They say you will never forget your first night in India.
I met two fellow Vancouverites in line for the airport money exchange, Mark and Ian. They were meeting their friend Nadine, who has been in India for four months now. They invited my to follow them. She led us to a bus.
The bus took off for New Delhi, and dropped is at a corner where the four of us were attacked by about 20 pedicab drivers. The word 'confusion' doesn't really describe the following 10 minutes, perhaps 'mahem' is better.
We got on one bike, got off, got on another, the drivers were arguing with each other, and I was just folloing the others. Finnally, we wound up in two 3 wheeled scooter things, Ian and Nadine in one, and Mark and I in the other, with the understanding (we thought) that ours would follow theirs, I mean, after all, it was obvoius that the four of us were together.
Our two taxis shot off in different directions.
We were lost, me and Mark on our own. We didn't know the name of the hotel. We were just following Nadine. The taxi driver took us on a tour of the city, trying to get us to go to his "favourite" hotels. It took us a while, but we finnally convinced him to take us back to were we started.
We waited for 20 minutes and put up with taxi drivers trying to convince us they knew were we should go. We finnally gave in, and got on a pedicab, and just when we were leaving Nadine and Ian came down the street.
Everyone cheered and laughed. We cheered and laughed, Nadine and Ian cheered and laughed, and the taxidrivers cheered and laughed.
The ride to the hotel was amazing. One moment particularly stands out in my mind: Turning down into a dark lane, lit by beams of light from an oncoming car, silouetting a cow and people sleeping on the ground.
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