
by vendors. (A Canadian girl in Khajuraho described the vendors and
beggars in India as “vultures”. She said that even when she wants to
see and buy something; because of this vulture-type behavior of the
shop owners, she doesn’t even go in the shops). The vendors were
showing pictures of fancy dances and nice areas where dinner and
entertainment are provided after sunset. Anuj chose one for around Rs
300 a piece. Monika and Prakash got on a camel and as soon as the camel
got up, Monika started screaming but she seemed okay after a few steps,
so we walked to where they were going. They went about ten minutes into
the sand dunes and stopped. We sat there and watched some musicians
with one dancer performing as every one waited for the sunset. Monika
danced with a little girl dressed in Rajasthani dance clothes. We
watched the sunset and Anuj rode back on the camel.
Corrupt policemen: We
found our vendor and he was
going to get on his motorcycle to lead us to his ‘show area’ when
several policemen started banging on our car saying that this man is a
fraud and may rob or hurt us. Anuj doesn’t trust cops either and the
man told him that the cops are trying to get ‘more extortion’ money
from him since they know that he makes a lot of money from each
tourist. We decided to take him in our car and we went to the area
where his tent was. Our driver got very scared and said, “I am not
responsible for your safety if you leave the car.” As if he ever
was!
Another con man: The
area was clean but not very
nice and the sound system was extremely poor. When the entertainment
began - it was the lone dancer with the musicians who was performing on
the sand dunes earlier. The pamphlet Anuj had been shown was of several
dancers and lavish area, not this. He told the guy we don’t like this
and we left within a few minutes. Jaiselmer is also over-rated. The
sand
dunes are ordinary and the sunset was okay but nothing fantastic. In my
opinion it gets 2 stars and can be skipped from one’s itinerary.
Next day we drove to Jodhpur. We saw the Umaid
Bhawan palace built in the 20th century. It is very beautiful, three
fourths of it is a hotel and the museum part is what one can see -
there is also a small part where the royal heirs still live. This was
very nice and probably the best fort we liked (but it’s modern rather
than ancient). From there we drove to Mehrangarh fort built in the 16th
century. We were too tired to do much sight seeing and walked around a
little bit, Anuj went up and down and saw the whole fort. It’s also
quite nice but then we had seen too many forts by now. Jodhpur is
another stop that can be nice especially if you can stay at the Jodhpur
(Umaid Bhawan) Palace hotel (rates start from about $800 a night; oy
ve!)
We didn’t check into that hotel but instead went to
the Jaswant Thada (marble cenotaph). It’s nice. Next day we drove to
Ajmer and stopped by to visit Dargah Khwaja Sahib. We walked in to the
area but it was extremely crowded so we got out. Prakash went and saw
the tomb. We then got in the car and drove all the way back to New
Delhi, abandoning the original plan of spending another night in
Jaipur.
I would have agreed to another night in Udaipur but not Jaipur.
.....
We spent one day in Delhi and then caught an early
train to Agra. A taxi was waiting for us. Well not really. We had been
told that there will be a man with our name on a card waiting to pick
us up. However there was no one who had our name on a card. There were
many taxi drivers pestering us like ‘vultures’ even when I told them
our car is coming. I told Monika that we need to allow at least another
15 or 20 minutes for the car after which I was planning to negotiate
with one of the taxis there for a full day rental. My sister had given
me her cell phone to carry and I got a call. It was the car person
calling on the phone. He said, “I am looking for you.”
I said, “We are standing outside the train station
where people with names on cards are, but I do not see you.”
He then said, “I am right in front of the station.”
I said, “I do not see any one with my name.”
He then said, “Wave and I will wave back.”
I then saw a man waving and I signaled to him to
come over. He was not carrying a card. He walked us over to a car in
which a driver and another man was sitting in the front. We said
hellos and I told them to go to Taj Mahal first and that we will go to
the hotel later.
That was a good move. The train arrives around 8.00
or so in the morning, the check in times in the hotels are around noon
and all the tourist places start getting crowded around 9.30 or 10.
We got to the Taj Mahal in 10 or 15minutes and when
I went to buy our tickets, the man insisted that I have to pay the
‘foreigner’ fee also. So, I ended up buying two tickets for Rs 1500
instead of one for Rs 20 (for Indians) and one for Rs 750 (for
foreigners). We walked around the Taj Mahal taking pictures and we also
went inside to see the tombs (they let you see the tombs on top, not
the real ones in the basement). Taj Mahal is very pretty from outside,
there really isn’t much inside. By around 9.30 it was already getting
crowded and we left by 10.
Another crook: We
went to our hotel but our room
wasn’t ready. Monika needed to use the bathroom. I talked to the hotel
manager and told him that the car is dirty (the car had been arranged
through the hotel) and I do not want a guide (that’s what the other guy
in the car seemed to be - I had already told him that we don’t need nor
want a guide, that I will not pay you). They manager said not to worry
and the ‘guide’ said he is going to get another car. He didn’t get
another car but instead said we will pick it up on our way. He didn’t
leave, he stayed with the car.
We drove to Itmad - Ud - Daula which is also known
as ‘Baby Taj Mahal’. It is quite nice but rather small and in pretty
bad shape - neglected and somewhat dilapidated. We changed cars for a
cleaner car and drove to Fatehpur Sikri - a fort that I had seen
several years earlier and really liked. It was now full of dirt, dust,
garbage and vultures ... er vendors.
We went back to the hotel and the ‘guide’ said, “How
did you like my work?”
I said, “It’s okay.”
He expected to be paid. I didn’t pay him. His
accent was so very bad that Monika didn’t understand him and I also
didn’t understand him sometimes. He never got out of the car to
accompany us into the monuments - he just talked about them in the car
when we would be on our way - a fake guide if one at all.
The next morning I asked the manager if I had to pay
him for the car or the car driver. He said, “No, you pay here in the
hotel.”
I paid him Rupees 1300 the amount agreed upon for
the day trip and drop off to the train station.
He said, “No it’s 1600.”
I told him, “We had agreed to 1300.”
He said, “No, it was 1300 for sight seeing and 300
for the drop off.”
I said, “No, it was 1000 for sight seeing and 300
for the drop off.”
He said, “But 1000 is for non-air conditioned car,
1300 for air-conditioned car.”
I told him, “What you are doing is dishonest and I
don’t like it.”
He insisted, so I felt I didn’t have much choice but
to pay him. Damn crooked Indian! Agra is good to visit for the Taj
Mahal. They have an old fort but we had seen many forts and were farted
out er... forted out.
.....
Another crooked
policeman: We took the train to
Jhansi and waited for our car again. Yes, there were vultures around us
again. Our driver arrived a few minutes later with a piece of paper
with my name in his hands. He took our baggage to the car and a
policeman stopped him. He argued with the cop and then he reluctantly
paid him some money! He told us that he gets hassled by cops every time
he comes to pickup a customer and has to pay extortion money.
The road to hell or from hell: After about half an
hour of a fairly good drive the road changed. It became a one lane road
(it’s called National Highway 75). Any time a car or bus or cart came
from the other direction - the driver’s played chicken - at the last
moment one had to get off the road and on to the dirt shoulders,
sometimes both had half their car on the road and half the car on the
dirt. Even when no other traffic was charging at us, the road was full
of potholes and very uneven. This three hour ride to Khajuraho killed
our already weak stomachs and bodies.
We ate some ‘sick’ food. I ate some rice, lentils
and yogurt and Monika ate some toast without butter. We took a nap and
then went to see the sound and light show at the Khajuraho temples. It
was pretty bad. It was very cold out there and they had some one
talking about the history of the temples with now and then a little
noise of a war party or something like that. The lighting was very weak
so you couldn’t really take any pictures and there were no actors in
this show making it pretty bad.
The next day, we went to visit the temples and by
this time I had argued with the hotel manager about not having a guide
and having a guide; not included in our package price according to him
and then him backtracking and saying it was included in the package
when I told him, “Good, we don’t want one any way.”
It turns out that you do need a guide in Khajuraho
because the temples are quite large and are basically made with stones
placed on top of each other. Each stone is about a foot high, about
three feet wide and probably another two or three feet deep. (Some
stones have different dimensions depending on if they are corner stones
or larger stones depicting a grander scene of life.) You see the side
of these stones that is about a foot by three feet. They are carved
intricately and are very beautiful, but as you can imagine, these
stones are laid on top of each other from the bottom of the temple to
the top of the temple, so you can see a few that are eye-level but
anything beyond that looks like the same carving of people, animals,
war scenes, gods or goddesses, etc.
This is where the guides come in - they carry a
mirror and will shine lights on individual carvings and describe the
carving along with its story (some funny, some just interesting). They
will point out things like - here in this carving you can see a woman
putting on make-up; here a woman is writing a letter and she is happy,
so she must be writing to her lover; here one is writing a letter but
is sad; here is a king and queen having sex while their teachers and
attendants are guiding and helping them. It is then that you can see
the differences between one carving and another. There are 600 or more
carvings on each of the temples and many of them are just
repetitions. There are several carvings depicting sexual
positions and the temples are also known as ‘the Sex Temples’. There
are many temples but if you see the two main ones - the rest are
basically just copies. Also, the interiors of the temples have old
deities (these are non-sanctified, non-functioning temples) and are
pointless to climb and check out, especially if you are sick and on
medication.
Every Indian is a
doctor: We had run out of our
anti-diarrhea medication and my nephew had bought us some Indian
equivalent which we were using at this time. That morning I talked to
my brother-in-law, who advised me to go to a chemist/medicine shop and
ask them. So, I did and the man looked at the pills I had and said,
“These are no good.”
He sold me some other pills and we took one each
before going to the temples. We came back and ate toast and some soup.
Monika was feeling quite sick and I was worried about her. We took a
nap and I woke up feeling dizzy and disoriented. I was almost losing
consciousness and felt very weak and unable to stand. The thought of
going back the next day in a car over the same road was very scary. At
this point I was even more scared for my own condition than I had been
for Monika.
I talked to my sister, who advised me to go see a
doctor and that they stay open till late (it was about 5 in the evening
and I thought they may all be closed). We asked the hotel receptionist
and then drove to the doctor’s clinic/shop. The shop was open but the
assistant said the doctor was gone for the day. We drove to another
shop. It was closed. I had spotted a red cross on our way to the other
shop and told the driver to turn towards that shopping strip. The
doctor was in. I explained to him and showed him the medicines we had
been taking. He examined me and told me that I had viral infection
along with diarrhea, intestinal inflamation and inflamation of the
liver. He examined Monika and said the same thing about her adding that
she also had inflamation of her kidneys! The examination consisted of
pressing parts of our stomach and asking if it hurt or not, and
listening to our chests using a stethoscope. He then proceeded to sell
medicines to us - three sets of medicines for me and three sets for
Monika. We had one in common - I think those were antibiotics and he
told me to take them for five days but Monika had to take them for ten
and
fifteen days. The doctor gave me his cell number but he didn’t know
English
and even though I wrote it in front of him he couldn’t catch the error
I made (Hindi numerals are different than English). He was not a
western doctor but an ayurvedic doctor; though he sold us western
medicines. When I tried to call him to clarify something, the number
was wrong.
We slept okay but woke up extremely weak. I then
talked to the manager about trying to get a plane out of there. The
first flight at 12.30 was full. The second flight was with Indian
Airlines. So we drove to their office and booked two tickets. Their
equipment wasn’t working and they couldn’t use my Visa card! We then
drove to an ATM and withdrew the money to pay the airline.
When we got back to Delhi, my sister’s friend, who
is a doctor talked to my sister and me on the phone and told us to stop
taking all medicines after five days and told me to replace one of the
medicines I had been taking with another one. It seemed strange but I
accepted what I was told. My brother called me and asked me if we were
coming the next day (our train tickets were already bought). I told
him, "I will know in the morning, I can’t tell you now."
We felt okay and were able to leave Delhi for
Chandigarh. We met family and friends and one of my nephews who teaches
dentistry wanted to look at the medicines we were taking. He then told
us that Monika should not take one of the medicines that she had been
prescribed.
A few days later I was still feeling some pain in my
stomach and my brother-in-law suggested that I repeat the four day
treatment of the stomach pain medicine. A few days later my sister
suggested that I should repeat the antibiotics again. By that time I
didn’t want or heed any more medical advise.
Too cold for
comfort: We arrived in a cold
Chandigarh. My brother’s house has trees and houses surrounding it and
gets very little sun. According to him, the winter season had arr8ved a
month earlier this year. The house was around 50 degrees throughout our
stay. Without central heating, it was just too uncomfortable for us to
stay. We used one of the heaters that they have; running it every
morning,
noon and night. One of those days even my nephew was feeling cold
and sat in the chair next to the heater for a while. The frustrating
thing is that even when I would be sitting next to the heater, it would
leave my feet and upper body cold as it doesn’t have enough power to
heat a large area unless left on for several hours.
Powerless India:
For some reason the electricity in
India is too weak. Whatever the component (amperes?) that gives
electricity the power to do things is lacking. When Monika plugged in
her hair dryer (I took a converter with me) the converter blew the fuse
in less than one second. I guess the hair dryer requires a lot of
amperes and the local power supply is lacking in this. Just like the
Indian broadband!
Broadband or
fraudband: My brother has broadband but
it’s so slow that I couldn’t even upload a page to my website. The size
of the page is 21.9 KB. It timed out before the page could be loaded. I
therefore abandoned my plan of showing my nephew how to work with the
pictures on his digital camera and how to create webpages and load them
(I had created a webspace for him on my website).
Crooked, fraudulent
and dangerous Dentist: Before
leaving for India I had asked my brother about the dentists and their
charges for crowns and was told that the best ones charge about $70 but
most charge about $50. Comparing this to our price of $750 a crown, I
had decided to get some crowns replaced there. That was also why I
chose five weeks for the trip. After two or three days and my brother
enquiring and finding a ‘good’ dentist, we went to his office. I had
already decided to ask for a teeth cleaning and then talk about crown
replacements. The dentist knew that since my brother had made the
appointment telling him all this.
The dentist, an old Sikh named Sethi, either had an
assistant or his wife working with him. He started examining my teeth
and talking to me. I had watched him wash his hands (but not scrub
them). He did not wear a glove while examining my teeth and told me
that I had three cavities that needed to be filled and Monika had four
cavities. His assistant didn’t use gloves either! He said they will do
it all including the cleaning, but they did not do any cleaning - I am
used to having each and every tooth cleaned and especially under the
gums (painful as it may be). The dentists didn’t clean our teeth nor
did they work under the gums. And to top it off, they placed
temporary fillings!
I think I was too weak and beaten up not to have
told this fraud to fuck off the minute he touched my mouth without
gloves. We did go back and had the fillings finished and no more. My
sister-in-law works at a dental school and her remark was, “That’s how
things work here.” My nephew that teaches dentistry wasn’t surprised by
this unhygienic and dangerous practice either. He even said that this
is how one of the dentists had contracted AIDS and passed it on to his
patients!
We did some sightseeing in Chandigarh but found the
places to be dirty, full of garbage and not kept clean and presentable.
The Rock Garden which I had liked previously had gathered dirt and
grime from years of neglect. Pinjore Gardens were okay to visit as was
the Pinewood in Barog (on the way to Simla). Monika enjoyed shopping
and we had parties for my birthday and my brother’s 60th birthday.
We took a van back to Delhi and then flew back on
December 12th. It took about five days to recover completely from the
time
change.
|
|