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!