Delhi - the Capital of India's Bureacracy!
I was really excited to arrive in Delhi as I've never been here before and it has such a long and interesting history. For those who don't know, Delhi (and all of India for that matter) has had a lot of different rulers - Hindu kings, Mughal (a Mongolian/Persian/Muslim race) rulers, the British Raj, and finally the current Republic.
Arriving at the airport, I was interested to see that the efficiency of Indians had not improved by much at all!! While travellign with my grandmother, we always ask for wheelchair assistance for her as it makes things so much easier. Airports such as Singapore are SOOOOOO huge (the new terminal 3 is MASSIVE) that it just makes sense to push her around rather than troubling her to walk.
Anyway, in Singapore we had 1 man who came and pushed my granny - efficiency at work! However, in Delhi, about 6 people came and brought the wheelchair. Then they proceeded to talk and discuss in Hindi (which I still don't understand despite my crash course in learning a bit!) and finally 1 person (the most junior) stepped forward to push my grandmother while the others each discussed and gave him instructions on how to best complete the job!!!
However, credit where it's due - this guy did an excellent job and pushed us past all the queues
;-) and drastically cut our waiting time. He then collected all our luggage (even mine, even though I was not the one in the wheelchair) and took as straight through customs with no questions! A little family discussion ensured on how much to tip him as it has been so long since we have been in India that we've lost idea of how much to tip. Too little and it looks cheap and embarrasing - too much and we'll run out of money pretty soon! We ended up giving him Rs 50 ($1.50) - which I'm sure I'll find out from my rellies was too much ;-)
However, another blight in the airport was the immigration official. He obviously felt that he was doing the entire human race a favour by being the immigration guy. He was extremely slow- ie, slowly checking each passport, then carefully tearing the bit off our immigration form we had to fill, then inking his rubber stamp - then stamping it onto a plain sheet of paper next to him to ensure that the stamp was clear, then finally stamping our passport. After each passport, he turned around had a good look at all the other officials, then barked at the next person in the queue to come up!
We then met our chauffer (such a posh word that I can't even spell it!!) who drove us to our accomodation. On arrivining in our room, we found that the aircon didn't work, so we were upgraded to an even better room! YAY! (actually I don't know if that means we'll end up paying more, or if it was a complimentary upgrade - we'll find out soon when we check out!!!)
Arriving at the airport, I was interested to see that the efficiency of Indians had not improved by much at all!! While travellign with my grandmother, we always ask for wheelchair assistance for her as it makes things so much easier. Airports such as Singapore are SOOOOOO huge (the new terminal 3 is MASSIVE) that it just makes sense to push her around rather than troubling her to walk.
Anyway, in Singapore we had 1 man who came and pushed my granny - efficiency at work! However, in Delhi, about 6 people came and brought the wheelchair. Then they proceeded to talk and discuss in Hindi (which I still don't understand despite my crash course in learning a bit!) and finally 1 person (the most junior) stepped forward to push my grandmother while the others each discussed and gave him instructions on how to best complete the job!!!
However, credit where it's due - this guy did an excellent job and pushed us past all the queues
;-) and drastically cut our waiting time. He then collected all our luggage (even mine, even though I was not the one in the wheelchair) and took as straight through customs with no questions! A little family discussion ensured on how much to tip him as it has been so long since we have been in India that we've lost idea of how much to tip. Too little and it looks cheap and embarrasing - too much and we'll run out of money pretty soon! We ended up giving him Rs 50 ($1.50) - which I'm sure I'll find out from my rellies was too much ;-)
However, another blight in the airport was the immigration official. He obviously felt that he was doing the entire human race a favour by being the immigration guy. He was extremely slow- ie, slowly checking each passport, then carefully tearing the bit off our immigration form we had to fill, then inking his rubber stamp - then stamping it onto a plain sheet of paper next to him to ensure that the stamp was clear, then finally stamping our passport. After each passport, he turned around had a good look at all the other officials, then barked at the next person in the queue to come up!
We then met our chauffer (such a posh word that I can't even spell it!!) who drove us to our accomodation. On arrivining in our room, we found that the aircon didn't work, so we were upgraded to an even better room! YAY! (actually I don't know if that means we'll end up paying more, or if it was a complimentary upgrade - we'll find out soon when we check out!!!)
posted by Sandeep at 6:35 AM
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