11/28/14
New Delhi, India
Here I am, at long last arrived, the furthest I have ever been from home,
finally able to Officially mark off India as the 45th country I have
visited, yet, sitting in this hotel room, smoking my cigar and writing this
entry, it feels no different from any hotel room anywhere else in the
world. That said, over the past 3-4
hours since I got off the plane, I have been subjected to a thorough culture
shock, perhaps one to rival any that I have ever experienced. Even before I cleared Customs, I knew
something was different. I was prepared
for the ubsequious service of the workers, but I was not prepared for the
attitudes of the common citizens. It is
land with no concept of personal space, and that is something that, excluding
crowded train cars, is something I have not experienced in the previous 44
countries that I visited.
The flight was
unadventurous, and it passed quickly enough.
I was unable to sleep when we took off, a combination of having only
woken up 11 hours past, a massive headache from the alcohol I had at the
Thanksgiving feast, and the stress that is all too familiar to me as I embark
on an ambitious trip such as this one.
There are so many things that can go wrong, and, as I took off, I
realized one of them. I hadn’t arranged
for a car yet to take me around tomorrow.
My plan was to have the hotel take care of it, but I would not be
getting to the hotel until 10 PM, and I would need the car at 7:30 AM the next
morning. Would they be able to arrange
that? Would I just have to hail a taxi
and ask him if I could shuttle me around for 12 hours. It would be the equivalent of hailing a cab
on 42nd Street and asking him if he could take you Boston for the
day, and, while he’s at it, take you to Springfield and Vermont. It was poorly planned, and it did not help my
stress levels.
I decided instead to
watch a movie. I watched the original
Odd Couple movie, and, once I heard the familiar theme music, all my stresses
washed away. I fell asleep halfway
through the movie, sleeping fitfully for the next 10 hours or so. I knew that I would be facing another dilemma. When I got to my hotel in Delhi, it would be
10 PM, and, if I had slept the whole plane ride, I would not be able to get to
sleep at a decent hour. I also knew that
I would be incredibly bored if I did not sleep.
The other issue was that they were serving breakfast before we
landed. All I had eaten in the past 36
hours had been the Thanksgiving feast.
If the hotel restaurants were closed when I arrived, I would be
effed. My next chance to eat would be
breakfast on Saturday. On the other
hand, if I ate the breakfast on the plane, I would risk not being hungry for my
first Official meal in India when I got there.
In the end, I chose to both eat and sleep, and I was both hungry and
tired when I arrived, so it worked out.
I watched the rest of the movie after I woke up, and we soon
landed.
After I cleared Immigration,
there was a Duty Free on arrival, and they had cigars. Jackpot!
I had brought enough cigars with me for each WHS, but I really wanted to
have a Cigar of the Trip. I walked into
the shop, and I was immediately accosted by a worker who asked what I
wanted. I told him cigars, and he pointed
me to the display that I had earlier seen.
I suppose that is considered helpful service, but, to me, it was
overbearing and unnecessary. I found a
nice box of Partagas, even if they were a little small. The prices there were cheaper even than in
Andorra, so I stocked up, but I was informed that I could only purchase 25 per
passport. Okay, the box of Partagas was
25, and that would be the Cigar of the Trip.
I went to check out, and I handed him my passport, boarding pass, and
debit card. Declined. WTF?
There was enough money in that account to easily buy 20 of those boxes
of cigars, and I had called Citibank before I left to tell them I would be in
India. I tried my credit card. Declined.
That was annoying. I asked if
there was an ATM. The ATM was on the
other side of Customs, which meant that I could not come back to buy the
cigars. I called Citibank, but the
reception was very bad. I could hear the
agent perfectly clearly, but they could not hear me. I walked around until I found a spot where
she could hear me clearly.
Eventually,
after 15 minutes of verifying transactions and proving that it was indeed me,
they removed the block on my account.
What was the point of me calling ahead of time if they were going to do
a fraud hold anyway? It worked, and I
bought my box of cigars. My next stop
was the ATM to get enough rupees to last me for the weekend.
I then saw some tour guide stands. I walked up to one of them and told him my
itinerary for the next 48 hours and asked for a quote. The number he provided was shockingly low, so
I gladly accepted. For the whole weekend,
including airport transfers, it was a fifth of the price of my tour guide that
took my from Abu Dhabi to Muscat in one day.
It was actually almost exactly the same as I spent on taxis during our
time in Jamaica, but the total time and distance travelled would be far greater
for this trip. The weather on my phone
said that it was smoky out.
As soon as I
stepped outside of the airport, I finally realized that I was in India. I also instantly knew what they meant by smoky. The smoke was literally burning my eyes, my
nose, even my teeth. I quickly got in
the cab, and he took me to my hotel. As
we drove, I thought to myself that I had never been anywhere like this before,
but then I remembered I had been. A year
ago this weekend, I went to Iran, and the pollution and commotion and
congestion was just as bad in Tehran as it was here in Delhi. The driver dropped me off at the hotel and
told me someone would pick me up at 7:30 AM the next morning.
Once again, I was greeted by ubsequious
staff, and I was shown to my room. I
just wanted to settle in, take my first Official U in India, have my first
Official meal in India with chopsticks, and smoke my first Official cigar in
India. I could do all three of them
without leaving my hotel, and that was exactly what I did. The room did have one boon: American-style
electrical outlets. I had only brought one
adapter, so this simplified things greatly.
I changed into my pajamas, fitting since pajamas were supposedly
invented here, and headed down to the India restaurant, armed with only my cell
phone, my room key, and two pairs of chopsticks. It was a very fancy restaurant, but the
waiters did not give my attire so much as a questioning glance. I ordered chicken tandoori, as close to a
national dish of India as exists, a lamb dish, naan, and a Kingfisher
beer.
The food took a while to come out,
so I overindulged on these chips that they served with some kind of mango
jelly. The beer was great, the chicken
amazing, the naan excellent, and the lamb dish too spicy. The menu had seemed very overpriced, and when
he brought the food I realized way.
Everything was portions for two people, and I had ordered two
dishes. The chicken tandoori on its own
would have been plenty, and I was unable to eat the spicy lamb dish. Needless to say, I did not get much use out
my chopsticks, instead eating the naan and chicken with my hands.
Reader, there are few times in my life when I
need a cigar, plenty of times when I want a cigar. After that spicy meal, I needed a cigar, so I
headed up to the room, put a towel around the smoke detector, lit up my
Partagas, and proceeded to write this entry.
I finished the cigar halfway through the entry, due to its small size
and decided to light up a second one, figuring that I was on vacation and that
this was the Official Cigar of the Trip.
I actually almost done with the second cigar, and I will now close so
that I can publish this, upload some photos, and get some sleep before my car
picks me up the morning.
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