Day 42. Indira's birthday, and everything is closed. I brought a group of German girls to find rooms, they were being swamped by the black marketeers who knew they had to change money in such. I got them settled, found them an open exchange office, got their money changed, and gave them maps and directions to a coffee shop. They wanted to know how many years I've been here.
[Author's note: the episode at the travel office last day is well documented elsewhere, but basically there was no way I was going to let them get away with treating us so badly. They had us sit in the waiting room from 6:30 to almost 10:00 o'clock, when finally one of the tourists, who'd been there during the war and knew a few words in Urdu, walked up to the counter and asked. The clerk looked up and in perfect English toll is the driver wasn't going to show up. All of us immediately demanded to know why she let us sit there for hours when she had this information. She replied it was because she had a job to do and she could see we were just sitting there.]
I went to the Indian Government Ticket Office and told him about the problem yesterday. He [the boss] immediately close the DTDC counter, and told the clerk to pack up her things. I returned with her to her own office where they offered only a refund. Not good enough. I consider this doing my bit to educate these people about the value of time. Which alone is 1/10 of what I think my time is worth. I'm not on vacation year, I have a clear-cut list of things to get done. I want compensation, satisfaction and a refund.
[Author's note: this may sound harsh, but you weren’t there. There is no place left in the world that is unaware of the values American’s place on their time, and when it is disrespected, it is always more than intentional. Of course, it took the rest of America twenty years and “heavily-accented tech support” to draw the same conclusions. Since I had to cancel other parts of my itinerary, I had time to make sure that particular office never pull another stunt like that.]
I got most of it done by midafternoon and met Dave, the Australian. We strolled about and found all the government offices and big businesses open. Not the market, though. There is a “Tibetian Market” I've got to see. The climate brings me, I could sleep 18 hours a day.
