The flight from Istanbul to Delhi took 7 hours and we arrived shortly after 5 am local time. We had to get our visa-on-arrival paperwork done first. We were a little nervous about that as there was a chance we'd be sent back if everything wasn't in order. But it all went smoothly and was surprisingly quick.

A few days before we arrived the government had declared the higher denomination currency (500 and 1000 rupee notes) to be invalid so everyone had to turn those notes in at a bank. The idea was to force the under-ground economy above ground to catch the money launderers and income tax dodgers. It also had the effect of causing a shortage of legal tender, since there was not enough small bills to take the place of the big bills.

After collecting our luggage we went out into the arrivals hall and tried to get money from an ATM, but none of the machines we tried worked and several came up with a message saying they were out of money. Even the currency exchange office was closed, with a sign taped to the glass saying they were out of cash. However, we were lucky because there was one ATM we found that had some money left. It only had 100 rupee notes (which has the same value as a twoonie) and we took out the max we were allowed - 40 notes, or about $80. Enough for now. At least it looks like a lot of money... the giant wad of bills barely fits in a wallet.

The other crisis currently affecting Delhi is air pollution, which is currently at record high levels. The smog is so bad that we could see it hang in the arrivals hall! Before we left the airport our throats started getting sore so we bought face masks to wear. Outside, the haze is so thick that you can only see a few blocks.
 
 
The airport has a really good subway connection to the centre of town so we bought subway cards at the station by the airport and took the train to the Delhi subway station. From there we only needed to climb the stairs to the street, cross the road to the Delhi train station and go though that to our hotel on the other side. We picked our way across several pick-up/drop-off lanes in front of the station, with rows of taxis and auto rickshaws awaiting the coming rush-hour crowds.
 
 
Once at the station itself, it wasn't clear what way to go. The trains are above ground here, and there were trains in between us and our hotel, so we knew we'd need to find an underpass or a pedestrian bridge to get across. We were directed down one hallway but that turned out to be for accessing the train platform so we turned back.

Then a helpful station employee told us that access from the train station to the bazar we were trying to get to was closed due to congestion caused by a Hindu festival. In fact, all the entrances to the bazar were currently closed and if we wanted to get to our hotel we'd need to go to the local government tourist office (D.T.T.D.C) and show them our hotel booking in order to get permission even to go into the area. He also impressed upon us the need to book our train tickets while we were there.

Since we'd already pre-paid for the hotel, we didn't want to just find a different one. The railway station man was nice enough to flag us a taxi and tell the driver where we were going. The taxi ride was a blur of honking horns and close calls. The driver ran every red light we came to. The roadsides full of food stalls and garbage and dogs and cows and lots and lots of people whizzed past faster than we could take it in.

After a few minutes we pulled into a dilapidated street and stopped in front of a Delhi Tourism office. We went inside and down a few steps and into a back office where we told the man our tale of woe. He asked to see our hotel reservation and then called the hotel for us. Then he handed me the phone and said the hotel clerk wanted to talk to me. The hotel clerk explained that due to the access closure they had been force to cancel all the reservations and that our money would be credited back within 7 days.

While we were talking there was something strange about the sound of the call... a sort of echo that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Like I was hearing everything twice. Then it hit me...a car horn from the street outside...and I heard it on the phone too. Then the sound of a dog barking, and i could hear that in the office and on the phone too. The person I was talking to was in the same building, in one of the other offices.

And then the tumblers started to fall into place. We were being scammed. The man in the tourist office hadn't called our hotel. He'd just called an accomplice in the next room. In fact, this wasn't even a real tourist office. They just wanted us to think our hotel was unavailable so they could book us a different one and take a hefty commission. I gave the receiver back to the man and told Heather I thought we were being tricked. We thanked the man for his 'help' and got up to leave.

Out on the street we decided that the whole thing had probably been a scam, starting from the 'nice man' that we took to be a railway employee at the train station. There was probably no festival at all, and no reason that we couldn't get to the hotel we'd booked. Ken took out his phone and took a picture of the fake tourist office. There was a group of 5 guys loitering across the street and a couple of them quickly ran over and put their hands in front of the phone and told him that it was against the law to take pictures of government offices. They wanted him to delete the photo. (He didn't.)
 
 
We quickly mapped out a course to our hotel and started walking. We were lucky that despite all the driving, the taxi ride had left us in a place that was still within a kilometre of our hotel. Within the first few hundred feet we were accosted several times by people insistent on 'helping' us but we pushed on.

As we walked we met another 'nice' young man in a sport coat who asked us where we were from and then had nice stuff to say about Canada. He wanted us to go to a different tourist office and kept trying to get us to change course. At one point he mentioned something about us being in India for a month...something we had told the scammers, but had not mentioned to him. OMG...was he in on it too? In communication with the first scammers and picked up our trail after we left the fake Tourism office?

Thinking about it later, we figure there must have been at least 9 people working together to scam us: (1) the man to directed us down the wrong hallway at the railway station, (2) the 'nice man' to sent us to the tourist office, (3 & 4) the taxi driver and his navigator (5) the man working in the tourist office, (6) the hidden man in the tourist office, (7 & 8) the guys in front of the office that tried to stop us from taking pictures, and (9) the guy in the sport coat who was still following us at that point.

We ignored him too and continued walking to the area where our hotel was supposed to be. The street we were looking for turned out to be very busy, with people, motorbikes and rickshaws vying for space on the road. The edges of the road were lined with carts selling all kinds of stuff, so to make progress down the street you had to step out into the traffic and just let the vehicles skim past you, horns blaring. There were no numbers on the buildings, but we soon found the sign for our hotel.

At the hotel they did not have a room for us yet. (After all that it was still only 8:00 am!) They said we could leave our luggage and we went up to the roof-top restaurant to get some water. The restaurant overlooked a cemetery and some quieter (but no less squalid) streets behind the hotel. From the roof it was easy to see just how bad the air polution really was.
   

 
 
We relaxed on the roof for the rest of the morning, occasionally pulling on our face masks when the pollution got too much. Oddly there was a daytime fireworks display just a few blocks behind the hotel. Lots of noise, but hard to see the fireworks because of the daylight and the smog.

At noon we went down to check in to our room. We were pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. A bit better than the rest of the hotel, and a million times nicer that the street outside. We were exhausted from the overnight flight so we slept for a few hours.
 
 
At 5:00 we went downstairs and bought a SIM card for Heather's phone and a data plan to go with it. The paperwork required was over the top - typical of India, I think. Heather had to sign in 3 or 4 places. They also needed a photocopy of Heather's passport AND a visa-type photograph to attach, which they had done by the print shop downstairs. Total cost was $9, all in. Cheap!

We mentioned we were going for supper and the guy at the phone place recommended a nearby restaurant called the Malhotra restaurant. It was only a block and a half away, so we decided to walk over and check it out. The street was even busier in the evening that it had been when we arrived in the morning.
   
 
We ordered a lot of food because we were pretty hungry and the food was cheap, It was all very, very good. Heather said the Tandori chicken was the best she'd ever tasted. (Ken agreed.)

After dinner we went back to the room and researched what we were going to do next. We had this hotel booked for only 2 nights, and after that we don't know where we going yet.

Or at least that's what Ken was doing. Heather was on facebook, which is where she learned the news that Leonard Cohen had died. Bummer. First Donald Trump and now this. Went to bed sad.