As some of you already know, the beginning of my trip was not the easiest. Leaving the Delhi airport, I got the treatment some would call a classic. I shared a taxi towards town with a Danish girl, Marie, and we took a prepaid one as I had been adviced. The trouble started when I let go of the prepaid taxi reciept, less than a minute after recieving it. This guy comes to face us at the airport exit, asking "prepaid taxi?". I nod and hand the reciept to him. He leads us to a direction which raises suspicion, but we follow. The man talks on his phone, and pays us no more attention. In rides a normal looking cab, a little white japanese car. We get in, with our backpacks in the trunk, and the guy I handed the reciept says something in Hindi to the driver - who knows no English - and off we go. Goodbye reciept.We paid for a trip to Smyle Inn hostel, from where Marie could walk to the main bus station. However, the driver drops Marie first to a tourist office, where she "can find the best bus", and continues with me to the "hostel". First we stop "to ask direction" at a Hotel, and before I even understand what's going on, I'm back in the car again, heading towards another tourist office, for "information". Here, I'm asked to sit down, and tell the crook-faced guy my "problem". I say there is no other problem than that I'm sitting here and not at Smyle Inn. Then he tries to convince me that Smyle Inn is full, and when I don't buy it, he starts to put down the place. I start to lose my temper and demand the driver to take me to the right place and whoosh, there goes the driver. Now I'm alone with the crook-face businessman who has a tongue of a snake. He goes on convincing me how I'm not able to make it on my own with my backpack in Delhi at this time of morning, and that I need his help. As he visits the back room for a while, I split.

And so it is, I'm alone in the Delhi morning, carrying two backpacks, one in the back, and one in the front. It's not more than twenty meters until the first tout comes to "my rescue". I don't take his offers, but stubbornly decide to walk a certain way and ask some passerby for directions. However, it turns out that the passers-by don't really understand my Lonely Planet map (or any map?), and when I stop to chat to any passerby, there's instantly 6 touts or riksa drivers surrounding us.

Eventually I agree to take a riksa, who promises to take me to the hostel: "Yessir, yessir, no problem!".Now it feels so stupid, all that. Not having my alarm bells ringing when we pass by a little roundabout and I, desperate for landmarks, ask if this is Connaught Place (really a vast market place inside a vast roundabout), and the driver says "yes". We arrive to yet another tourist office, and after an argument with the driver (I'm told "Don't come to India if you don't trust!") I pay myself free of the guy and enter the tourist office, demanding for a map. They "offer" to call the hostel - yet another classic of a scam - and the guy calls some friend who pretends to be from Smyle inn. I talk with him personally, and the scam is really clever: he tells me that due to the fog (which is probably constant in Delhi) flights were cancelled an the people who were supposed to check out couldn't leave, and they don't have my room. I swallow every centimeter of his rope, but in my despair decide still to call Ami. Ami has arrived to Delhi a few days earlier and is staying with a host family on the other side of the metropolis. She says she'll see what she can do.

I don't get a map here, and I'm directed to yet another office, and sat down again... The clerk indeed has a map, and shows me where we "are", but apparently it's "not possible" to give me that map. While his concentration's elsewhere, I stuff the map into my pocket. My phone rings. It's Ami, telling me that the host family insists me to come over, and that I should not agree to pay more than 240 rupees for the riksa ride. Apparently noticing I've got help from outside, the clerk pays me no more attention and I leave.

The riksa driver is an old man, with very bad English and apparently illiterate, but for the first time I feel slightly confident in the company of an Indian. He agrees to take me there for 250. The area where he's taking me, he tells me, he hasn't been there in ten years. And indeed, after an hour's ride we stop in every corner to ask for directions. On the way, Ami calls me again, telling me not to leave the riksa before I see her and the host father - he personally wanted to come and negotiate about the price with the driver. We find there, and it breaks my heart to see the driver's face drop when Deepak arrives with Ami. They exchange some harsh words, and I'm told to pay 150 rupees. I feel so sorry for the old man I pay 160.

And I'm safe.