So, tomorrow my parents arrive in India. Mostly, they are going to be on a package tour—starting Tuesday afternoon I can load them on the bus with the other tourists and they will be safe inside that magical tourist bubble where India is merely an “enchanting journey through exotic sights and sounds” or whatever. But they are arriving on Saturday night, however, to have some extra time to sleep off their jet lag and to see their daughters.
The travel agent who booked their tour could have, naturally, fixed them up with a few extra nights in the tour group hotel. But Delhi has very high hotel fees, especially now that it is tourist season. (Read: less than apoplectically hot). And the tour company, no doubt weary of complaints from scandalized Schenectady empty-nesters, insists that 3-star in India doesn’t mean 3-star in the US (which is completely true) and so refuses to book anything but 5-star Delhi hotels for its clients. And those go for about $400 per night, plus hefty luxury tax.
Now, I have a long experience with my parents and the thrifty vacation. They are really a do-it-yourself pair and tend to feel scandalized by the premiums that the tourist & recreation industries charge in exchange for convenience and ease-of-use. Their bête noirs are bellboys, doormen, taxis, and concessions stands. If my parents, lost in the middle of the Serengeti without food, water, or a map, were offered a taxi ride for a clearly-greater-than-marginal-cost fee of a hundred dollars: they’d keep walking.
So, there was no way my parents were going to pay a thousand dollars to spend two nights in Delhi. My mother’s words were something along the lines of “we’re campers: we’ll just sleep on your floor.” Not realizing that, if I could somehow get a running start, I could long jump the length of my room.
Anyhow, after a lot of avoiding the issue, I booked them a hotel a few blocks away for about $100/night.
But I’m nervous about the whole thing because, if you didn’t know India, you’d think the hotel was a dive. My parents are, truly, pretty good at going without creature comforts. But one thing I have learned from India is that one tends to judge the safety of one’s surrounding by the perceived affluence. And the perceived affluence of India’s mid-range hotels is, roughly, somewhere between shabby house-of-ill-repute and nice-ish crack den. And it takes awhile to convince oneself that it is safe to nod off within walls that are visibly molding. It doesn’t help that India’s under-employment & the family-run business culture dictates that every non-international hotel employs exactly seven times the number of employees that are strictly necessary. And so about nine listless, idle, twenty-something men are staring at you as you check-in, move through the halls, get breakfast... And then there is my neighborhood. Which is really quite safe. But, again, it takes awhile before you can look placidly out onto an alley strewn with smashed glass, dog and cow feces, garbage, weeds, old leaves, and shanty housing and think “Wow! There must be trees someplace!”
Basically, even though my parents will be fortified with the bracing tonic of having saved $800 from the grasping paws of the evil tourist industry, I’m afraid they will see the place and have a heart-freezing moment of “We’re going to die here.”
Or, worse, “We are not paying $100 a night to stay HERE!” And then insist on coming home with me.
2 comments:
Oh man. If hotels are like what you said, I hope you have extra blankets! :P
glad to report to everyone that we made it through hotel choice without a heart attack or sleeping on her floor. I was very appreciative of the pick up at the airport. That was a real zoo but a good start to the problem of someone trying to sell you something with every step you take in India.
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