Return to Delhi: 2012

Return to Delhi

At 1pm, we leave Wymondham on the sweaty airport bus, arrive 5ish at Heathrow 4, eat a modest meal and are already seated on the Air India 777 an hour before departure at 9.30. During the night, S sneaks unobserved into business class to stretch out & I manage a brief doze. First call at IG airport is to replace the lost mobile and SIM (see Nov 15 2011) with an Indian cheapie. The latter involves copious form filling (eg. name of spouse and father's full name), proof of hotel booking, 5 signatures and 2 passport photos (but only modest amounts of cash).

The fast metro line is closed, so we opt for a pre-paid taxi (R. 350) as S is all but dead on her feet, arriving at the old, dustily familiar Surya Plaza Hotel 30 or so minutes later. Our arrival causes some consternation. We are clearly not expected; nor is our explicitly booked balcony room available. I refuse to accept any of the alternatives - windowless black holes in the bowels of the building - so am taken to inspect a couple of other hotels nearby. The first, almost opposite, I reject on account of its single circular bed (and grey sheets). It is unlikely either of us would sleep sharing a 6 ft diameter round padded slab! The second, The Star View, is back on Main Bazaar Road - no balcony, but big double-glazed windows with a commanding view of the action in the street below. Star views it has not. It is a windless day and Delhi is enveloped in a grey miasma of smog so that, even now at 1pm, it seems like dusk. (For anyone who understands, the nitrogen dioxide level is 66 mg. per cu.m.)

Smoggy view from our bedroom window.

I agree to take the Star, so it's back to Surya Plaza to collect the luggage. And Sara, who has fallen so soundly asleep on the reception sofa that I have to vigorously shake her shoulders until she starts awake. Hotel staff watch this spectacle with obvious alarm, no doubt fearing the police interrogations that surely follow when "memsahibs" of a certain age mysteriously "pass away" within minutes of arriving on Indian hotel premises. But all is well. S is soon loaded back into the same taxi and deposited at The Star View, where she sleeps for some hours.

The Star is moderately well-appointed, clean and with comfortable chairs. The bathroom, predictably, has 1. no loo paper (a dirty habit no self-respecting Indian encourages) and 2. the usual bare electrical wires hanging from the wall above the basin. We are well-prepared for 1. This must make us "travellers" rather than tourists. By one definition, a tourist is someone who expects toilet paper to be provided while travellers take their own (squashed flat with the cardboard cylinder removed). The "room boy" is eager to offer his services as a gofa and thus goes for beer and water at inflated prices then hangs back requesting (just in case I might forget) "baksheesh". Eat - inevitably - at the Khosla Cafe, just a few doors down, where the waiter seems to recognise me. Delicious banana lassi (yoghurt drink), eggy rice with sloppy spinach paneer and an attempt at a Spanish omelette flattened as if trodden on by the cook. Which perhaps he has. Tonight is American election night, but our room TV won't work. Four years ago, when Obama was first elected, I watched the results come in through the night on Tanzanian TV.