Misadventures: Getting Conned

At only one point in my life have I overtly threatened someone with physical harm and meant it. Unfortunately for the two Indians sitting across the counter from me, they were the target of my anger.

What brought me to that point started the night before, when my two friends and I purchased train tickets to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. In a country where most people we'd spoken to had a basic command of English, we thought buying train tickets would be fairly simple.

It wasn't. Everyone had forgotten to speak English, and we couldn't even guess at the destinations, since the train schedules all looked like the picture below. Add to that the fact that once we got to the ticket window, after cleverly avoiding a pair of pickpockets and pointing them out to everyone in the station, it turned out that only Indian citizens could buy from it.

The window we had to go to was in a separate building half a mile away. Even when we'd paid for our tickets and gotten the receipt, I had no idea if we were actually going to end up in Agra. For all I knew, our ticket was for Srinagar.

About eight hours after purchasing our ticket, my alarm was buzzing and I rolled out of bed. I don't mind being awake at 4 a.m. if I haven't gone to bed yet, but to actually wake up that early really gets to me.

We were at the train station by 5:15 to catch our 6 a.m. train to Agra, having been amazed that, yes, there is a time of the day when New Delhi's streets aren't gridlocked.

Squinting to read the ticket, I saw we were supposed to go to platform one. All I saw were platforms 6-12. I asked a local, and he started to point me in the right direction, but then another guy showed up and took over after a few seconds of rapid-fire Hindi whizzed past my uncomprehending face.

The second guy, pointed at the tickets and told us we didn't have the tourist stamp. Had my brain been working even a little bit, I would have seen through this obvious and time-tested scam, but I, along with my friends, followed the guy we thought was helping us to a tourism office where he said we could get our tickets stamped.

Two elderly Indians pretended to look at a computer screen and told us all the tourist seats were full, and we were out of luck. I argued with them for about half an hour, telling them there was no reason we couldn't ride second class with all the locals, but he made up some lies about laws to protect local passenger seating or something.

Playing the ever-helpful TI staffer, he was able to get us a car to take us to Agra - for the princely sum of $135 each (our train ticket for three people had been $50).

By this point, we'd missed our train, but I remembered reading something in the Lonely Planet guide six months earlier.

"Let me see your credentials," I said.

"We don't have to show them to you," the man said with an air of superiority.

"Lonely Planet says you do. It's a law."

"Let me see this Lonely Planet."

"No. Show me your credentials."

At this, the man turned to his cohort, who was maybe old enough to have met some British colonists when they first came to India, and produced a book full of blank pages with the India Tourism Office seal on them.

"Here you are, sir. You see? We like Americans. We are authorized."

"No. You're a scam artist," I said, mad at myself as much as at him. "Since we can't use the train ticket, you will refund us the money for it."

"I cannot do this," he replied.

"Yes, you can." I sat back and folded my arms, knowing I wasn't all that much of a threat, but the two guys with me, who had jest returned from 15 months in Iraq, might give him pause.

"I can give you half."

"You will give me all of it."

"This I cannot do."

I leaned forward. "You will give me all of it, or I will step over this counter, take every last rupee in your cash register, and if you stand in my way, you're going to get hurt."

The man's eyes flitted between me and my friends before he said something in Hindi and the amount of our train fare magically appeared on the counter.

It was a small victory, but at least it was something.

Back in the hotel room 20 hours later, one of my friends picked up the Lonely Planet guide.

"If you are told you need a tourist stamp on your ticket," he said, paraphrasing a paragraph in the book, "it is a popular scam. There are no tourist stamps. You will be taken to a nonofficial tourism office and pay exorbitant fees for transportation. The good thing to remember is that there is very little threat of physical harm."

"For tourists," I thought.

Misadventures: Traffic Violations

I admit it. I'm guilty of a slew of traffic violations in France.

I broke at least three laws, and I was only driving for about eight minutes.

It wasn't really dangerous, but I did sort of run a red light, speed and drive the wrong way down a one-way street.

Let me explain.

We had to drop our car off at the Hertz office at the train station in Reims after hours. Normally, this would present no problem at all. The rental office is right in front of the station, and there's a drop box for the keys.

When I was there, however, the whole front of the train station was shut down and appeared to be closed off by construction of a new city tram/train service that will make navigating the city a whole lot easier.

My dad was driving, and my GPS ignored the fact that we couldn't get where it wanted us to go, so we were on our own. We ended up parking the car on the opposite side of the station and walking through it to try to find a route to get the car to the correct parking lot so we didn't get charged with the French equivalent of grand theft auto.

I saw there were two women in the Hertz office, even though it was closed, so I knocked on the door. One said something about being "ferme" (closed), and I proceeded to butcher the French language as I tried to explain our plight with the 16 or so verbs and 100ish words I knew.

Fortunately, she spoke English and told us how we could get to the parking lot, where several taxis were waiting around for a fare.

Walking back to the car, I held my hand out for the keys. My dad gave me a funny look, but it had been a week and a half since I'd driven, and three years since I'd driven in Europe. More importantly, I wanted to be done with dropping the car off and get back to the fun part of the trip.

My dad feels compelled to follow the rules of the road to a T, even while being passed by all the locals. I don't fault him for it. In fact, I think it's probably the best way to travel.

However, if I am ever pulled over and cited by gendarmes, I think it would be funny, and it would probably make a good story.

We piled into our Opel Meriva, which is a normal-sized car but felt cramped with all of our luggage, and I started it up.

I began my vehicular crime spree by speeding. I'm not sure why the French seemed to think that 30 kilometers per hour is a good speed to be driving. The thing is, 30kmph is less than 19mph, and I don't think my German-engineered car made for the autobahn (maybe a stretch there) could even go that slowly. I thought 45kmph (about 28mph) was a more reasonable speed, especially since there was no one on the road.

I reached a larger road with more traffic and saw where I needed to turn. No one was coming, so I turned. My dad and sister started laughing and shouting something about running a red light. I think they were mistaken, but they assure me that I did, in fact, run it.

Whatever.

As I cruised past the construction toward the Hertz office, I had one of two choices. Option One was to follow the arrows, negotiate all the parked taxis and travelers who ignored the crosswalks as they lugged 90-lb suitcases over cobblestones. Option Two was to drive the wrong way down a one-way street for about 60 feet and end up at the Hertz office.

And really, it's not like it was actually a street. It was some nonsense someone had set up with cones. I have the utmost respect for French highway engineers, but I think the guy who set this up was just taking the easy route so he could go grab a glass of wine and a baguette - which is exactly what I wanted to be doing.

I wish I could write that some gendarmes came running out of the train station and I explained to them exactly why I had done what I did before we all went and got drinks and they gave me one of their cool hats, but no one saw me, or no one cared.

I tossed the keys in the drop box and became a pedestrian again.


-A note on the photos: The top photo is the Opel Meriva I was driving, but that photo was taken in Eguisheim, France, about three days earlier. The photo of the two gendarmes was taken in Paris, and I still want one of their hats.

Misadventures - When Monkeys Attack

Going to India, I really looked forward to seeing monkeys. I don’t know what it is about them that fascinates me, but I’d always wanted to see one.

Reading up on what, before the trip, loomed as an exotic, wild land draped in stereotypes, I was amazed at some of the stories I encountered, especially those regarding monkeys.

The most ominous of those stories was about a pack of monkeys murdering New Delhi’s deputy mayor. OK, maybe murder is the wrong word, but they pushed him off of his balcony, and he fell to his death.
In other news, I read about the problems New Delhi was experiencing with monkey break-ins. There were several reports of monkeys rummaging through refrigerators, then slapping women who tried to stop them. I couldn’t help but laugh at that one.

Possibly the most intriguing story I read regarding the furry little bipeds was the effect they had on New Delhi’s transit system. Apparently, small, mean monkeys frequently rode in the passenger cars on the trains, forcing passengers to ride on the roof by chucking…stuff…at them.

While many countries would find a way to eradicate the problem with varying degrees of damage to the monkeys, Hanuman, the Hindu monkey god, is sacred, making monkeys protected.

What, then, to do?

The answer authorities came up with was rather creative. A larger breed of monkey was drafted into city service. These larger monkeys, Langurs, are friendly to people, but scare the little tyrants out of the train cars.

I did not see this firsthand, but read on a reputable news site that passengers and Langurs ride the cars in harmony.

With so much monkey mayhem evident in the place I was about to spend two weeks, I read up on how to get them to leave me alone.

Don’t make eye contact, and don’t show your teeth, as these are seen as challenges, and the monkeys simply aren’t afraid of people. If you’re holding food, and the monkey asks, then the monkey should get. The “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” phenomenon apparently doesn’t apply.

Being the conscientious travel companion I try to be, I sent off an e-mail to my friends so they, too, would know how to avoid confrontation.

It was on Elephanta Island, in Mumbai’s harbor, when I learned that my friend, Peter, hadn’t bothered to read.

Home to a handful of villages, a cave complex dating back to the 600s and a colony of small monkeys, Elephanta Island is a must-see for tourists. Its caves are one of India’s many UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Walking through the bazaar on the way to the caves, we saw monkey after monkey. Some sat, some played with each other, one stole a vendor’s water bottle and one attacked Peter.

I tried to warn him. About the time I said, “Don’t—” he was dodging the surprisingly agile little beast.
He managed to dodge the attack and retreat in time, but the monkey then stood in the path like the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail. Peter stomped his foot, and the monkey held his ground.

None shall pass, indeed.

After a few seconds, the monkey found something more exciting than the standoff and swung through a tree.

We had no more trouble with monkeys for the rest of the trip. In Ranthambore National Park, famed for its tigers and 10th-Century fortress, we saw several. These ones had apparently “gone green” as they drank from the taps and conscientiously shut them off when they were finished.

Down south, in Goa’s capital city of Panaji (Panjim), I was excited to see the bright orange temple to Hanuman. While the sight was certainly impressive, it was oddly devoid of monkeys.

I got my fill of the little creatures on that trip. I still think their antics are hilarious, like watching a semi-human society acting outside all the laws of civility, but I have a new respect for them. They’re noble in their own way, and, being so genetically close to humans, I can see why so many people choose to study them.

Misadventures - The (Way) Overpriced Lunch

Walking through Paris, with its rich culture and seemingly endless supply of the best-looking pastries and desserts I’ve ever seen, it’s nearly impossible to go a day without indulging in something. After all, I know I’ll walk it off.

Sometimes, however, it’s more than calories that add up.

On my second trip to Paris – as in “I should have known better” – my family and I happened to be walking around the square where the Bastille used to stand. I was prattling on about the part the storming of the infamous prison has played in French history when we happened to pass by a pastry shop.

The display case in the window drew us like moths to a flame. Cheesecakes, éclairs, chocolate cakes, macarons, strawberry pies and a host of other delicious-looking desserts called our names.The prices seemed fairly reasonable, with just abut every dessert being less than five euros. Did we see the sign that said – even in English for us stupid Americans – “take away prices”? Nope. We even took a picture of it, but who would expect us to even notice the sign with all those desserts distracting us?

The French, apparently.

We each decided what we wanted, and ordered from the counter.

“Would you like to sit inside?” the woman asked.

We looked at each other, peered through the window at the cute little elevated seating area overlooking the obelisk in the center of the intersection and thought, why not?

Once we were seated, the stereotypical Parisian waiter waltzed over to us and smiled, then took our order in perfect English.

A moment later, our mouths were salivating as plates were set in front of us. The Cokes we ordered each came in a little glass bottle, accompanied by a glass with a slice of lemon and, luxury of luxuries – ice. That should have been a warning.

Seriously, if you’re in Europe and your server speaks flawless English, the signs are in English and your drink comes with ice, don’t order another thing.

Oblivious to what was looming at the end of the meal, we ate like Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette before the Revolution. My cheesecake with raspberry sauce was the best I’ve ever had. Most likely because I was eating it in Paris, but it was definitely excellent.

My sister enjoyed every last bite of her strawberry cheesecake, and my parents laughed as they cleaned their plates.

I drained the last of my soda and sat back, satisfied and thinking I could get used to this kind of lunch.

Then the bill came.

I did the math in my head. We’d ordered the cheap desserts, and they should have totaled 12 euros, give or take. Add in the beverages, small as they were, and I thought we were looking at another 10 euros, tops. Then the pittance for the service charge that is almost always factored in, and we’d be good to go.

I never expected the bill to be 44 euros. We stared at the scrap of paper like cavemen contemplating a TV, our mouths comically open.

Flagging the server brought him hustling over, a small miracle in France, where meals can last for the better part of an afternoon.

“Yes, but you sat down and ate in here,” was the end result to our disbelieving questions.

How glad was I that dad was paying? Factor in the exchange rate, and that little snack had actually cost us just under $60.

What could we say? They put a sign out, in English, and we were the idiots who suddenly lost our literacy, not them. There was nothing for it but to leave the money on the table and beat a hasty retreat. At least we knew for next time.

It didn’t help any that, walking to the closest ATM, we passed the shop next door, which happened to stock the same basic selections. Not only were they cheaper, but they advertised no extra charge for sitting inside.

Ah well. C’est la vie.

Misadventures: Good German Beer?

In addition to all the usual reasons to travel to Europe, including history, culture, sightseeing and fun, there is another benefit to Americans who have yet to turn 21 – the seeming lack of any enforced drinking age.

On my first trip to Germany, I was a few weeks away from reaching that all-important milestone in my life, and I had every intention of taking advantage of legally drinking good German beer.

Oh yes, I had had beer in the States, but it had always been limited to whatever I could score at parties or convince older friends to buy for me. It was the typical mix of Budweiser, Coors and Corona – but I knew there were better beers out there. In Germany, I wanted to find them.

My first opportunity came in the town of Bacharach, which sidles up against the famous Rhine River. I had just visited a medieval tower with my family, and the climb to the top had left us all hungry, so we glanced in a few shops before finding a mom-and-pop lunch counter.

Inside, the friendly, middle-aged couple greeted us in English, and we ordered sausages and potatoes. Next to the cash register was a refrigerator with a glass door – and it was chock-full of beer.

Each shelf was devoted to a different brewery, and all the labels were in German. I was able to discern many of the words (lager, bier, braurei, wasser and hopfen). The pictures on the labels consisted of everything from country landscapes, old buildings, a monk with a stein and coats of arms.

My anticipation grew as I imagined what my first sip of true German beer would be like. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it had to be special or people wouldn’t make a big deal about it. Being 20, I was of the mindset that more is always better, so I reached in for a one-liter bottle that was only €2.50.

The woman working the counter popped the top off, and I joined my family at a small table. My first taste of the beer was sadly anticlimactic, and it didn’t taste all that different from anything I’d had before. Nevertheless, I drank the whole thing.

The two owners came over to our table to ask us how the food was, and we spoke with them a bit, and the woman asked, “Do you want moisture?”

We all stared at each other, and she repeated herself. My dad pointed to the condensation on his water glass and said, “moisture.”

The woman looked confused, then picked up a bottle of mustard.

“Mustard,” we said.

“Moo-staard!” she shouted to her husband, and he repeated it several times. Apparently a mystery of some sort had been solved.

But there was another mystery, and that was how I had just consumed a liter of beer, and was not feeling even the slightest buzz. At that time, a liter was enough to get me well on my way to intoxication, and I was really starting to wonder why this German beer, which I was told had higher alcohol content than American beers, was having no effect on me.

I examined the label a bit more closely, and read, “Clausthaler.” It sounded very German to me. Then I read the smaller print underneath the eagle logo. “Premium Alkoholfrei.”

I sat back in my chair, utterly defeated. I was 20 years old, a quarter of the way around the world, and I had just wasted a perfect chance to drink a German beer by buying something alcohol-free.

Since then, I’ve had many excellent German beers, and even sometimes fancy myself a beer snob when it suits me. I have found that there is definitely a difference between the average German beer and the watered-down stuff crowding our grocery stores like refugees over here (see – beer snob), and having a bottle of lager in Munich while the 2006 World Cup was going on made up for my first feeble foray into the world of legal drinking.

Misadventures: Surrendering to the French

The first (and hopefully only) time I had automatic weapons pointed at me was in Paris, during La Fête de la Musique in 2004.

I was standing under the Eiffel Tower, of all places, when I saw a trio of French soldiers lounging a few yards away. As I had a few friends in the U.S. Army, I wanted a picture of their French counterparts for the next time they started with the French surrender jokes.

Bad idea. Very, very bad idea.

As I raised my camera, the officer turned and saw me. In a voice that boomed above the sounds of the nearby concert, he shouted, "No! No photo!"

That would have been enough for me, but the two enlisted men with him both spun, raising their rifles as they did so. The next thing I knew, I was holding both hands above my head with the camera dangling by the strap. It was a tense moment for me as I hoped I wouldn't be on the news the next day as the victim of a tragic accident. Fortunately, the two soldiers weren't trigger-happy, and left me with nothing more than severe Gallic glares.

When I told the story to my friends in the American military, they laughed.

I learned the French phrase "Ne tire pas" - just in case.