Travel: It broadens the mind and expands one’s skills. It calls up the excitement and energy of the unfamiliar. And it sometimes has those little hitches that become the stories that one tells.
So, back at the end of June, I went from Nashville all the way to Kathmandu, but being a budget conscious traveler, I went by way of India. Booking through Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi was several hundred dollars cheaper than the next available route. I should have wondered why.
The first reality is that India requires a visa since even transit travelers have to enter the terminal and collect their luggage before flying on. But this was to me a “no big deal” situation; my layover was 18 hours, and that meant hotel and bed as a rest-up for all that traveling. Plus a shower. It’s the little things, right?
I diligently filled out all the paperwork (there was only minor swearing involved; I had already navigated getting my visa from mainland China so operated from the perspective that “you can’t scare me!”), and got myself the eVisa (tourist class) in a timely fashion. I booked a hotel room about 3 miles from the airport, and prepped and packed for my grand adventure.
A couple of airports and nearly two days of travel later, we landed in Delhi. Oooooo, so exciting! This was my first trip to Asia, and Delhi was my first airport to navigate in that part of the world. I made it through passport control and through customs.
There was a bit of a hiccup when my travel phone had some trouble hooking to the airport wifi. Since all I needed to do was get to the hotel and back, I figured I didn’t need a phone plan; my hotel had wifi and besides, I only wanted to sleep. But, of course, you can’t contact Uber if you don’t have access to the internet. Rather than futz with it any further, I just got my $25 in Rupees out of the ATM and headed to the airport taxi stand.
There, I showed my hotel’s address to the loud and enthusiastic sales person. She quoted me a price that was ten times what I expected to pay with an Uber, so we negotiated down. And down. And – “hey, the next counter might be able to help me if that’s as low as you can make it” – down once again. Once the price was reasonable, I agreed, paid up front, and followed my cab driver out to his vehicle. It was about 9:30 at night; it was raining; the traffic was something fierce. What a great adventure, right?
Of course, his English was limited and my Hindi is non-existent, but my hotel address was written on the paperwork. Off we went. We drove most of the way there and he started getting concerned about which hotel exactly we were going to. I showed him the address from my (not-connected-to-anything) phone. Then I worked at finding its location on my downloaded google maps. Then we got into the “call the hotel and let them give directions” stage of the adventure.
I couldn’t call on my own phone, obviously, and it was a hoot and a holler getting into his; it kept locking as he’d pass it back to the backseat. In the meantime, there’s traffic every which-way; the windshield wipers move from smear to smoosh; and the honking and shouting might be a bit on the over-stimulating side for the overseas traveler. But I finally dialed the hotel.
And the number was disconnected.
Round about we went again. I pulled my reservation up, and dialed the second number.
It too was disconnected.
By now we were to the street on which I was purportedly staying. It is a busy street and crowded with people shopping and talking and generally hanging out. There are still cars and trucks and bikes and what-all driving, passing, edging in.
And then our saga got interesting. Every dozen buildings or so, my taxi driver would pull over and hop out to ask where my hotel was. There was some gesturing and some conversational nodding, and then he’d get back in the car and drive a bit further. In the meantime, I was craning around to see the wonderful street chaos. Touristing from a cab at 11p on a rainy evening. That’s travel for you.
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| Delhi Street Scenes |
But we kept not arriving, and not arriving. And then my cab driver explained that he didn’t know where my hotel was. He called his dispatcher. They too found that the hotel phone numbers had been disconnected. By now I was a bit disconcerted. I had prepaid the hotel; it had good reviews. But it was nowhere to be seen.
After a couple more curbside conversations, the driver called his dispatcher again. This time they tried to tell me that the hotel couldn’t be found, and I needed to stay in one of their hotels. Oh, heck no. I had already paid. We argued. I finally said they needed to take me back to the airport if they couldn’t deliver me to my hotel.
My driver turned around, but he did try a couple of more conversations. Finally he came back from one and said that he’d found someone who could walk me there. At last! So this nice young man came over and helped me with my luggage as we dodged traffic to get across the street. We walked up the alley and there it was:
The nameless hotel that was not my hotel. No name on the door. No name on the street.
This, he said, was my hotel. Well, I countered, I prepaid. The desk clerk was like, “okay, we have a room.” He took my information. Well, I said, my room includes breakfast. “Okay,” he confirmed, “we have breakfast.” So what’s a weary traveler to do? I accepted the room key, and went up to the air conditioned space. With a bed. And a bathroom with a shower.
Was it my hotel? Not if the pictures were any guide. But it was a hotel with a bathroom and AC and wifi. This met my basic “I have 18 hours and want to use them sleeping” needs. I went with it. I used nameless hotel’s wifi to update my family, and nameless hotel’s wifi to lodge a complaint about my missing hotel with trip.com. And then, I lay down on that lovely, padded, horizontal surface. And I slept deeply and with joy.
The next morning I had breakfast at the hotel buffet. It wasn’t the deluxe one of the place that I’d booked, but it had several foods unfamiliar to me (and tasty they were, too!), and it had chai. I had three cups.
And then it was time to pack back up and make my way to the airport. The clerk at the front desk got me a ride (for cheaper than the taxi had been, too), and I was driven back to the airport. I won’t say much about the vehicle, but it made me want to reach into my luggage and pull out the duct tape around my water bottle. Not exactly up to code by my measures, but then, code is different in different places. And the driver and his colleague were lovely. And I made it back to the airport with plenty of time.
So I can say I’ve been to Delhi. I never did go walking around because I wasn’t entirely sure that I would recognize the nameless hotel when I got back – or that my luggage would still be there if I did go out. But the nameless hotel never charged me extra, and trip.com provided an apology and “trip points” for the inconvenience and stress of the missing hotel.
Me, I not only got a good night’s sleep, but I got a story to tell!
(This story details events of 7/1 to 7/2/2025.)
RESOURCES:
To arrange for the travel visa to India, as a US citizen (in Summer 2025), I used this site: https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/evisa/. (You can ignore the pop-over advertisement for student visas; just close it!) You'll get an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) form, which you'll need to print out and bring. You present the ETA at the Immigration check, and voila, you've arrived in-country!
And, of course, I don't have a hotel to recommend from this segment of my journey. Bwahaha.
