On one of the mornings where PD was sleeping and recuperating, MT and I decided to take a lovely walk to Connaught Place. We just wanted to get some money changed, and maybe look at some trinkets to buy as souvenirs. So we did just that. We got our money changed, and a very nice guy helped us to an auto rickshaw. The auto-rickshaw driver was a gentleman named Vijay (pronounced vi-jay) Bhatti who was a merry fellow who took us to an emporium. There is video out there of me inside an Auto, worrying about my impeding and rapidly approaching death. Incidentally, I am happy to report that those fears were unfounded. An auto rickshaw as I described in a previous life is one of the more economical modes of suicide transport and this one lived up to that reputation.
Once we were done at the emporium, I asked the salesman, to direct us to Barakhamba Road as that is where our hotel was. The salesman while telling me that he was not used to reading a map then proceeded to "read" the map anyway and gave us "directions" based on what he thought the store was. According to the route he provided it appeared that we would be walking only a distance of about 20 minutes. MT and I were ready for another adventure so we decided to walk it.
However, once we stepped outside, we realized that Vijay had been waiting for us. He immediately flagged us down. He insisted that the directions that were given to us were wrong. In fact he swore by it. He even pulled out a map to show where we "actually" were. Finally, to humour him, I asked how much. He said "20 rupees". Now even I know a good deal when I see one. I called MT over, and we decided to hop into the rickshaw, and actually see how "far" it really was, and I was looking forward to cussing him out if it wasn't. Also this satisfied MT's pre-trip desire to do something idiotic at least twice.
Umm... As it turned out Vijay was right. It was a good 20 minutes of him sticking to main roads with narrow escapes on both ends to get us back to the hotel. Both MT and I were shocked. We got back to our room with our heads spinning.The shop keeper was wrong and the touty auto rickshaw driver was right. Had we been wrong about everything till now?
We soon decided that we might as well grab something to eat, so we headed downstairs to the hotel restaurant just to grab some quick bite to eat. It was over lunch that I thought about this. We do not know Delhi well at all. Which means that he could have taken 3 lefts in a row, gone around in a huge circle and then taken us to the hotel and then told us that we had traveled a huge distance. Either way, for 50 cents (for that is what he wanted), we thought he earned it by pulling a fast one. We just laughed it up to our naivety, and assumed that everyone lies. However, we did not know for sure, and this mystery lingered.
It wasn't till about 2 hours before MT and PD were supposed to take off that I on a hunch pulled up google maps and along with a receipt from the store (it had the address on it) were we able to solve this mystery.
The directions that the storeowner had given us were garbage. He gave us directions from a restaurant of the same name. Not only that, had we by some miracle figured out where we were, we would have had to walk 4 kms. That is 4 kms of touts yelling "Shopping here sir". Thanks Vijay. You may or may not have taken us for 50 cents, but I think we might have still been wandering Delhi without your help.
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