The Adventures of Jim & Rhonda

Well, as everyone we know who’d been there had told us….India is a completely different world! And we did NOT have an auspicious beginning.

We arrived in Delhi at 9pm and had to wait 1 1/2 hrs for our luggage. No kidding, the Delhi airport is a pithole, especially after coming from Bangkok’s new and lovely airport. We hadn’t expected it to be as nice but geez, ANY airport is nicer than Delhi! After finally getting our bags we had to walk out what appeared to be an emergency exit into an alley where hundreds of people were waiting or arrivals. Yep, it was 37 degrees out but the airport does not even have a place or people to wait inside! There were signs everywhere saying a “world class airport is coming soon” but gotta say, we’re dubious.

We got a prepaid taxi voucher and our driver immediately told us there was a problem with the address we’d printed off the web for our hotel. He said it only indicated the area of town, not the real address. So, we drove to the area and asked, no one had heard of it. Then, he suggested we go to a travel agency open 24hrs to call the hotel. We immediately sensed a scam but decided to go with it and see what happened.

I waited in the cab with our bags while Jim went in to call. Next thing I know he comes out saying the hotel has no reservation or us and no rooms (we booked through orbitz.com) Fearing the agency/ driver were just trying to get us to go to their hotel for commission I verified with Jim that he really was the one that called the hotel and yep, they really didn’t have us down.

He went back in the agency (it’s now around 11:30pm and freezing….literally!) and spent over an hour calling dozens of hotels looking or a room. He found one at a hotel that wanted $1000/night!!! Not a chance there. Finally, I went in too and we called the train station thinking we could just get a ticket for 6am to Agra or Jaipur and wait there. No go either, all trains were full or 5 days!

By now we were not happy campers. The agent then suggested another option. Since we were planning on traveling through Rajastan anyway, we could hire a car/driver and do their 2 week itinerary. It was a bit more than we wanted to pay and we weren’t too thrilled about making a decision like that at 1am with not many options, but it was all of the places we wanted to go and figured it might be nice to have a driver for the chaos that is India.

Next thing you know, at 2am, we’re speeding out of Delhi towards Mandawa, our first stop. Unfortunately, the car had no heat and Jim and I were still in shorts from the heat of Bangkok (where it had been 93 when we left) and, in spite of having hats, coats and gloves on, were absolutely freezing. It was the most uncomfortable 6hrs of our life.

At Mandawa things did not improve right away. The hotel was a heritage haver changed into a hotel and was lovely, but, alas…no heat. Being made of stone and cement the rooms held in the cold and we asked or more blankets and tried to get a couple hours of sleep while fully clothed and bundled in. Finally, at about 11:30am we decided it HAD to be warmer outside in the sun than it was in our room and ventured out. Sure enough, it was quite a lovely day. Cool, but pleasant. We had lunch and took a walking tour around town, enjoying the architecture. Mandawa is a town of around 20,000 which was really affected when an American owned manuacturing company pulled out after a divorce and it’s really struggling.

There were several people staying at the hotel and after a beer and the sunset they made us a fire in the courtyard before dinner. It proved to be another very cold night but at least we’d made it to India! And, as predicted, nothing turned out like we’d planned. We would find this typical in the weeks to come.

Sorry this is so delayed but promise..more soon! Cheers, Jim & Rhonda

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