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| Garlanded on the bus. |
I haven’t had time until now to update the blog, and even
now, it must be brief because I have to be up in less than eight hours for a
sunrise tour of the Taj Mahal.
Yes, that means I have moved on from Delhi to Agra.
Though I love being in India more than I can put into words,
I’m slowly coming to hate the tour experience. We are shepherded around the
city like sheep, going nonstop at monuments until we’re returned to the hotel
exhausted just before dusk. Or today, when our “oh, only six-hour!” drive from
Delhi to Agra took from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. There is no time to shop, no time to
walk around, no time to even seek out a restaurant other than the hotel’s
before the sun goes down.
And in both Delhi and Agra, as two young, foreign female
travelers, venturing outside in itself is a feat, and venturing out around dusk
or dark is downright terrifying. The way many of the men in Delhi leer openly
even during the day is enough to make one’s skin crawl.
So the tour’s stranglehold on our daylight hours has all but
choked the life from my trip so far.
It means I haven’t seen a film. It means I haven’t entered
any stores. It means our hotel was a 20-minute walk from Connaught Place but we
never made it there.
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| A view of India from a tour bus. |
It means I haven’t even had authentic Indian food in India.
(Unless you count some godawful deserted Rajasthani-themed tourist trap
restaurant the tour guide took us to in the middle of Haryana. Where the butter
chicken I shared with my sister was like half-assed tandoori chicken dumped in
pizza sauce.)
Yes, the hotel restaurants have Indian food — and yes, I’ve
had fresh mangoes and idli and dosas at complimentary breakfast — but when you’re
looking at a Rs. 1500 meal (yes, really), it seems easier to take the cheaper
items on the menu.
In case you haven’t caught on, yes, the hotels are
incredibly upscale. The Delhi hotel is probably the swankiest one I’ve ever
stayed at — anywhere, period — and even with the favorable exchange rate, I’d
never be able to afford staying there on my own. How a Groupon-bought tour
package includes it astounds me.
Even from the swanky hotels, there are the little things to
remind me that I am somewhere foreign. Going through bomb checks and metal
detectors every time we get to the hotel is strange. The power flicked off at
least a half dozen times a day in that swanky Delhi hotel. The waiters and I
had several frustrating miscommunications the first night at the hotel
restaurant. Each toilet I encounter flushes a different way.
Those things are frustrating at times, yes, but they are nothing
compared to the frustrations I have felt in being made to be an entirely dumb
American tourist in a country that I have long loved from afar.
