The Day from HELL

Never, ever EVER have I had a more frustrating day. Today was the day I broke down and cried. Seriously, it was just that bad.

Jessica, Ditte and I needed to go to Delhi before going back to Faridabad to book our train tickets and hotel for Ranthambore Tiger Park. So we had spent the night at Rajan's apartment in Gurgaon because that was the only place our driver would drop us off. And that was fine, when we woke up, we asked Rajan to get us a driver for the day, to take us to the U.S. embassy (to pick up my passport) then to Connaught Place to book the tickets, and then back to Faridabad.

So the guy shows up, and we all get in the car. At this point Stina is still with us, because her parents came to India to visit her, and were already staying in Delhi. So, first stop, U.S. embassy. Like the last time, really difficult for the driver to find, and he got lost many a time, but it wasn't quite as bad as the last time, so I wasn't too upset. I jumped out, went into the embassy, but of course, they weren't going to have it until after 2:00 pm, because it was still in the mail room. Grrr, but that was ok.

So I go back to the car and we all go to Connaught place. It was strange, because it took the guy forever to get there, even though he never stopped to ask for directions and acted like he knew where he was going (foreshadowing: bad sign). By this point we had realized not only does this guy not understand a single word of english, including stop, yes, and no, but he seemed to be pretty slow and not understand Hindi either. When people gave him directions, he seemed to not understand and they got very upset with him because they would repeat things a lot. Welcome to my life. Anyway, we got to the outer ring of Connaught place and realized we wanted the inner ring and Ring 1. He kept trying to stop and let us off where we didn't want to be, and with lots of hand gestures we made him go our way. Well, he didn't handle this well, because he went maybe 2 mph for quite a while, even thought we told him to just keep going straight. This led to, you guessed it, getting a ticket from a cop. It was ridiculous.

So finally we get to the tourist office, and we're told we'll have to wait until 5:00 to pick up the tickets. This was frustrating, but doable, as we had wanted to leave a little earlier. So, we go to eat, do a little shopping, and at this point we've almost forgotten about our nightmare of a driver. Then 2:00 rolls around and I have to pick up my passport and Stina wants to go to her parents hotel. She has the address written down, shows it to people, and I swear to God they just didn't read it. Literally just glanced at it and kept discussing where this place could be. If they had looked at the paper and actually read it instead of relying on Stina's bad Hindi pronunciation it would have taken 5 min. So we get someone to tell our driver directions to the hotel. Again, takes forever and they get very annoyed with his inability to understand. So, we leave.

This guy drives around for 1 hour, literally in circles, on the same streets, nowhere near Stina's hotel, and going farther and farther away from Connaught place. Finally we beg him to pull over, which since he didn't understand stop took lots of effort, and she took a rickshaw. I got to the embassy, got my passport and went back to Connaught place. During that time, Stina had told Ditte that when she saw her parents she burst out crying, saying how much she hated India. sigh, taxi drivers that know nothing about a city frustrate me deeply. On our way back to connaught place I realized he went all the way up and around it, which takes twice as long from the Embassy. Ridiculous.

So, at 5 we go to the travel office, and our tickets still aren't ready. We have to wait until 7. We're kind of freaking out, because the girls have to be back at the orphanage by 9, or else they get locked out. But, we figured we'd be ok, since it only takes an hour to get back, even when taxi drivers have to ask for directions to sector 15. So, we go to an internet cafe, and chill for a while. At 7, they're still missing 1 ticket. they say 7:30. At 7:30, we literally run to the car, tickets in hand. So, we are ready to go, only to be informed by Rajan the guy wants extra money cause it's late. That kind of stuff is usually something you inform someone of early on, so we get a little upset and Rajan says, ok, just 200 extra, which we agreed to, though if the guy hadn't gotten so lost all the time we would have been to Connaught place earlier and gotten the tickets earlier as well.

So, we're driving around for an hour, and suddenly hear our taxi driver ask for the way to Faridabad. WE WERE STILL IN DELHI. 1 hour the guy drives around aimlessly. We realize we'll never make it home by 9, and so I immediately call Rajan, saying I can't get a hold of Bhandu and he has to tell him the girls have to stay at his house. I tell him the driver doesn't know how to get out of Delhi, to which he says, no he didn't know, but he does now. I HATE it when people lie and make excuses. So I said, no, he does not know, we've been driving for an hour and now the girls are late. He blows up and starts yelling at me saying it's my fault. seriously, it's his driver that got lost for an hour and got a freaking ticket for pete's sake.

Anyway, eventually we get into Faridabad, at which point we actually know how to get home. The guy doesn't listen to us, goes his own way, and gets lost. We roll down the window, and literally start yelling for help from someone who speaks english. A nice woman in a cycle rickshaw stopped and translated for us. The guys FOLLOWS THE CYCLE RICKSHAW. He was following a bicycle in a car because he couldn't understand their directions. Eventually we got home, finally. It took a total of 3 hours.

When we got home, he wanted more money. Lots. I was inclined not to pay him at all, and if I was in a place where I spoke the language I wouldn't have. We eventually got him to leave, and we traipsed upstairs, exhausted and upset, to cry ourselves to sleep.

Nightmare.