Agra-vation

Taj Mahal [Enlarge]

On a cool, foggy morning, and after some more of the customary haggling, we took a tuk-tuk to New Delhi station before dawn to catch our train to Agra, the 06:15 Bhopal Shatabdi Express. At this time of morning the tuk-tuk ride was hassle-free and only took a few minutes. 'Shatabdi Express' is the name given to some of the trains serving popular routes in the north of India: they are newer, faster and more comfortable than the majority of the subcontinent's trains, and breakfast is included in the price. We were looking forward to our short journey to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal.

Shortly after we left New Delhi the steward handed out complimentary newspapers. We chose the English-language Times of India, and we settled down to catch up on the news from India and the rest of the world. Tucked away on page 10, there was an interesting article about the possible outsourcing of railway catering to the likes of McDonalds—apparently this will be an improvement. The article went on to describe the conditions inside the catering facilities on board India's trains, including the Shatabdis. You can read the full article here, but the relevant part is:

Citing instances, the PIL alleged that all prepared food stuffs instead of being kept in containers were directly placed on dirty floors of the kitchen, chapathis were rolled on the floor, the cooks never used gloves, nor was there any segregation of vegetarian and non-vegetarian food. What was more appalling was that body sweat from the cooks constantly spilled over the food material as there were no cooling facilities or exhaust fans in the kitchen, the petition alleged. According to the petitioners, while millions of passengers were taking the unhygienic food unwittingly, there were several other high society passengers travelling by the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Jan-Shatabdi Express trains who were compelled to take the food as the fares are inclusive of the same.

We skipped breakfast.

Because of the fog, we got to Agra an hour late and took another tuk-tuk to our hotel, where we had a good shower and a bad breakfast. Hoping that the fog would lift later in the day, we decided to look round the Agra Fort first, then go to the Taj Mahal later. We walked across town to the fort, somewhat comically pursued by a stream of tuk-tuks and cycle rickshaws, whose drivers seemed incredulous that we didn't want to take a ride with them. During one of our bizarre walking-pace conversations with them, we did get a good gem of information, however: buy a combined ticket for the fort and the Taj and save 100 Rupees.

At Agra Fort we parted with 1500 Rupees (GBP 17.48 / USD 34.09) in return for two combined tickets to the fort and the Taj. This is surely one of the most extreme cases of two-tier pricing—if we had been Indian, we would have paid around 40 Rupees (GBP 0.47/ USD 0.91). Fair enough, it's their country. We spent a while looking round the fort, which is impressive, and similar to the Topkapı Sarayı in İstanbul. It's a shame that it is neglected by many tourists who only come to Agra for the Taj Mahal. Wild(ish) parrots were flying around overhead and nesting in the trees, and Glenn was very pleased with his photo of one of the tame striped squirrels in the grounds. It seemed that our trip was finally back on track after our bad experience of Delhi.

Striped squirrel at Agra Fort [Enlarge]

Sure enough the fog began to clear and so we crossed town again, parallel with the river to the Taj Mahal. This has to be one of the highlights of any trip to India. We approached the outer wall and walked through the south gate. A man asked us for our tickets and we duly produced our combined Agra Fort and Taj Mahal tickets bought a few hours previously. "This does not allow you to enter the Taj Mahal sir, you need to buy another ticket: 250 Rupees each." He pointed to a window back outside the gate. We argued with him for a while as to why a ticket marked "Visit Taj Mahal along with Agra Fort, Itimadud-Daula, Sikandra & Fatehpur Sikri" should not be valid for doing just that, but it was to no avail. He muttered something about our combined ticket being issued by the Agra Development Authority, and us needing to supplement it with one issued by the Taj Mahal Tourist Scam Corporation, or something similar. [Actually, it's in the small print: "Excluding A.S.I. ticket"—oh, that clears that one up then.] Isla suggested that we forget the whole thing and leave Agra, but we both knew that having come so far we were just going to have to stump up another 500 Rupees (GBP 5.83 / USD 11.36). So we went back to the window and allowed ourselves to be robbed legally, again. And back to the gate, armed with the correct tickets. Now we had to pass through security. As has become the norm for Isla in both the middle east and India, she was shepherded into a special curtained off 'ladies only' booth to be searched, lest any passing gentlemen be overcome by lust at the sight of her with her arms held out. She was carrying the small daybag, and its contents aroused great interest. Our mobile phone, camera and set of eight high-capacity rechargeable AA batteries were fine, but the GPS, mini tripod and wind-up torch were going to have to stay behind. Again arguing proved to be a futile exercise in the face of unfliching bureaucracy and unquestioning application of rules, and we were forced to deposit our illegal items in a dodgy-looking locker room in return for a slip of paper marked "3 items". Calling it a locker room is to overstate the situation, since the lockers didn't lock. We noted the opening times of the locker room: it closed at 5 pm, some two hours before the Taj itself closed. So that put paid to any thoughts we might have had of seeing the Taj at sunset.

Us at the Taj [Enlarge]

The Taj Mahal is truly stunning [see our photos]. We think it is best from a distance, as seeing the tiny people-shaped specks walking round the bottom shows you just how big it is. It is raised up on a huge platform so that it has a clean skyline behind it. We took the obligatory photos from the viewpoint at the end of the central watercourse—luckily we had come on a day when the fountains were turned off so as to leave the reflections of the Taj undisturbed.

We slowly ambled towards the Taj, taking in the view and the majestic atmosphere. When we got to the base, we randomly chose to turn right to walk around the side. We were accosted by a man who pulled us to the edge of the path and made us take another photo of the Taj, and then demanded money from us for his trouble. We continued round the back of the building and then climbed some steps to the large raised platform on which the actual mausoleum sits. As we came back round to the front of the building, we saw a sign saying "Please do not take off your shoes here". So we didn't, and we walked on towards the mausoleum entrance. As we did so, we gradually became aware that nobody else around us was wearing shoes. Hmmmm. We paused for a moment, and as we did so we were shouted at by a couple of zealous Australian backpackers: "Mate, no shoes!"

We were genuinely confused at this point, and we gestured helplessly at the sign that clearly instructed us not to remove our footwear. "Yeah—you should have already taken them off! Down there!" They pointed down to a huge crowd of people removing their shoes, which we had completely missed owing to our earlier, random, 50–50 decision to turn right instead of left. We tip-toed back downstairs and took our shoes off before returning. How it is possible for a society to have such strict rules and regulations and yet implement them so badly?

And so it was. Our experience of arguably the finest building in the world was tainted by a catalogue of frustrations punctuated by episodes of incredulity, with a bit of confusion on the side. This seems to be an emerging theme for our whole experience of India.

Tomorrow we will complete the bottom leg of the Golden Triangle, taking the train to Jaipur—the pink city, the ancient capital of Rajasthan.

Day 076
New Delhi to Agra

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Popping down to the station to buy a ticket

Next morning, the driver from the travel agent turned up at 09:00. We sent him packing again. We spent the rest of the day taking advantage of the flat-rate internet in our room, looking at our options for tours of the north of India.

The following day, having failed to persuade the Indian Railways website to let us book our tickets online, we were ready to walk to the station and buy some tickets. Our first tour will be from Delhi to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, then to Jaipur for a couple of days, then back to Delhi. This is the famous 'Golden Triangle' route. As we walked past reception on the way out of the hotel, the guy behind the desk called us back. He then dialled a number on his phone and handed it to Glenn. It was Mr Big—he had obviously told the hotel to call him the moment we surfaced. Glenn informed him that with his constant pestering he had blown what little chance he had ever had of getting any money from us, and put the phone down. We went outside and started walking to the station.

The station is about 1500 metres from the hotel. We used to live about this far from our local station in the UK, and walking there, buying a ticket and walking back took a total of around 35 minutes. In Delhi it is not the same. You don't 'go for a walk' in Delhi, you run the gauntlet. You have to dodge excrement and touts at every turn. You cannot walk on the pavements because they are completely blocked by stalls, vehicles, and rotting rubbish. So you walk down the middle of the road, along with everybody else. Then you nearly get run over by motorbikes and rickshaws. The pedal-cycle rickshaws are the worst because you don't hear them coming, and being tricycles they are wider at the back than the front. When you suddenly become aware of a rickshaw driver alongside you, you have to remember that he has three wheels not two, and dive to the opposite side very quickly, or you will get a pooh-covered wheel over your ankle. However in the narrow streets of the old town, where our hotel is, ducking in any direction is often impossible.

The stench of rotting garbage is overpowering. Every so often the garbage smell is replaced by that of stale urine. The residents build fires in the street for cooking on, using whatever comes to hand for fuel, i.e. rubbish. So the third smell which we will remember Delhi by is the acrid fumes of burning plastic.

Getting a GPS lock in the narrow streets was impossible, and we didn't have a detailed map with us, so we basically just had to keep walking in as near a straight line as possible until we came to the edge of the crazy melee. Eventually we emerged into the wider streets of New Delhi, from where it was relatively easy to find the station. We needed to find the 'International Tourist Bureau', which is located on the first floor of the main building, from where we could book our tickets with English speaking staff away from the unbelievable crowds in the main part of the station.

We had read up on the process of buying train tickets at New Delhi station in the Lonely Planet. The following is what it says:

Train stations also attract rapacious tricksters who feed off the tourist traffic. At the New Delhi train station touts may try to stop you from booking tickets at the upstairs (1st-floor) International Tourist Bureau and divert you to one of the (overpriced and often unreliable) travel agencies over the road. Make the assumption that the office is never closed (outside official opening hours), isn't being renovated, and hasn't shifted. Other tricksters may insist your ticket needs to be stamped (for a hefty fee payable to them) before it's valid—another scam. Others may try to convince wait-listed passengers that there's a charge to check their reservation status—don't fall for it. Once out of the station, avoid overpriced conveyance by heading for the car park's prepaid autorickshaw booth.

We couldn't see a building with a first floor anywhere, but it looked like we were at the back of the station. The station has several large overbridges so we climbed the stairs to head over to the front. From the bridge, we still couldn't see a building with anything looking like a first floor. We continued for a short way and came to an airport-style security gate which we had to walk through. A lot of Indians were ignoring it and walking around the edge—there were just too many people streaming through for everyone to pass through the gate. The security man in his brown uniform at the gate didn't seem at all bothered, so we casually walked around the gate. We were carrying the camera, GPS etc, which always set off the beeper, and we didn't want the hassle of being searched. The security guard didn't flinch, but another guy, casually dressed, standing next to the gate pointed at us and called us over. "Tickets please." We explained that we didn't have a ticket because we were trying to get to the International Tourist Bureau to buy some. "Ah, no problem—come with me." He pointed out of a nearby window at a construction site underneath the bridge. "That's where the bureau used to be, but it is being rebuilt. It has moved outside the station. Don't worry, it's not far. Do you have a map?" We opened the Lonely Planet at the map page for New Delhi. He pointed out the location of the 'Delhi Tourism and Transport Development Corporation' on the map and told us that the bureau had moved in there. He pointed us back out the way we had come, past the security guard, and told us to make sure we weren't ripped off by a rickshaw driver. "Don't pay more than 10 Rupees, it's only a minute away." He then shook our hands and wished us well.

He nearly got away with it. Let's analyse what happened in detail.

• He was standing right next to a bona-fide security man, giving him an air of legitimacy.
• He stopped us on the pretense of asking to see our tickets, then offered help when we said we needed to buy some.
• There really was a building being constructed right below us.
• We couldn't see a building with a first floor, or any signs for the International Tourist Bureau anywhere.
• He directed us to an official government agency, even circling it on our map.
• He made no attempt to force us into a rickshaw of his choosing.

He, and his friend who was mingled in the crowd at the bottom of the stairs, blew it when the friend approached us as we emerged from the station. He said "Autorickshaw? Where are you going? Only 10 Rupees." We have taken enough autorickshaws to know that the starting price is rarely less than 100 Rupees. What a coincidence that we came across our first honest rickshaw driver just moments after being told that we needed a 10 Rupee rickshaw! We said no thanks, and stopped to have a think.

The uniformed security guard must be in on it. We guess he receives a small fee every time the tout manages to turn a tourist around. Presumably we would have been taken to a travel agent with a strangely similar name to that of the Delhi Tourism and Transport Development Corporation, from where we would have paid too much for train tickets that either were not valid, or were for a lower class seat or a slower train than the one we wanted. Either way we were stunned that we had nearly fallen for a scam that we were fully prepared for, and which happened exactly as described! We did an about turn and walked back over the bridge as we had originally planned. It still took us another ten minutes to find the International Tourist Bureau, despite the fact that it was occasionally signed. There really is no effort to make it visible. At the foot of the stairs to the first floor, in a dark corridor, we saw a sign containing essentially the same message as the quote from the Lonely Planet above. Why is this sign just outside the bureau, at a point which you can only reach by successfully getting past the tricksters, instead of being on a huge poster at the station entrance?! You have to wonder if the whole damn station is in on the scam.

The International Tourist Bureau is like a calm oasis. It has seats, it doesn't stink, it is quiet and you can have some personal space. We briefly thought about staying there for the rest of the day. It wasn't long before we had booked five train tickets: Delhi to Agra, Agra to Jaipur, Jaipur to Delhi, Delhi to Amritsar and Amritsar to Delhi. This would give us a week's tour in two hops from Delhi. We now had to re-enter the melee below us.

For some inexplicable reason, we decided to walk back to the hotel. We much prefer walking over taking a cab usually, but in Delhi, 'usually' does not apply. We had spent every Rupee on the train tickets so we needed an ATM, and we had passed (and GPS-marked) one on the way to the station. We used this to justify walking all the way back. On the way, it started to rain. We normally don't mind a little rain, but this was no ordinary rain, it was black rain. Our shirts were soon stippled with black spots. The pooh in the street was now in fully liquid form, and passing vehicles were splashing it onto our trousers. When we eventually got back to the room after spending a long time walking in circles unable to find it, we washed all our clothes and decided to hole up in the room until the morning, when we will be getting the hell out of this place.

In all, that 35 minute stroll to the station to buy a couple of tickets had taken us nearly four hours.

SpiceJet to Delhi

SpiceJet winglet [Enlarge]

We walked into the village at around 09:00 and booked a taxi to the airport for 11:30, picking us up from the hotel. We had been tentatively gauging what the correct fare should be for the past week, whenever we had seen a taxi driver, and we never got quoted less than 450 Rupees (GBP 5.23 / USD 10.20) for the journey of around 30 kilometres. So when our driver started at 500, we quickly got him to come down to 450, especially when we told him we had very little luggage. He wouldn't go further though. We imagine that the true price should be around 300 to 350 (the going rate for taxis should be no more than 10 Rupees per kilometre), but it was too nice a day to have a big argument—and the problem with taxis to the airport is, they know you don't have many bargaining chips because you absolutely have to get there.

At around 11:20 we were sitting in the garden with our stuff and Glenn walked up to the main gate just in case our taxi was early. There was a taxi there, but it wasn't our driver. "Taxi?" the driver shouted in to Glenn. "Yes, but I booked with another driver, he should be along any minute." "No, he sends me instead. Where you wanna go?" "Well you should know that, given that he sent you." "Airport?" "Yes." "500 Rupees." "No, I agreed 450 with the driver. You should also know that. I don't believe that you are our driver." "I am, you spoke to Devesh in the village this morning, and he sent me." With this, Glenn walked back to the restaurant to wait and see if another taxi turned up.

We are very suspicious of taxi drivers these days, but in this case it seems he was indeed our driver because the one we had made the deal with didn't show up. Glenn apologised for doubting the replacement driver and we walked to his taxi. When we got there the door was locked and the driver told us to wait while he phoned his boss. When he had finished he said "450 is not possible, it is 500." We said that as far as we were concerned we had a deal, and it was 450 or nothing. "Not possible." After a little arguing, and having used our new patented technique of walking off, he agreed to 450—if we would look round a craft emporium on the way! We were annoyed now. We knew there were lots of taxis in the village, but we didn't know whether they would suddenly close ranks if we got too stroppy. Nevertheless we hate being ripped off and we hate people who go back on a deal. We told him we no longer wanted to go in his taxi and we walked off, in the direction of the centre of the village. He left us for a minute to see if we were serious, and then having decided that we were, he drove alongside us and said "OK, 450, no shops. Get in." We told him where he could put his taxi and carried on walking, and he sped off towards his friends at the taxi rank. We were a bit worried about whether we had just blown it completely, when serendipity came to our rescue once again. Another taxi approached from behind us, and the guy pulled over and asked us if we required his services. Glenn, still stubbornly determined to get his 450 Rupee deal, said "Are you willing to take us to the airport for 450?" The driver paused for the briefest moment before saying "Yes", as if sensing that we were in no mood for games. We got in and enjoyed immensely waving at our original driver as we drove past him. The look on his face as he came to terms with the fact that his greed had got the better of him is something we will treasure for a long time.

After we had paused for the driver to get out and put his uniform on over his shirt (he would get fined if he didn't, apparently), the journey to the airport did not take long and we rued the fact that in spite of our victory, we had still overpaid. We needed a ticket to get past the security guards at the airport entrance, but as we had booked on the internet we only had a confirmation number. SpiceJet are obviously used to this problem, since they have a window from their office which opens onto the outside of the airport, from where we were able to turn our confirmation number into a printout. Once inside the terminal we found a chair, bought a wireless internet access card and waited until check-in opened.

At check-in, we read the 'prohibited articles in hand baggage notices', as we always do, and checked in one of the bags, into which we had packed the sterile needles, scissors etc. We still had a while to wait but we decided to wander over to security just to gauge the length of the queue. At the entrance to the security area there was a sheet of paper with a notice printed on it saying "No liquids, gels or pastes are to be carried in hand luggage." Our hand luggage contained toothpaste, hand cleanser gel, shampoo, insect repellant, and a bottle of water. The SpiceJet notice had said nothing about liquids.

We queued up again at the check-in desk and told them about the notice at security. The agent said "Oh yes, you cannot take liquids on board with you!" and she was unable to see why it would be a good idea for the notice at check-in to match the one at security. We were not about to check in our other bag, containing the laptop, malaria tablets and other expensive items. Isla had a sense of humour failure at this point and asked the lady if she would mind very much retrieving our checked-in bag so that we could rearrange our luggage. That's not quite how she put it, but use your imagination. After a while we got the bag back and repacked all our luggage on the floor in front of the check-in desk, before checking one bag back in.

The rest of our time at the airport and on the flight to Delhi was uneventful. But we were not done with scams and tricks for the day.

We had booked our hotel, the Hotel Tara Palace, on Hostelworld, and as usual, paid a 10% deposit, the balance being payable directly to the hotel. One of the benefits of this hotel was "free airport transfers", so we had called them and arranged a pick-up from the airport. When we arrived we found our man, holding a sign with our names on, and we got into his car. He is a student from Kashmir, and during the holidays he works for the Hotel Tara Palace—he has been working there for six years. We got a bit of a free tour of Delhi (or "Dally", in his thick Kashmiri accent) on the way into town, and our man pointed out the landmarks and made general conversation. And then out of nowhere, he launched into his spiel: "There is something I need to tell you. We need to stop off somewhere before we get to the hotel. It's a travel agent, and they handle payments on the hotel's behalf. Nothing to worry about, but you will need to pay them in full before we go to the hotel, otherwise they will not check you in. While you are there, the agent will be able to help you with your onward travel arrangements, or any tours of the city that you want. I can give you a tour tomorrow for 400 Rupees—if you go with a taxi driver in the street it will cost at least 800. By the way, do not take any taxis or rickshaws in Delhi as they will rip you off. Call me and I will take you wherever you want to go. Be very careful in Delhi, and do not set foot outside your hotel on your own. The touts are terrible and you will lose all your money."

In other words: Welcome to Delhi.

We have learned to go along with things when we sense that we are being scammed, at the same time being totally non-committal. It gives us time to work out what the hell is going on: what's the scam, how does it work, who is working with whom and what do they all get out of it, and finally what is our best strategy for getting away with our wallet intact while still getting what we want out of the deal. So, we agreed to go to the travel agent, so that we could see what they would try to do. When we got there, we insisted on getting the bags out of the boot and taking them in with us, despite the driver's protestations that they would be just fine where they were.

The boss man was expecting us. He asked for full payment and Glenn asked him why we couldn't pay the hotel directly. He replied that he handles their marketing for them, and there was really nothing to worry about. And would we like a tour tomorrow? What time should his driver pick us up? Glenn replied that: (1) No money would be moving from our wallets to his hands until we could at least see the hotel room and speak to them; (2) We didn't know what our plans were in Delhi yet, and so we were not ready to book any tours; (3) We were tired and could we please go to the hotel right now.

It was now clear that the hotel had no idea that we were coming, or that Hostelworld even exists. This guy promotes the hotel on the site, and who knows how many other hotels, suckers guests into thinking that they are phoning the hotel to arrange a pickup, and then takes their money before presumably passing some of it on to the hotel. The hotel asks no questions and gets a steady trickle of guests coming their way. We checked later, and the mobile number that we had been given by Hostelworld was the same as the number on the agent's card. He agreed to let us see the hotel but that we must come straight back to his office to pay.

We set out again and started driving slowly and doing lots of U-turns. Our driver had no idea where the hotel was, despite telling us earlier that he had worked there for six years (he hadn't, he was employed by the travel agent). After three stops to ask for directions, he found it. It was clean and spacious, and staffed by very friendly people. Something told us that they were afraid of the boss man though. We agreed with reception to pay them directly on check-out, and sent the driver back to his office to tell Mr Big the bad news that we wouldn't be coming back to see him. But the driver wasn't quite finished. Before leaving, he said "I'll see you at 09:00 tomorrow for your tour then?" We replied that we would be sure to call him in the morning if we wanted a tour.

Day 073
Benaulim to New Delhi

This map shows the route we took in this post. Click it to see larger maps of our whole route at flickr.

Maps are taken from the CIA World Factbook.

Saying our goodbyes

The legendary Stanly [Enlarge]
 
Frankie and Archie [Enlarge]

It's time to leave Goa and head back to the real India. An old Portuguese colony, Goa has been host to European incomers for centuries, and the culture, architecture and even gene pool of the place are a strange mixture of India and southern Europe.

We've said goodbye to some of the local characters that we have met during our brief stay. Firstly there is the living legend himself, Stanly. He brings his unique brand of live music to the Palm Garden Restaurant every Friday night, playing and singing his perfectly blended repertoire of European pop songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s (and even a few classics from Take That), and traditional Goan music. All of it played on a Yamaha synthesizer. He even takes requests, as long as they are within his normal repertoire! It seems that every week, there is someone in the audience who was there the previous week and is able to request a song that they know he can do. We were honoured to continue the tradition on the second and third Fridays that we saw him perform. We requested Hello by Lionel Richie, and Karma Chameleon by Culture Club, because they were the only songs that we could remember him playing the previous week.

Then there were the waiters at Palm Gardens, Archie, Frankie and the other one whose name we never found out. Archie is the most outgoing of the three, and has an amusing or tragic anecdote for every occasion. The highlight had to be his tale of how he dated a pretty girl from Kerala for four years who turned out to be a boy called John.

One night Glenn decided he had to try some of the local Goan firewater, Feni. It comes in two types: Caju Feni (from the juice of the cashew apple) and Palm Feni (from the sap of the coconut palm). Glenn decided to try the Palm Feni, as he had no idea what the differences were, and he had to pick one. Archie recommended taking it with a mixer such as lime soda, since it is quite harsh neat. The drink arrived. It tasted similar to how we imagine petrol would taste, only with more of a kick. It was the first drink that Glenn has ever been unable to finish. Afterwards Archie gleefully informed Glenn that it was a good job he didn't try the Caju Feni, because it's a man's drink whereas the Palm stuff is for girls!

Finally we have said our farewells to local fisherman Sebby, who in between tending his nets every afternoon, sells trips out to see the dolphins. He is a true gentleman and even after he had relieved us of our money (without ripping us off, too) he made a point of coming over for a chat if he saw us on the beach. A great guy.

Tomorrow we fly out of Goa's Dabolim airport to India's capital, New Delhi. We hope that Delhi is cleaner than Mumbai, but from what we've read and heard, we fear we might be in for a rude awakening. It is way up in the north of the country too, so the climate will not be as friendly as the one we have become used to in Benaulim.

Three weeks in the sun

Goa sunset [Enlarge]

We've had a great three weeks of doing nothing much in Goa. Apart from spending a morning going out on a boat to see the local dolphins, we've hardly done anything. We've spent most days swimming in the warm sea, lazing around in the hotel over a long breakfast and the morning paper, wandering around Benaulim, sitting on the balcony reading second-hand paperbacks which we found on a stall in the village, making incredibly cheap phone calls home, sampling the delicious Goan cuisine, drinking cocktails or local beer, and thinking about various ideas for the future.

Life has been tough. Living in palatial accommodation and eating good food, our total expenditure has been about GBP 25 (USD 49) a day. We could have easily done it for half that and still been very comfortable.

Benaulim is a spread-out village less than a kilometre inland from the beach. It still just about qualifies as 'unspoilt', but sadly the rate of new construction going on points to it becoming just another tourist metropolis in a few years. We feel lucky to have seen the place at a time when the village still has farmers who take their cows down to the sea on Sunday for a salty bath, while there are still traditional fishing boats on the beach and while the fishermen's wives still gut the fish at the roadside, before packing up the ones for eating or selling, and laying out the remainder to dry in the sun so that they can be preserved for the monsoon season when the boats cannot go out.

Please OK Horn [Enlarge]

Of course there are touts here, who move in from the provinces at the beginning of the season and make it their life's aim to rip off the tourists for as much and as long as possible. We are becoming very good at knowing the true value of things and bargaining, but it is tiresome to not be able to do a simple job like take a taxi to the next village without having to go through a protracted ritual of arguing over the price, walking away, being followed and continuing the discussion at walking pace before finally getting to somewhere near the correct price. Or just walk past a street stall without the "Yes please! Madam sir, come have a look today? Very good price, free to look." They know that their initial overinflated prices are still cheap to us, and they know that westerners hate bargaining, especially when they are trying to have a relaxing break. No wonder inflation in India is so high, when tourism makes up such a large proportion of India's GDP. But we feel that we owe it to ourselves and future tourists not to just accept being ripped off every day, and consistently paying five or ten times the true price for things. Surely the question of whether we can afford to be ripped off is irrelevant?

Fish drying in the sun [Enlarge]

After two weeks or so of walking past the same street vendors every day, learning many of their names in the process, they finally gave up trying to sell us things and we had a peaceful final week here. We feel refreshed and ready to start the next part of our trip. We originally wanted to tour the whole of India by train, but we have now realised just what a huge country this is. The lack of reliable infrastructure magnifies the already large distances between places. And the bureaucracy involved with carrying out tasks that are simple in our own country (like catching a train) makes it worse still. Our plan was to take trains through the south of India, working northwards in an anticlockwise loop over a couple of weeks and seeing places like Hampi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Khajuraho before reaching the capital New Delhi. We spent several hours with a travel agent in Benaulim stringing together an itinerary which looked plausible. Then when she checked the availability of the trains, several were full, so we had to change the plan. Then, finally, the agent bizarrely decided to announce that she couldn't book train tickets for us anyway, since her runner was on his day off! (Despite the fact that the agents all have internet connections, and it is possible to book trains on the internet in India, the agents still employ runners at the station in Madgaon, whom they phone with details of the required tickets—the runners then queue up at the window and buy them). We puzzled over why she had wasted half a day of her time and our time when she knew she would have no chance of getting any commission from us.

Walk on Benaulim beach [Enlarge]

We considered going to Madgaon station ourselves and taking the pain of trying to book a long string of tickets from the widow there. But then, as if in revelation, we decided to simply abandon the whole idea and fly to New Delhi instead. We found that budget carrier SpiceJet had availability, and we booked it on the internet with no help at all from agents. Suddenly life seems a lot easier now. In any case it will be better to focus on a smaller part of the country so that we have a chance of getting to Hong Kong before our antimalarials run out on 18th March. We will make New Delhi our base for the next few weeks and travel out to places like Agra, Jaipur, Amritsar and Nainintal from there, on several shorter trips. We also want to head over to the north-east of the country to see Darjeeling and hopefully take day trips into Bhutan and maybe Nepal. Whether we'll fly across from Delhi or try to go by train remains to be seen.

All our photos from Goa are here.