Sunday August 4 – Gay Christmas and the Other Side of Stand-by

Photo courtesy of Joe Shao--you'll recognize
these guys from the video (http://vimeo.com/71997462)

The radio advertised “Gay Christmas”, referring to the LGBT Pride Parade taking place today. All along Robson, Deman and Davie streets, rainbow flags flapped, storefronts were decorated with rainbow stripes (even Safeway!), pedestrian walkways were multi-striped, and people of every orientation dressed up a little or a lot. The Parade is a very big deal in Vancouver, especially in the West End. Viewers were gathering by 8AM; people had reserved tables near the street in cafes. And I was going to miss most of it.

My flight left at 3:14PM, so Joe gave me a ride to the airport ($20 to cover gas and time—not bad, as it would have been $12 by public transportation). 

The saving grace--a terrific collection of
Disney character toys in the Vancouver airport

I got there at 1PM, and the nightmare began. I had noticed flights that day were overbooked, but it didn’t occur to me that this might be a warning sign. When the gate opened for boarding a half-hour before take-off, I asked the airline rep about my chances for getting on—he told me, “not likely. I’ve had one stand-by here since 6AM. We routinely overbook here in Vancouver”. Not good news. In fact, they had to ask a paying customer to get off the plane for the next flight (he got a $400 certificate, so he didn’t suffer too much). Long story short, I was there for 9 ½ hours before I caught the last flight to San Francisco; the only reason I got on was because the flight was delayed 3 ½ hours and people who had to make connections out of SFO took other flights. The overbooking of Vancouver flights was a royal pain, but the delay was all SFO’s fault, as they’re only letting one international flight land at a time since the Asiana Airlines disaster a month ago (a pilot filled me in on this detail).

I got in at 12:45AM, and SFO was completely shut down. My only way of getting home was by taxi, and the fare was $120. I had exactly $46. I thought, “hey, the airporter will run in only 4 hours; I can wait it out”. I queried a couple of cab drivers whether they would consider my $46 for the fare and got turned down. As I was pacing around the baggage pick-up doors, a cabbie pulled into the end of the line (there were 30 cabs waiting, and no flights were landing…go figure). He yelled, “Where you going?”. I told him, and the amount of money I had on me. “I’ll do it,” he said, “but I can’t pick you up here—they’ll get mad (meaning the 30 cabs ahead of him). So I met him upstairs, and all I can say is, I’m glad there’s no traffic on the road at 2:30AM. Basically, he used the white line on the road as a guidance tool.

“Some people ask me how I can stand to work all night,” he said. “Coffee and cocaine. Just kidding.” As we neared my house, I mentioned that it was across from a well-known quick stop. “If it’s open, I’ll get myself a beverage,” he said.  It wasn’t, he didn’t, and I made it home at 3:30AM, all in one piece. I wish my driver the best of luck, and slightly more prudence. And I will never fly out of Vancouver again, Donald and Mickey be damned.

See the video: http://vimeo.com/71997462.

Day Three: I Get to Pretend I Know What I’m Doing

Dome of the Lotus Temple

The next day, I met Greg who was also going on the Intrepid tour; we rented a taxi for four hours from India Travel Organizers and went to Delhi hat (spelled Dili Hat on the map), a government facility of artists and craftwork from around the state. The cabbie, after being thoroughly instructed in Hindi (a truly lyrical language) by Raja Burza, took us everywhere we wanted to go. Dili hat was a disappointment--same hard sell cloaked in charm; but hey, I bought two things (charm works, on me at least). The salesman, a slick and handsome English speaker, called himself Harry Potter; his job was to get tourists in the door. Neither of the items chosen fit, and Harry promised their tailor would fit the garments. Greg and I waited 30 minutes (while enduring a spiel from an artist who claimed his work would not be found anywhere else—it was everywhere, actually) and they handed us two bags. I foolishly didn’t try the garments on until I got back to the hotel and discovered only one had been fixed. What to do? Perhaps I could deal with the ill-fitting garment the last day of the tour when I returned to Delhi, a prospect that didn’t fill me with joy. My lesson two, the art of argumentation, was still in a nascent state.

The Lotus Temple

Our excursion also included the Lotus Temple, a gorgeous Sikh structure south of town—the building reminiscent of Sydney Harbor’s opera house. Of course, the lot outside was filled with hawkers plucking at our sleeves. Saying “no” 20 times a minute (sometimes to the same person) is tiring at best. At worst, it’s enough to make you shriek--but no one would hear over the constant noise from the streets. Oddly, the noise and press of people didn’t faze me—I’m an ex-New Yorker after all. However, the omnipresent pollution eventually took its toll on all of us.

The gang at the Sun (Monkey) Temple,  Jaipur

That night, the Intrepid group met for the first time and I acquired a roommate: Ann, a former pipeline worker from Alaska. We also met our guide, Chime (pronounced “Chimmy”) Dolkar, a tough and tiny Nepalese woman with a brusque manner. We all went out to dinner: Greg (Australia); Claudette (Canada); Pamela (London by way of Texas); a family, Mom Sue and grown-up daughter Virginia and son Matthew (all originally from Australia, though Virginia lives in Qatar at the moment); Josef (Australia by way of the Philippines); and Axel (Frankfurt, Germany). An interesting and varied group who were to become good friends over the next few days; we women supported each other through a tough introduction to a completely different culture, and the men became our companions and protectors. It didn’t take long for us girls to figure out we were a lot less hassled if we had a male companion, especially if we walked behind him. I’m not kidding.

To see specific reviews of guides/travel companies, places to eat, stay and shop in India, see my custom guide to the golden triangle on GoGoBot.

Delhi, Day One: Preparation is Futile

Masala Mutts--they're everywhere

Everyone I know who has traveled to India told me some version of “It’s overwhelming/dirty/desperately poor”. Or they kept quiet and rolled their eyes. Nothing prepares one for the sensory overload. In some travel guide or other, I learned I should ignore the plentiful cab drivers that hovered just outside the new airport doors (no admittance without a boarding pass, which made getting back in a little tough). I overheard a family say they were headed to the police booth and I tagged along behind them; at the stand, I paid my 320Rp ($6.10). Immediately a taxi driver who claimed to be “my” driver grabbed my receipt and ticket. I showed him the printed address of the hotel: he looked puzzled and recruited a buddy to help figure it out. I didn’t think until later that perhaps English lettering may not have been all that easy to decipher for these fellows—especially when I learned a lot of kids are pulled out of school early.

Feeling paranoid, I grabbed my suitcase, hopped out of his cab and went back to the prepaid police line, where they pointed out the number written on the top of the receipt (duh). I went to the appropriate stall number, and caught a cab. Late at night, the pollution was alarming. The driver kept coughing and the air was so thick it looked like heavy fog.

All the cabbies were blameless: I was to find that the address Intrepid tours had given me for the hotel was a general area—the many-blocks-long and wide Channa Market in the section of New Delhi know as Karol Bagh W.E.A (West Extension Area); the street the hotel was on—like almost all the streets outside the fancy areas of Delhi—was a partially paved dirt road with no name. We drove around for a bit, asking various passersby where “Suncourt Corporate” was, and finally found it. Then I performed my first faux paux of the trip (at least the first one I knew about)—I tipped the driver 10Rp, and he looked at it incredulously. I got used to that look, when I found it didn’t matter how much or how little—but still, it was too little by a good 40Rp, as I was informed by the man who showed me to my room when I asked about tipping etiquette (Lesson one: EVERONE gets a tip, and 30Rp is considered cheap, 50Rp just OK). I had my first ice-cold bucket bath that night (“Just let the water run for five minutes”—famous words repeated at several hotels)—there was squatting seat, a big bucket, a small bucket and a shower; it was less painful to soap up and just rinse the slippery bits than stand under the icy flow. I was also introduced to what we Intrepid travelers (I had booked a tour with Intrepid Travel out of Australia) came to call “the garden hose”. A short hose with a press-type handle, the garden hose is attached to the wall in all classy bathrooms, and it’s de rigueur to give yourself a shot after using the toilet. Don’t judge me—I came to love it. This, being a tourist hotel, provided hand-rolled, carefully wrapped and taped toilet paper. I didn’t know it, but I was already being spoiled.

To see specific reviews of guides/travel companies, places to eat, stay and shop in India, see my custom guide to the golden triangle on GoGoBot.