JANUARY 21, SATURDAY

MY $5 40 MINUTE TAXI RIDE

When I got off the flight in Helsinki to transfer to the flight to Delhi I was told that since I was leaving the Schengen European area I would have to have my passport checked again. I should just walk straight ahead to the Exit and after the Exit I would find the passport control

I had almost three hours so off I went. But the instructions were wrong. Passport control was somewhere before the exit from the airport but I never saw it. And because I was now outside the airport I was going to get the chance to go through security again, and this line was long, long, long lines of 75 yards down, 75 yards back, again and again and again. This was the length of security line that I thought would make me finally miss my flight from Paris. I saw the same blank faces again and again as we passed. Forty mintues later I was through the line, my bags were security checked again, and then another 30 minutes of the line to passport control which only took 30 seconds and a smile. But I still had time for an $8 sandwich at a cafe near the gate and when boarding was announced.

Now the Finnair flight was filled with Indians (without PCR tests) and Chinese (with PCR tests) and the flight staff were Indians and Chinese. I was back in India again sitting next to a Sikh gentleman with a turban and long black beard who worked in Spain and was going home to the Punjab to visit family. We had Indian food for dinner. And I slept most of the way.

The Delhi airport years ago was a rundown airport staffed with bureaucrats and endless forms. But no longer. Now it is a huge endless modern airport with moving walkways, a lane past customs where the only people being checked were Indians returning with purchases from abroad, and a short line at the passport check with a smile and a wave through. Of all the airports I’ve been in this was now the least bureaucratic and quickest.

I walked out of the air port and as anyone who has been to India knows, I was pounced on by unctuous, smooth talking taxi drivers who wanted to hustle me into their cabs. But I was headed to the Pre Paid Taxi stand, which these guys assured me I didn’t need to visit, and when I told the man at the counter the address of the Master Paying Guest House he charged me 450 rupees which at 80 rupees to the dollar is about $5 for a 40 minute dizzying ride in and out of lanes of traffic.

When we got to Rajinder Nagar the driver began to look for R block and R500. And this took him a while. As anyone knows who has taken a rickshaw or taxi in Delhi the driver begins to inquire of people on the sidewalk, all of whom seem eager to help and is directed this way and that until he finally finds the number.

And then, finally I was greeted at the Master Paying Guest House by Uschi. I had been here a number of times before when I finally abandoned the scrubby $5 hotels and cheap restaurants of hippie heaven Pahargang.

Since I had last been here with Kathe and her friend Elke four years ago Uschi’s husband, Ajneesh, a wonderful guy had died of pancreatitis at 67. We commiserated with each other over our loss and she made me comfortable with breakfast and later dinner. I have a beautiful rooftop room with a terrace with lots of plants outside. Susie told me to keep the door closed because gangs of monkeys will steal anything I leave outside. She and Todd stayed in this same room while here a few days ago and a gang of marauding monkeys had turned over the flower pots and caused general havoc. I am back in India and as I write this at 3 in the morning, afternoon in Swannanoa time which is why I am awake, I hear a dog barking in the distance. Often the sounds of dogs seem to move like a wave around Delhi, rising to a crescendo and then falling and then moving on to the next block and the next block. Delhi at night.

By the way, the temperature got up to 71 today but now, at night, it is 45. If it weren’t for the electric heater four feet away and a triple layer of quilts on the bed, I would be very chilly indeed. Indian houses have no central heating, they are built for the intense heat of summer and people somehow make it through the winter bundled up.