"Tourist Abuse! Cara on 11/04/05" India Travelogue by Waxbag

When John and I went the train station in Delhi to get our ticket to Agra we were told by several people that only Indians could buy their tickets there and that all foreigners had to go to the government tourist bureau. We’ve never had to do that before but after hearing that from a few people and not finding a booth for foreigners, we took their advice and headed to the nearest tourist agency. When we arrived we asked for train tickets to Agra and the man said (without even looking) that all of the trains were booked for the next four days because of the Muslim festival of Eid. We told him we did not want special tourist seats, just local transport and if a train was not possible that a bus would be fine. He didn’t listen to us and began creating a specialized package tour for us which included a private hire car and driver ($$$). We tried to stop him when we realized what he was doing so we wouldn’t waste his or our time but he shortly told us to let him finish. He included things we did not want to see and did not include the things we said we did want to see and paid no regard to how many days we wanted to spend at each place. When we could get a word in edgewise to tell him exactly what we wanted he told us no and his way was better. He racked up this crazy expensive package then took a personal cell phone call. We waited for his attention then told him that all we wanted was a ticket to Agra and he got very defensive saying that we obviously have money and it should be nothing for us to spend that amount. He reluctantly abandoned the package idea then offered us a ticket to Agra for 875 rupees (each)! That is about $20 when we have been spending $2-10 for trips over 3 times that distance. We said absolutely not and he ‘graciously’ offered to knock off 25 rupees (50 cents). We walked out of there frustrated and ticketless and were standing on the sidewalk trying to figure out what to do when he came back out and said he found another ticket for 550 rupees each (still outrageous). We went back in and with the threat of staying in Delhi four more days, we took the tickets. We were guaranteed to be picked up at our guesthouse and dropped off at our new guesthouse, reclining seats, and air-conditioned comfort.

Well, the morning we left, a man came to ‘pick us up’ 45 minutes late. He made us take an auto rickshaw to the bus stand. When we got there he told us that we had to pay for the. ride and I said that it was included in our ticket so he had to pay it. He walked ) away from me and I followed him yelling at him. He flicked his hand at me as if shooing a fly and continued on. When I continued to follow him he turned around and threw our tickets at me and said, “Then don’t get on the bus.” I was livid! John paid for the ride and calmed me down enough to try to find our bus. We were ushered onto a bus and tried to find our seats (10 and 11- in the middle of the bus). The conductor tried to get us to sit on the bench in the back and when we refused he said we had to sit on the bench in the very front opposite the driver. At that point, John and I sat down in the middle of the bus ignoring the man. We sat there for a while then a man came back and told us we had to move to another bus. Frustrated we moved to the other bus and tried to find seat numbers 10 and 11. The conductor again tried to bully us to the bench seat in the back. We told him our seat numbers are in the middle and we paid for reclining seats. We found some seats near the middle and sat down. The bus finally left and we were en route for about 30 minutes when the bus stopped for a large group of Indians to get on. We were told we had to move to the back again. We argued for a while and everyone was waiting for us to move. The man told us that we were going to change busses again in 5 minutes so we had to go to the back and wait. Reluctantly we moved again to the back where the cushions on the bench were uneven and there was no upper back or head support. The man blatantly lied to us to get us to move. We never changed busses (and I’m sure there was no intent) and we were stuck there in the back with the only other foreigners where we found out we paid at least 4x the amount the Indians (who filled the comfortable seats) paid. How’s that for blatant discrimination?