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On the Move

A collection of my travel and photography blogs

Delhi Day 1 – a first dose of culture shock

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nancywcaldwell

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Mthumbnail.large.1.1326478360.view-from-my-fourth-and-final-roomy Delhi Hotel, Radisson Blu (http://www.radissonblu.com/hotel-newdelhipaschimvihar) is really as glitzy as the photos on the website promise, at least those parts that are complete.  My room last night was lovely, but it was unfortunately not the room allocated to me for the next three nights as part of the tour.

This morning I was relocated to a slightly less lovely but enormously noisy room four floors down.  After several fruitless efforts at a jet-lag mitigating nap and three complaints to the front desk about the construction noise – what sounded like metal hammers on metal pipes anthumbnail.large.1.1326478360.shower-stall-viewed-from-bed-sitting-roomd metal saws grinding through yet more metal pipes – I was moved three floors up.   And just as I was drifting off in room #3, the Assistant Manager of Guest Relations called to apologize and to upgrade me to a top floor “club room” with an improved view (see photo) and both a bathtub AND a shower.  It was most kind of her and the hotel, but I do rather miss the 6-foot high, 2-foot wide glass partition between the shower stall and the bed/sitting room with a retractable blind on the shower side.  Hmmm …

Culture shock set in during my unhappy stay in the noisy room.  Each time I complained, the very apologetic front desk staff promised to stop the construction.  WHAT?  Stop the construction?  Do you know what carpenters and electricians and plumbers cost?  Oh yeah – not so much here in India.  At one poi
nt I enquired whether it might be more productive to find another room for me than to stop a work in progress, but I was assured that was not the case.

My plan to get my borrowed cell phone up and running today fell through.  Apparently I need a photocopy of my passport – check – and two passport-size photos – not check! – in addition to a letter from the hotel attesting to my temporary residence here before I can purchase a new sim card.  I am told sim cards in India expire after three months’ inactivity.  Internet searches don’t support the photo/letter requirement.  I shall ask my tour guide this evening.

I meet my tour mates in just over an hour.  The time has come to make myself sociable!

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Mthumbnail.large.1.1326478360.view-from-my-fourth-and-final-roomy Delhi Hotel, Radisson Blu (http://www.radissonblu.com/hotel-newdelhipaschimvihar) is really as glitzy as the photos on the website promise, at least those parts that are complete.  My room last night was lovely, but it was unfortunately not the room allocated to me for the next three nights as part of the tour.

This morning I was relocated to a slightly less lovely but enormously noisy room four floors down.  After several fruitless efforts at a jet-lag mitigating nap and three complaints to the front desk about the construction noise – what sounded like metal hammers on metal pipes anthumbnail.large.1.1326478360.shower-stall-viewed-from-bed-sitting-roomd metal saws grinding through yet more metal pipes – I was moved three floors up.   And just as I was drifting off in room #3, the Assistant Manager of Guest Relations called to apologize and to upgrade me to a top floor “club room” with an improved view (see photo) and both a bathtub AND a shower.  It was most kind of her and the hotel, but I do rather miss the 6-foot high, 2-foot wide glass partition between the shower stall and the bed/sitting room with a retractable blind on the shower side.  Hmmm …

Culture shock set in during my unhappy stay in the noisy room.  Each time I complained, the very apologetic front desk staff promised to stop the construction.  WHAT?  Stop the construction?  Do you know what carpenters and electricians and plumbers cost?  Oh yeah – not so much here in India.  At one poi
nt I enquired whether it might be more productive to find another room for me than to stop a work in progress, but I was assured that was not the case.

My plan to get my borrowed cell phone up and running today fell through.  Apparently I need a photocopy of my passport – check – and two passport-size photos – not check! – in addition to a letter from the hotel attesting to my temporary residence here before I can purchase a new sim card.  I am told sim cards in India expire after three months’ inactivity.  Internet searches don’t support the photo/letter requirement.  I shall ask my tour guide this evening.

I meet my tour mates in just over an hour.  The time has come to make myself sociable!