Footsteps in India

While this post has nothing to do with my work in Tanzania, in a way it does. I write it now because I deem it appropriate with regard to some related events. And that brings me to mention that dodgy people are dodgy people and I recognize them by their body language and character rather than what race they may belong to. Old Suleman who guided us on our spice tour in Zanzibar is a good example - he looked decidedly dodgy, but treated us very well. Physiognomy is a myth.
I had wanted to visit India since as a child I read a book called 'The Man-eating Leopard of Rudruaprayag' (if my spelling is correct) but I also enjoyed the colourful folk disembarking from the Mumbai plane while I sat at Nairobi Airport. Daily the Indian women in Arusha dressed in their traditional clothing which added to the vibrancy of the town.
My sewing fundi (tailor) often visited Mumbai on business and he told me about the city. He was the guy who sewed my colourful trousers! Well it was respectful for me to wear trousers rather than shorts and he made my trousers out of a nice light fabric - usually printed by his wife. I'm not such a colourful character myself, but my trousers sure were! Last time I was in Arusha, I found that my fundi had died, but his wife carries on at the shop selling crafts as well as her printed/dyed fabrics.
Before starting on the Footsteps in India thing, there is something else to add., which may explain our reactions. We were full of emotion leaving Tanzania because of our many farewells and in fact it was a little harrowing. Our Field Rep did not make things any easier - so our spirits were at a lower ebb.

We travelled to Nairobi Airport on Riverside Shuttles and boarded the plane bound for Mumbai, India. My friend the sewing fundi had given me the name and address of a hotel that he recommended because he had been there many times before 'to do business'.
It was sometime after 3:00 am when we had passed through immigration and collected our luggage so we were exhausted and our guard was down.
We passed into an area where there were guys sitting in booths, calling to us to arrange accommodation or a taxi or wheedle money from us . I think we were the only Europeans on the flight certainly we saw no others.
There was an amount of clamor among the booth-guys wanting to book us into expensive hotels - of course they would expect a gratuity from the hotel.
However none of the booth-guys knew of the hotel the sewing fundi had recommended. No such place they all told me!
This put me on my back foot!

There is a point when you have to make a judgment and I decided on one particular fellow to begin negotiations about where we should stay. Of course he wanted to send us to an expensive hotel but I suggested that he moderate the price and I suggest a rate that was perhaps three star and more aligned with our purse. He told us to go with a guy who would take us to our taxi and I guessed he already rang the hotel.
The taxi driver was asleep in his cab - uncomfortably, because it was such a dinky wee car! I'm not sure how we fitted into it with our bags (and my sticks - I had been given walking sticks and staffs as farewell gifts). We putted around dark Mumbai in that little taxi - there was barely a light to be seen and I lost track of direction completely the driver could have taken us wherever he liked and whatever roundabout route he chose!

I can't remember the name of the hotel, but we arrived there safely and the man at the night desk opened the register - the biggest I have ever seen! Closed it was almost a metre wide! He opened it with a flourish and asked for our details, filling in the book as we spoke - we did not need to sign it.
No sooner were we in our room when there was a knock on the door. Our taxi driver had found my diary! I had inadvertently left it on the rear seat - it was valueless to him but very valuable to me so I rewarded him. I remain grateful.

The hotel was perhaps three star and I am aware you get what you pay for - but we did not pay for the pubic hairs in our bed -- or the stink! Luckily we carried sleeping bag lines with us so we climbed into those and slept well.
The morning revealed that we looked out onto a railway line - 4, 5, 6 busy lines - we had not heard any trains so of course they did not worry us - it was an interesting spectacle for us.
I picked up the phone hoping to order some breakfast but the phone was dead/out of use, so I pressed an unmarked button on the wall, not knowing what would happen but the response was absolutely instant - there was a knock on our door. The guy must have been standing outside waiting all the time! The food was prompt and good!

We hired a guy with a car (maybe a taxi) to take us to see the sights of Mumbai and the next day he took us to the rail station to book our journey to New Deli.
He showed where we should go to book our trip and settled to wait for us.

I have no idea which station this was - not far from the hotel, maybe 5 minutes in the taxi. But it was obviously a terminus as trains came to the station and left from it.
There were lines of people at the booking office windows, and there were many windows but we had no idea which queue we should enter. There was clear signage 'Do not use touts!' and sure enough, we were approached by a couple. They asked where we wanted to go and were vague about which window was for New Deli. They impressed upon us the long waiting time involved in the queue! They laughed when I pointed to the signs warning us against them.
They told us that if they purchased our ticket, the all up cost would be USD100 each, so again I made that judgment call and handed over the USD200 and watched them boldly go to the front of the queue!
We waited against the back wall and watched them closely - ready to run after them if they made a dash - but they didn't and soon they were back with our papery tickets.

Next day the train was to depart at 4:30 pm but we were at the station ready to go by about 2:00 - we'd had enough of the dodgy hotel. The station was vibrant and people came and went. Watching people is interesting and we certainly saw some sights!
Our two touts and another, lanky one hovered around and seemed to be watching us. We were also aware of another, smartly dressed man (dressed in western clothes) watching us, or at least furtively glancing at us from time to time. As we sat there, I looked at the ticket but I could not see the words 'New Deli' written anywhere. This concerned me a bit and I mentioned this to the touts as they passed by.
'No problem.' they said, 'just wait for the train.' The smartly dressed man looked on.
Still I was concerned and got up to head in the direction of an 'Information' window. The touts saw me and blocked my path, saying 'There is not problem.' Again the smartly dressed man took a casual interest.

Later, I saw the three touts talking to the smartly dressed man and took my chance to go to the 'Information' window. The guy there told me that it was a ticket to New Deli but it was not confirmed therefore no seat/compartment was allocated on the ticket. On the approach of the three touts who had seen me, the information man suddenly lost his knowledge of English.
I was politely ushered back to my seat where Mags remained minding our luggage.

I took advantage of the touts being out of sight and headed to the Assistant Station Master's office who was friendly and stood up ready to take me to the place where the tickets were confirmed. But the two touts turned up and spoke to him in Hindi and he too lost his knowledge of English!
All this made me edgy - just a tad.
The smartly dressed man passed and looked casually at us again.

The lanky tout passed us and went outside the station hall, and seeing that the other touts were occupied talking to someone, I went after him.
I quickly walked behind him, grabbed his arm and pushed it up his back - hard.
'You are going to show me how to confirm these tickets - now!' I told him.
I was unaware of anyone else around, my focus was on him, but I'm sure the area was crowded and all eyes were on me. He was surprised and simply said, 'Ok!'
He led me, still in my grip, to a free-standing computer monitor with a touch screen. The first I had ever seen because after living in Tanzania for five years I was not up with such technology.
He asked my name and he tapped in the ticket code number and I read on the screen that the tickets were confirmed and seats allocated - simple as that.
'You find your allocated compartment on the printed list at the entrance to the platforms. Don't tell the others I did this for you.' he said, then he added, 'That will be 600 rupees!'
'You must be joking,' I replied, 'here is 200 and think yourself very lucky.'
We did not see any of the touts again.

I waited watched for the station-person to pin up the list on a large notice board and sure enough he came along and pinned them up. I went to find out our seat/compartment number and sat with Mags to await the boarding time.
Just before we stood to join the queue  boarding the train, the smartly dressed man came to us. But he was dressed in traditional clothes, and now had a flowing beard (parted in the center). Without a word he stood not more than a metre from us, looked directly at us, with one arm pointed to the train and with the other politely waved us on our way!

What that was all about I have no idea! He was clean shaven when dressed in western clothes!
We have absolute certainty that this was the same man - but 'freaky' is the only word I have for the experience.

There is more:

We shared a compartment with a very nice elderly couple and we struck up a conversation - as you do.
The man, now retired, had been the Minister of Railways and he advised us to abandon our proposed train trip to Nepal and instead to catch a flight there. There had been bombings on trains heading north and he thought it was unsafe for us to continue by train. He advised there was wisdom in going to a good hotel in New Deli! He then said that he would find another compartment and leave us to ourselves, which we thought generous of him.
Only a couple of stations on, two men were ushered into our compartment by the guard - probably he was bribed.
These guys looked a bit dodgy to me and asked if they could drink alcohol in the compartment. I pointed to the sign banning it - so they drank up large in the corridor.
Later they changed into those traditional white 'long shirts' (not sure what they are called) then squatted on their bed to pray. I felt I could not trust them so kept awake with an eye on them the whole night - though I guessed the booze would induce sound sleep.

Alighting from the train in New Deli the next morning, we decided to take the advice of the kind man and go to a good hotel. We assumed that we could just take a taxi and get there without incident - ha!
You are supposed to go to a kiosk and buy a chit for your taxi, so along to the kiosk we went, lugging our gear The long queue was not moving, but we joined it anyway.
After some time, I went to the head of the line, curious to find why there was no movement, only to find that there was nobody inside the kiosk.
Some taxi drivers (perhaps they too were impatient) approached people in the line and some went off with them. I suggested to Mags that we just take a taxi.
'No!' was the firm reply, so the wait continued and again I went to the head of the queue to ask when the tellers were likely return. The answer was a shrug.
More people went off with taxi drivers so I again suggested we do the same but Mags was a bit stressed remembering the station incident and again she refused point blank.
We had lost over an hour and finally I spoke to a taxi driver who appeared to know some English. Mags finally reluctantly acquiesced.
There was a tout who suddenly appeared and wanted to take us to the Tourist Bureau so we could be advised about hotels in New Deli. He obviously wanted his whack!
I told him we had a hotel booked and did not need him but he grabbed my case to take it to the taxi. I swatted his hand away and told him again we did not need him - he was getting quite aggravated.
The taxi was an older model Morris Oxford and the driver didn't properly shut the boot with our cases in it. I made him lock our cases in there securely. We hopped in the back seat and the tout hopped in the front with the driver. He kept yakking on about taking us to the Tourist Bureau but I kept telling him that we were already booked in. In the end he stopped the taxi and got out leaving us to find our own way with the driver.
The taxi took us to one of the more modern hotels by the India Gate where we negotiated a good price for a room.

A guy with a tuktuk acted as our guide and took us around the sights of New Deli. It irritated me that he would not allow us to walk anywhere, insisting we ride only with him - but he was a good enough fellow. I asked him to take us to a travel agent, which he did.
It was a small office and we had to go upstairs where a woman there attended to our request for a flight to Kathmandu, but this guy kept coming into the poky small office and looking at our details. I kept physically pushing him out of the office and shutting the door, but he always returned! In the end, I asked the woman if she could tell the guy to go away.
'Oh, he works for me.' she replied.
The woman said she would need a photocopy of our passports and told me that this guy would take me 'around the corner' to get the copies done.
I put our passports down my shirt and we set off but the photocopy place had a problem with their copier, so down this dingy, narrow alley we went. First rule - don't go down dodgy allies! This one was dodgy and I thought should there be a problem, this guy was unlikely to fight on my behalf! Nothing happened.
We had our tickets and the tuktuk guy took us to see Mother Theresa's hospital and where the dead were cremated beside the river.
This guy came up to Mags, and she chatted to him about the things we were seeing - I warned her several times not to talk to him, but she said that it was 'just harmless chatting',   she still saw no harm in talking. Then he suggested we follow him  down an alley to see the cremation close up - I firmly told Mags we were not going down there and that it could be dangerous. At last she saw my point. She saw it again when he asked her for money as he had been acting acted as her guide! She flatly refused but I paid him something and he finally went off more than just a little disgruntled.

Lastly, we woke early to be ready for the arranged taxi to take us to the airport. Ready to go I went to open the hotel room door but the handle didn't work! The lock or fitting had somehow jammed or someone had sabotaged it!
We were seven stories up and the windows didn't open, so I checked if I could dismantle the bed to use the parts to smash down the door! It looked feasible.
The phone actually worked so I rang  reception to ask them to send  someone to  free us!
Finally there was a knock at the door and someone freed us!
Mags by this time was really nervy and had had enough of India!

I picked up a newspaper in the foyer at the Kathmandu Hotel in Nepal and the headline stood out:
2000 westerners annually go missing without trace in India.