Con-naught Place
December 04, 2011
Udar ranked Delhi as the number one place in India with the most scams, followed by Agra and Varanasi. He was right.
It's our last day in India and the plan was to shop. We read up on Delhi when we were in Agra and went to the capital of India with whatever piecemeal information we had gathered. Connaught Place (often abbreviated as CP by locals) has an urban form shaped like a spoked wheel and we had difficulty locating Palika Bazaar using just a tiny map saved inside his camera. Just when we needed some help, a man appeared out of nowhere offering to give us directions.
He first lied about the location of Palika Bazaar (the direction he pointed was way off from the map and we later realised it was just across the street from where we were standing). Next, he successfully tricked us into believing Palika Bazaar only sell electronics (we guessed our cameras gave us away leading him to deduce that we already own decent electronics and we wouldn't want to go to a place selling items we do not require). He asked what were we looking for and we replied that we wanted to buy some souvenirs and T-shirts as it was our last day in India. Banging on that, he recommended Pachu Bazaar (there is no such place), frequent by locals selling a wide variety of goods at affordable prices. He opined that CP was for tourists and retail prices were inflated. He suggested we take an auto to Pachu Bazaar which only cost Rs 20. He knew that by showing he understood our concern of being ripped off by drivers and telling us the market rate, he could gain our trust. We insisted walking there and he offered to guide us there. This made me believe that he had no ill-intentions since he was going out of his way to help us and I thanked him for showing us the way.
We followed him along a major road and started to ask casual questions about him. He introduced himself as a 28 years old student from Delhi University (he had a thick moustache but still this was not sufficient to ring our alarm). He was just wandering around aimlessly and since it was weekend he decided to do some shopping. We followed him for quite a distance about 20-30 mins along Panchkuian Road and our suspicion grew when we saw that the place was deserted. He quickly rationalised the lack of tourists was due to the location of Pachu Bazaar being more out of the way as compared to CP. At this point, he scurried off saying he's going to buy his socks and left us on our own. We walked further down the street and he appeared again, urging us to visit this store which had its door swung open at the same time. Just when we were wondering if this was a trap, the cheater bug had disappeared. We were finally on our toes and anger started to set in. What a waste of our precious time and now we have to try and find our way back! Fortunately, we found the metro station just in front and bumped into him on the escalator. My donkey friend was furious and shouted, "Where's your socks?" The liar just smiled and walked away.
We have been so cautious throughout our journey in India we would rather walk 4km with all our heavy bags than take a cycle rickshaw. We did that not just once but twice and we had to let all our effort go down the drain on the last day. Luckily we didn't lose any money. We turned apprehensive, distrustful and even a little mean towards other innocent folks we met during our remaining time in Delhi. Thanks to this cheat, we walked at least 1.2km and had the opportunity to take the metro from Rama Krishna Ashram Marg back to Rajiv Chowk. Conned in Connaught Place. Pro liar.
It's our last day in India and the plan was to shop. We read up on Delhi when we were in Agra and went to the capital of India with whatever piecemeal information we had gathered. Connaught Place (often abbreviated as CP by locals) has an urban form shaped like a spoked wheel and we had difficulty locating Palika Bazaar using just a tiny map saved inside his camera. Just when we needed some help, a man appeared out of nowhere offering to give us directions.
He first lied about the location of Palika Bazaar (the direction he pointed was way off from the map and we later realised it was just across the street from where we were standing). Next, he successfully tricked us into believing Palika Bazaar only sell electronics (we guessed our cameras gave us away leading him to deduce that we already own decent electronics and we wouldn't want to go to a place selling items we do not require). He asked what were we looking for and we replied that we wanted to buy some souvenirs and T-shirts as it was our last day in India. Banging on that, he recommended Pachu Bazaar (there is no such place), frequent by locals selling a wide variety of goods at affordable prices. He opined that CP was for tourists and retail prices were inflated. He suggested we take an auto to Pachu Bazaar which only cost Rs 20. He knew that by showing he understood our concern of being ripped off by drivers and telling us the market rate, he could gain our trust. We insisted walking there and he offered to guide us there. This made me believe that he had no ill-intentions since he was going out of his way to help us and I thanked him for showing us the way.
We followed him along a major road and started to ask casual questions about him. He introduced himself as a 28 years old student from Delhi University (he had a thick moustache but still this was not sufficient to ring our alarm). He was just wandering around aimlessly and since it was weekend he decided to do some shopping. We followed him for quite a distance about 20-30 mins along Panchkuian Road and our suspicion grew when we saw that the place was deserted. He quickly rationalised the lack of tourists was due to the location of Pachu Bazaar being more out of the way as compared to CP. At this point, he scurried off saying he's going to buy his socks and left us on our own. We walked further down the street and he appeared again, urging us to visit this store which had its door swung open at the same time. Just when we were wondering if this was a trap, the cheater bug had disappeared. We were finally on our toes and anger started to set in. What a waste of our precious time and now we have to try and find our way back! Fortunately, we found the metro station just in front and bumped into him on the escalator. My donkey friend was furious and shouted, "Where's your socks?" The liar just smiled and walked away.
We have been so cautious throughout our journey in India we would rather walk 4km with all our heavy bags than take a cycle rickshaw. We did that not just once but twice and we had to let all our effort go down the drain on the last day. Luckily we didn't lose any money. We turned apprehensive, distrustful and even a little mean towards other innocent folks we met during our remaining time in Delhi. Thanks to this cheat, we walked at least 1.2km and had the opportunity to take the metro from Rama Krishna Ashram Marg back to Rajiv Chowk. Conned in Connaught Place. Pro liar.
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