Not hailing a cab at Delhi airport: Priceless

To me, the single most terrifying thing about India, the "that which must not be named" of a country generally considered a bit hard on yokels to begin with, is Indira Gandhi International Airport. And this is not just because of the Indian people's weird love-hate relationship with the woman who almost turned India into a dictatorship.

No, even more terrifying than the Indira's weird karma (although possibly causally related) is trying to get transportation out of Delhi's international airport. My good friend and my sister both had deeply traumatic experiences with a taxi-for-hire and/or a prearranged pick-up that never showed. The favorite scam is the "your hotel is no good"; "your hotel is full"; or even "your hotel has burned down" line, sometimes with a pre-arranged accomplice who will answer the phone and corroborate the story when your cabby calls what is allegedly your hotel - then, they take you to a very sketchy hotel indeed, where they get a kickback.

Knowing about these scams in advance, one would suppose that it would require only sufficient strength of will to get out of the predicament: just demand to be taken where you said you were going. My excuses for my inability to do this are threefold: (1) Sometimes the cabbies yell, and I feel suddenly very alone and very female. I don't think any of them would ever throw me out into the Delhi streets, but who knows? (2) Flights into Delhi from the US often arrive after 8 pm. So it's all dark and scary out. (3) The cabby is able to prey on the spirit-crushing effects of Delhi's weather. It was 98 degrees F when we landed - in that weather, I'd agree to almost anything to get back inside.

(An aside: today it topped out at 104. What absolutely baffles me about this place is that is has known continuous human settlement for millenia. And not just scattered pueblo outposts, like the Hopis in the American SW, but a really pretty big city. How is that even possible???)

All this by way of saying, I'm a bit embarrassed by my initial digs. Because even though lots of hotels offer airport transport, there is always a good chance nobody will show, as happened to my sister. So, I went high end for the sake of a really, really reliable airport pick-up, with my name printed on a signboard and everything. In my defence: it wasn't that expensive. Less than one would pay for a hotel in Manhattan, for example. Not in my defence: this is the most ridiculously solicitous hotel I have ever stayed in. As in, someone meets you at the car and shows you directly to your room lest you be too fatigued after your long (probably business class) flight to stand in front of a reception desk and sign your name. And a little mango pots de creme in your room as a welcome!

Don't worry, though. I am moving to a normal hotel tomorrow and, hopefully, within a few days into some respectably shabby flat with patchy electricity and a really short bed. Just as the field work gods intended.

Finally, an interesting note. The hotel here had a problem that dogged me last time, too: for whatever reason, they switched my first and last names. This has now happened to me enough times that I think it is basically a 50/50 shot in the average Hindi-speaker's mind which of these two silly words would be a first name.