Just when you thought you had everything under control...

  We met an American couple boarding the plane in Paris, who just happened to be sitting in the row right in front of us. We got acquainted during the long flight (8 hours or so). As we were leaving Immigration in India to pick up our luggage, Karen and I got to talking. They were going to the same hotel. Perhaps we could share a cab?

  Couldn't do that, since they were with a tour and being picked up by limo service. But we decided to see whether we could pay and ride along. That would have worked well, except the limo was stuck in traffic and we spent nearly an hour waiting for it. By now it was midnight. The tour guide said he'd get a taxi for us, since our morning start time was so early. He flagged a taxi with 2 young men in it and said they'd take us to our hotel for 550 rupees. Sounded good. We hopped in. Just outside the terminal area, the cab pulled off to the side of the road. "Pay me 2550 rupees," the passenger seat guy said. We protested, but they had usl. So we forked over 2000 rupees more than we should have, making the taxi ride price nearly equivalent to US prices. The passenger got out, and I'll bet he went back to the airport and did it again.

  We went through some pretty deserted-looking parts of Delhi before finally getting to the Hilton. I thought for a while we were being kidnapped and no one would ever see us again! (Hotwire.com has awesome prices on 5 star hotels.) But we arrived safe and sound and slept very fast, waking at 4:30 to catch the train.