We were picked up from the airport as arranged, all was going well until we arrived at the wrong hotel. The representative from the hotel we booked was there so we thought it might be ok. He told us the place we had booked wad full and he had arranged this one for us. When checking the room it had a broken toilet seat so they offered a new room. Which wouldn't be ready for about 1-2 hours. We checked in and suddenly the room was ready. We took the lift with bags to the 3rd floor and to the new room. I'd was quite dark as the window was into a hollow lift size square about the size of am elevator shaft. The shower was a tap with bucket and dish to scoop water and the air con was a fan, all completely not like the photos or description on the booking site. We were stuck at that stage so left our bags and went out. They had "kindly" kept a driver for us. We wanted to go to an ATM and then the government travel agency for free maps. We ended up talking to a lovely gentleman with a thick soft British accent who wanted to sell us tours to Rajasthan and a Delhi city tour. Very low pressure to try to sucker us with trust. After about 5 minutes our free map arrived, it was from 2005 and does not have any metro lines or stations on it. I asked him to indicate on the map where we were and he only gave a vague circle the length of a street, he would not be any more exact. After we went to the atm outside. It had no marking so I refused to use it. The driver then showed us to another one that looked more legitimate, it was inside and had markings of the bank it belonged to as well as having clear signage outside.
We went back to the hotel to start wandering around from there to get our bearings, when we wanted to go back up to the room, can you guess, sorry elevator finish now, so we walked up the stairs. When we went back out again we went toward the train main station then to Connaught place, we were hungry and wanted to find the genuine tourist office. We were touted at all the way and followed separately twice by filthy children that tap on your arm and indicate eating to try to get money from you. We found McDonald's and had some food, at least McDonald's has standards for hygiene. After lunch we found the genuine tourist office and got some maps and info. From there we went to a travel office and they helped us find a better hotel for about the same price. Collecting our bags wasn't too much drama apart from they now miraculously had room available at the place we had booked online. Needless to say we continued with our new plans and left. We had a guy from the travel office to show us the new hotel. End of day 1.
Apart from the scam the place is dusty. It's in the air, on the street, everywhere. The streets are more like dirt roads. You can sure tell we are in a 3rd world country. The thing that surprised us most was we are in the middle of Delhi and expected a city, there's not.
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