I highly recommend that those who travel to India contact their hotels and ask for airport pickups. After I spent about 3 months in India on and off, I personally believe that the vast majority of Indian people are honest and hardworking; however, there are those who try to take short cuts to money. For example, there are those who try to hassle tourists and make a lot of money. Cab drivers who come and pick up tourists at international airports are exactly those. I'd like to share a story to highlight this.

I arrived at Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi, India) at around 0:30 am on December 8th, 2006. Another flight just arrived at the airport, so there was an unusually long line at Customs. When I passed through Customs, it was close to 1:30 am. It also took some time to get my suitcase that day; workers at the airport apparently took a while to unload suitcases. As a result, I ended up leaving the airport at around 2:00 am.

I contacted my hotel and asked for airport pickup a couple of days before my arrival, but I was unable to find anyone holding a sign that had my name written on. (Retrospectively speaking, I should have called my hotel to check to see if they sent someone to pick me up, but I did not.) So, I started looking for a cab driver. I found a man who told me that it would cost Rs. 95 (95 Indian Rupees) for me to get to my hotel; it was a reasonable price, so I went with him to the parking area; he phoned a driver, the driver came and we left for my hotel.

I was thinking "Here I am. I'm in India!", but it did not turn out to be a nice short comfortable ride to my hotel. About 10 minutes after we left the airport, the man who told me that the cab fee was Rs. 95 suddenly told me that it would cost me Rs. 995. It is about USD 25, so it's not that expensive in US standard, but it is outrageously expensive in Indian standard. This was the second time that I came to India, so I knew that it was too expensive; as a matter of fact, given the distance, Rs. 95 should have been the right price. I was quite unhappy and I started arguing; I also said that I would not pay Rs. 995 and I was not going to. The man told me that he would not take me to the hotel and he actually told the driver to drive back to the airport. I was stunned, but we were back at the parking space of Indira Gandhi International Airport 10 minutes later.

It was almost 3:00 am and it was rather cold outside. It gets rather cold in winter in Delhi; this is surprising given how hot it gets in summer, but it does get cold to such an extent that a couple of people freeze to death in some years. While the crime rate in India is lower than most countries, I did not feel comfortable walking around and finding another cab driver at 3:00 am in the morning. I also felt tired and I wanted to get to the hotel as soon as possible. At this point, I agreed with the man I met at the airport that I'd use a 3-wheeler instead of a cab with 4 wheels and I'd pay Rs. 450 including the tip. I left the airport for the second time and reached my hotel.

I want to emphasize the fact that the vast majority of Indian people are honest and hardworking people. They are also kind; for example, one of my neighbors is a kind of person who brings me food so that I can get to know more about Indian culture. However, there are those who love to hassle tourists and foreigners, and there are too many of them in the hospitality industry. I'd risk saying that over 95% of cab drivers (including 3 wheeler drivers) are like that. They literally wait at international airports like Indira Gandhi International Airport all day long in order to hassle one or two tourists to make big bucks. You do not want to use their services (if you can actually call their services "services"). Those who travel to India, please contact your hotels and ask for airport pickups.