The trip was scheduled from 1st-10th Aug. When we booked the tickets to Delhi we didn't know the reporting time on 1st. So to be safe we took the evening flight on 31st. Later when we came to know that the train to Haridwar was on 1st evening we decided to roam around in Delhi on 1st. This 'we' is me another of my colleague "A" and 2 sisters "P" and "M" whom we met for the first time in the Bangalore airport. We landed in Delhi at around 10 PM and had airport pickup arranged by the hotel. Our first hurdle came up then. Me and A had dinner in flight but "the sisters" (as the team referred them during the trip) hadn't had their food. So we had to ask the taxi driver to stop in some place for dinner. My Hindi is very much like the famous ‘Mein Bheem Singh ka beta Ram Singh Hoom…Hai…Hoom’ style and same was the case with A. So we hoped that 'the sisters' will be better in Hindi as they are from Bangalore. But to our dismay we learned that all 4 of us are in the same state and probably mine was better compared to the rest!! When we were scratching our head wondering how to convey the point to the driver, A mentioned that for all we know the driver might be knowing English and he might be laughing to himself and thinking let's see how far these girls will go. Unfortunately that's exactly what happened. After we gave him enough entertainment value with our discussions, he started speaking to us in English! Anyway that was a big relief and we stopped in a place to pack dinner and reached the hotel around 11.30 PM.We were too keen to get into the rooms asap coz of the Delhi heat that was boiling us even at that time of the night. But the manager was behaving cranky and was refusing us to check in saying we don't have valid ID cards. According to him PAN card is not a valid ID and was asking me to produce passport or DL. Why should I carry the passport while traveling within India especially after an earlier experience of loosing it once(that's another story altogether) or a DL when I'm going to the mountains where there is no chance of me driving a vehicle? I was feeling helpless(and angry too) and more than that it was tough to communicate with him with our bad Hindi. I was trying to tell him that if they were particular about specific ID cards they should have mentioned it when we booked the rooms and not tell us after we have reached the place!! And his argument was that it was not him who confirmed our booking via internet. WOW what a logic to tell 4 girls in an unknown place in the middle of the night! Finally he somehow agreed and we soon retired to our rooms waiting for all the excitement to begin..
To be continued...
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