The flight to Delhi was painless and I chatted with a guy named Veejay sitting beside me with his wife. He talked about his military career and his travels through the U.S. He seems to have been delighted with the people and the places and insisted that I share a taxi with him and his wife. When we exited the plane I collected my baggage and joined Veejay and his wife. We climbed into the taxi and sped through the dark streets of Delhi. We were dropped off at their hotel just beside the New Delhi Train Station. Veejay said, “so my friend, I hope you will be thinking fondly of India and Indians.” I laughed and said I certainly would and waved goodbye to both of them.
At the station I was disappointed to find that there were no trains to Bikaner (it was after twelve o’clock in the evening at this point). The man told me that trains left for Bikaner the following day, but from some other station. He wasn’t talking very clearly and I couldn’t hear the name of the station. I tried to get a room at the same hotel as Veejay, but found it was full. I hired a cycle rickshaw to take me to the area behind the hotel where there were supposedly many hotels. The rickshaw driver was a cripple who held a shriveled and useless left arm against his body. He was bow legged and didn’t really seem fit to cycle with anything at all on the back of his bike. He peddled awkwardly for some time and then dismounted and pushed the bike up the slight incline of a bridge spanning the train tracks. I wanted to hop off, but other cycles joined us and the drivers were also pushing their passengers along. When the incline became a decline, we sped along the road. It was lined on both sides with large neon signs advertising the names of hotels. Washed in the flickering reds, blues, and greens of fluorescent light, the area looked even seedier. The buildings were dirty, the streets lined with people and carts.
We pulled into an inauspicious looking side street and drove quickly along the narrow lane lined with dumpy hotels. We approached one hotel that looked no better than any other. They insisted on showing me the room before divulging the price. The run-down room was going for 800 Rs. I thanked them and left much to the dismay of the tout–who clearly got commission for bringing people to the place. He limped along behind me as I walked along looking at the hotels. He would follow me into the buildings and talk with the owners in Hindi. I wanted him to leave so the hotels would stop bumping up the price. One hotel had a sign advertising 400 Rs rooms. I looked at a very dumpy room inside and when I said I would take the room for 400, they laughed and said this was the deluxe room which would cost 650. This confirmed my suspicions.
I eventually found an extremely dumpy place called the Hotel Sudvidha Tourist Lodge. I checked in regardless of the shabby and tiny room. The man asked to keep my passport, and seeing instantly how this could turn out to be a very bad idea, refused. I settled into my room feeling sick to my stomach again for some reason. I brushed my teeth and was sitting on my bed looking at the peeling walls and the moldy ceiling. The dingy room spoke of desperation. Probably a place for the underbelly of Delhi–and for drug addicts. There was a pile of stinky dishes piled in the hallway outside my door. Sure enough, on cue, there was a knock on my door. One of the guys at the concierge struggled, in broken English, to sell me drugs of some kind.
I sprayed myself with bug spray–since the window screens were torn–and crawled gratefully into bed after covering the sheets with my towel and locking the damp bathroom door (for fear that otherwise some mutation of a terrible venereal disease would float from the scum-covered pipes and toilet and infect me as I slept.