track our trek

we arrived in delhi after 26 hours of travel from bangkok...(remember we had to backtrack to hong kong from bangkok to get back on track w/ our one world tickets...) so we left from bangkok at 7:00 am friday and flew to macau, then took the ferry to hong kong, then the subway to the bus to the hong kong airport, then flew into delhi at 2:30 am saturday...hooray for budget travel! our initial plan had been to sleep in the delhi airport until daylight like we did in thailand, but we opted for a prepaid taxi to our hotel since it offered 24 hour check-in. by the time we got thru immigration & found an atm to stock up on rupees, it was close to 4...so we climbed into the taxi & off we went...(after refusing to tip the young man who expected to paid for walking us from inside the airport outside to the taxi stand...) sigh...the adventure begins!  our sullen taxi driver pretended not to understand us the entire way & kept offering to take us to a hotel other than the one we'd booked. we kept insisting he take us to the hotel star paradise in the famous paraganj area of new delhi. once we arrived at the edge of paraganj (a crowded touristy bazaar by day) - he claimed cars were not allowed down the street to where our hotel was located, & refused to take us all the way there...but he still wanted a tip! you can be sure he didn't get one! so we climbed out and started down the dark street which was deserted except for a few very sketchy looking rickshaw drivers...we made it 30 yards before a couple of stray dogs ran out and started chasing a bicyclist! naturally, we turned on our heel and headed for the train station directly across the street from the entrance to paraganj...no problem...we'll just sit down at the train station until daylight...at the train station we were harassed by several people who insisted we were not allowed to loiter, in spite of the fact that there were at least 200 indian people sleeping on the ground inside the station! we finally convinced them to leave us alone by saying we were waiting for our indian friend to arrive and meet us by train. we were tired of waiting by 6 am & headed back towards the bazaar although it wasn't quite light yet... it was much better, as shop owners were starting to open up...we found our hotel, with a little help (never would have found it down a narrow alley way on our own) and were shown to our room...the manager told us to go up to the room & that he would call us to fill out the paperwork later...the place was an absolute pit, and after our 26 hours of travel, we (i) didn't have the stamina to stay there...we sat on the edge of the bed for 15 minutes, and decided to leave. the manager was very angry..."why didn't you tell me immediately if you didn't want to stay? now you've taken a rest & you want to leave for free!" welcome to delhi! it took us two more hours of walking around to find a hotel with vacancies that was acceptable & we wound up paying an exorbitant 1400 rupees ($30)...let me tell you...the standard of accommodations in india is extremely different from what we are used to at home! meanwhile, it was full light and we got our first dose of delhi in full swing! it was crowded and noisy and stinky...full of people and cars and cows and cow shit and stray dogs, and bicyclists, and rickshaws, and horse/ox-drawn carts, and pedestrians everywhere! and i do mean everywhere! we even had to maneuver around a cow on the front steps of one hotel!