Taxis: the world’s most annoying travel experience.

We arrived in the capital, New Delhi, by train, ending up in the backpacker district of Pahaganj. A bit like its Thai counterpart, Bangkok’s Koh San Road, but less friendly, with fewer bars to meet people in, and more chance of being groped by the market stall owners as you wander back to your hostel. I hated it. More than anything I hated the autorickshaw taxi drivers who refused to put their meters on, and rarely went anywhere for less than twice the usual price. Taxi drivers are normally the most irritating feature of city travel, wherever you go in the world; many times I have stood in a London street after dark screaming at an incompetent, lost, taxi driver, whose English is virtually nonexistent, asking me for two pounds over the normal fare. Delhi is no better. Taxi drivers there drove us so mad that Jonny began telling them he was a member of the Delhi Tourism Office and that they were running a campaign to find un-metered and illegal autorickshaws, terrifying the drivers by taking mug shots with his digital camera and saying they were on his list.

After one particularly fruitless journey of being driven around looking for a shopping mall and ending up in yet another handicraft emporium, we found ourselves lost and surrounded by dozens of rickshaw drivers baying at our heels (“yes sir”, “hundred rupees sir”, “where you going sir”, “good price good price…”). Away from the crowd another rickshaw pulled up at the side of the road and the driver, smartly dressed in a grey workers suit and large blue turban, asked us where we were going: “Paliker Bazaar” we said. “I’m going that way anyway”, he replied in excellent English, “no charge, just hop in”.

It turned out the driver, Sindram, was in his 50s, loved the British, and had a sister working in Wimbledon branch of Barclay’s Bank. Oh the joys of a small world moment. We poured our problems out to our new found friend: we had only a few hours left to try and find some clothes to wear for a wedding in Cape Town which we were due to fly to the following week. We were only in Delhi for two days, then off to the Pushkar Camel Fair in Rajasthan before returning to catch our flight. Sindrum shook his head, “Paliker Bazaar is where you go for electronics. Indians get their clothes made by a good tailor! If you want some nice material, I can show you where to go and then you get them made for very cheap! Very cheap tailors in India!” As we headed towards the first shop, Sindram explained his code for ‘too expensive’ would be ‘very good price’ and for a good price was ‘so-so’, so he could help us and stop the shop owners from ripping us off.

By the time dusk fell, we had been to three separate silk shops, culminating in a boutique sari house where I was like a kid in a sweetshop and bought a ream of the most beautiful material I’d seen to date. Sindram deposited us outside a number of excellent tailors in Connaught Place and after another hour we had been measured up, picked our styles and promised they’d be ready in time.





Job done – and how! The following week Jonny picked up an exceedingly natty lightweight raw silk suit and I a beautiful blue and orange dress with matching scarf. With Indian accessories to match, our rough and ready traveller look was left

behind as we arrived at Lucy and Neil’s extremely stylish wedding in the shadow of Table Mountain. We had had the best shopping experience in India – made possible by the best rickshaw driver in India. Needless to say, Sindram got an extremely good tip!

You have been Puja-ed!

And so to the sights and smells of India, whose land border we crossed at Sunauli en route to Varanasi, India’s holiest city, where we would spend Divali – the festival of Light and India’s answer to Christmas. The border was the usual mix of food sellers, money changers and shady characters. This time, unusually, the scams came not from officials looking for ‘baksheesh’ (bribes) but from a bunch of aggressive, thoroughly nasty fake bus workers, who were extorting money out of tourists (including us) who had prepaid for their bus tickets on the Nepali side of the border. We stood our ground – having been in this situation a few times before – but after an almighty row, in which we threatened to call the police, and they threatened to throw us off the bus (100m from the armed guards at the border post), we gave a third man half the money they were asking for to make the problem (and the men) go away. A small victory we felt, although I did wonder if this was to be the start of a long round of the annoying scams and rip offs for which Indian travel is so infamous. Arriving at Varanasi bus station late at night, after a bone-rattlingly uncomfortable 12 hour journey, we braced ourselves for an onslaught of rickshaw drivers, who are notorious for taking you to any hotel other than the one you want to go to. Much to our surprise and delight, the few rickshaw wallahs at the station not only took us, no questions asked, straight to where we asked, but did so at a reasonable price and with a friendly smile. First impression of Varanasi – very good!

We had heard of the Shiva Ganga guesthouse through friends, who described it as the kind of place which makes Varanasi easy – a retreat from the madness of India’s number one craziest place. It’s basic, clean and cheap but with a garden and beautiful setting right on the edge of Shiva Ghat, where the steps lead down to the River Ganges some distance from the old town. More than anything, it was one of the friendliest places we’d stayed in months, with a collection of different people who reflected much of the spiritual tourism that attracts people to Varanasi.

We met up with our friends, Caroline (English) and Affe (Dutch) who had booked us a room for the night. Caroline was on her second journey of spiritual enlightenment, inexorably drawn to Buddhism and on her way to Bodhgaya for a huge gathering of pilgrims before heading to an Ashram in Tamil Nadu. Other guests included Tim, a wonderful and ever so slightly camp Canadian Yoga teacher with a charisma which draws people of all nationalities together; Laina and Al, who we felt we gelled with in our essentially cynical, but nonetheless open minded, shared sense of normality; and Roddi, a blissed out Iranian Hindu convert who told us in all sincerity that we’d be fine in Varanasi because ‘you’ve got the 12 here, and they’ll look out for you’, referring to the full compliment of Hindu gods which look over the city; and because ‘God runs through the centre of town’, referring to the river Ganges – also known as the Universal Mother, and which is worshipped as a Goddess fallen from heaven. Unfortunately, the 12 couldn’t help Roddi when he stepped in a cow pat from one of the thousands of cows which roam all over Varanasi, and landed flat on his back with his white tunic covered in shit.

For two rather unspiritual types like us, Varanasi was a strange balancing act. We tried hard to put our usual attitudes on hold and surrender to Varanasi’s fantastic atmosphere (“feel the energy, man!”) as something to be cherished and enjoyed; but also to pre-empt that sinking feeling as yet another special ‘karma cleansing’ moment – such as Puja (prayer) offerings to the Ganges, in the form of lit candles sent downriver - ended in a request for money or donations, preferably in Euros, US Dollars or Pound Sterling. Even a simple guided tour of the fascinating burning ghats, where Hindus are cremated to ensure their safe passage to heaven, ended in a demand for money to safe guard not only our karma but also that of our next of kin (preferably including parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins and those who have already passed on to the next world...). In India, becoming 'spiritually cleansed', is like doing the supermarket shopping for the whole family.

Despite this, the lights and excitement of Divali were an awesome spectacle. The ancient town was like a warzone, albeit lit up with fairy lights, and after a few days of bangers and rockets being fired everywhere, had a strangely smoky, dreamlike quality. On our last day in Varanasi, we happened across a fantastic carnival, which amazingly no other tourist seem to have discovered, and spent the afternoon in mutual amazement as we stood and gazed at the spectacle of Varanasi’s citizens in full party swing, and they in turn gazed at us simply for joining them.