SATURDAY APRIL 30, 2011
NEW DELHI, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA
Our Introduction to India was of the modern and new. The Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport was not a fair few minutes. Recently opened and I believe a legacy from the not so long ago Commonwealth Games. The calm, cool and organized soon turned to hot (40+c), chaotic and to a place were everything seemed to be in a state of, or need of repair.
Hyla hired a local taxi and we on our way into Delhi. Maybe it was reading too many guides or watching to many travel logs on India, but when I looked over at our driver he appeared almost monkeylike. A happy, smiling monkey taxi man driver. Tiny arms sticking out of a much too large shirt. A little head flicking side to side. Big eyes trying to catch all the chaos on the road. And at all times one hand on the wheel, one on the stick shift, one with cell phone, one stretched out the window checking if our roof luggage was still there and most importantly, one all times on the HORN. (The Horn - I shall write later on how I believe there are as many different applications of the horn as Inuit have names for snow). There was something about our monkey man driver that made me feel all right. We traveled half way around the world and were met with a smile.
Hasn’t everybody read all the travel schemes and swear that will never happen to me. Our invitation to the Indian tourism business was quick. It seems all taxi drivers must deliver their charges to their partner travel nook immediately upon entry to Delhi. To us it seemed he needed directions but to him it was to introduce us to the only travel agent in all of India that would save us from total vacation disaster.
Immediately we were told that the room we have booked would be total unacceptable for us good Canadians and he has the perfect place. Being the only travel agent in all of India he had the perfect room, bus, train, plane and most anything we would need till the minute we left the country or our VISA card. Which ever came first? After some tea we where on our way, happy to say with our wallets, with his driver to the Ivory Palace, what was promised as the greatest accommodation deal recommendation oversight of all the travel guides in history of the Maharashas.
It had all worked out without great loss to any body or soul. We all like to travel off the beaten path so why wouldn’t our hotel be the same. We ziged and zaged through a maze of alleys and laneways that no GPS would have brought us back to some recognizable point. We have come to see and experience history rarely seen on this planet. Why not start with a room that I’m sure has ten thousand stories all on it’s own, I’m sure not all one would want to hear. We had our room.
But now the where and what of the room didn’t seem to matter much. What was happening out of our window or down the hall wasn’t important. We for the first time in a long time were together. We again were a family.
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