Oman air ticket booking experience online

Introduction

In this post I want to share with you my experience of booking tickets via Oman Air to go to Dubai. I’ll try and cover the options that I had and the final choices that led me to make this decision of choosing Oman air and the overall experience of having to deal with them while on the flight.

Booking tickets online

I’m a faithful customer of the Cleartrip app and I always use the app for booking flight tickets where ever I fly. The reason I like that app is because of the clear user interface and using minimal clicks to get my things done. However most of these apps are based on dynamic pricing and whether you are browsing using your phone or depending on the country you are doing it from etc.

The prices change based on where you are accessing the app from and how many times you have accessed it before on the same day. Somehow I felt all the prices for Dubai were peaking a lot using these apps due to the holiday season. Also most of these ticket charges did not offer me enough luggage capacity or seating choices. I had to pay over and above the stated amount for choosing my seating and or meals.

Oman Air was the only airline which offered me sufficient luggage capacity meal choices and sitting choices as well. So I directly went to Oman Air website and wanted to book the tickets to Dubai. The route was via Muscat and there was quite a lot of waiting time at Muscat. The sweet part of this whole booking experience was the cost. I could get to and fro tickets for 4 of us to Dubai for 65000 rupees. This included 30kg baggage per person (one of the highest) plus 7kg hand carry, meal and seat selection included as well. Hats off to Oman Air for offering so much during booking.

The problem with layover time

Sometimes due to the tickets being cheap or the rush during the hour of booking you can get tickets which have a lot of transit time at the intermediate airports. This is what happened to me while flying to Dubai and I had to wait in Muscat airport for nearly 6 hours before my next flight to Dubai.

Issues with modifications to tickets

The problem with the fare being offered on most of these routes is that these conditions are non negotiable. Like for example you cannot change the meals or change the seats.

Modifying the flights will cost you quite a lot and if you do decide to cancel the flight sometimes you will lose all the money. Depending on the package taken if you cancel the flight you may also get some money back but that is normally about 50% of the booking cost.

Approaching Oman Air office in Muscat

The situation that I had was that I had my next flight from Muscat to Dubai 6 hours after I landed.

As a last minute effort I tried to get a seat for the four of us on to other alternative flights 3 hours apart and earlier. The effort was to minimise waiting time at Muscat airport.

When I reached the Oman Air office and ask them whether I could change the booking even if it was at a cost they simply ask me to go to the same source from where I book the ticket and try to change it from there.

They did not have a clue on how to handle customer request and they didn’t even care about what I was actually trying to communicate or seek a clarification on. I went online to Oman Air website using Oman airport free WiFi since my roaming connection was not available and I noticed that it would not allow me to even load the ticket leave alone modify it or change it.

The reason for this is when you undertake a journey with Oman Air or for that matter any other airline they will mark against a ticket that this journey has been undertaken. My last journey from Bangalore to Muscat was not yet recorded since I just landed in Muscat. Due to this I was not able to load the ticket and make any other changes.

Contacting Oman Air office in Dubai

So upon reaching Dubai in my schedule flight late in the night the next day I decided to call up Oman Air office in Dubai and try to alter the return journey. The person on the other end who answered the call had no clue how to get this done for me and gave me an email id that I should send a mail to ask for a refund.

Reaching out to Oman Air on Twitter

I sent him an email and for nearly one whole day I did not get any response. So I took to my usual route of contacting Oman Air via Twitter and after another one day of wait and two days of turnaround time they responded to me saying that they will reply to my email regarding the refund.

After another day or two they replied to my email stating that I would lose two thirds of my money if I decided to modify or cancel the flight.

Testing other options such as upgrading to business class

When I entered my PNR number and requested for Oman Air has to upgrade my ticket to business class the whole ticket immediately popped up and started showing me fares for the upgrade.

All this while when I tried to enter the same PNR and try to retrieve my ticket it did not allow me to do so just because the current location was not updated. Only for the upgrade process everything seem to work which was a bit disappointing.

Lessons learnt from this booking experience

I will go ahead and share a few things that you need to know in order that you do not do the same mistakes that I did while planning a trip.

[ ] take a look at the transit times before finalising the tickets
[ ] understand whether your airline has an active customer support policy
[ ] talk to people who have been to the intermediate airport and ask them about the customer support facilities available there
[ ] if the direct flight is about 10000 to 20000 costlier you may decide to book that instead of the one that has a transit time
[ ] if you have kids Who need to board a flight beyond 12 P.M then it is better not to up for that kind of schedule because it will be very difficult to wake them up and make them board the flight since they often tend to get cranky.
[ ] do a trial run on Twitter by approaching the airline to see how the response would be.
[ ] understand the refund policies and cancellation policies for cancellation of tickets
[ ] charges apply even if you want to modify the ticket so you may need to be aware of what you would be losing in terms of cost.
[ ] it is not worth while trying to reach out to airport staff at the transit airport in case you are already about to sleep. This is likely to lead to lot of frustration and improper responses can only make things worse.

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The Jog Falls travel experience

Travelling to Jog Falls

As part of my previous post I have already written what it takes to go from Bangalore to Jog Falls. We stayed at Sagar in a hotel called Green Embassy, whose review I have given in another blog post. If you wish to know more about the hotel please click here.

Jog Falls tourist attraction

Bus journey from Sagar to Jog Falls is roughly around 25 km plus or minus and it is a treacherous route down the Mountain and up the Mountain again. Since it’s a waterfall you will need to go down the Mountain to some extent to see the falls from the top. There are lot of private buses that operate from areas like Sagar up to Jog Falls in a regular frequency.

The cost of the bus is roughly around 1 Rupee per kilometre so we ended up paying around 20 or 30 rupees for a ticket one way per person. What is more important to note is the time it takes to cover this distance and it is slightly on the higher side due to the terrain. It is quite common that you might feel a bit giddy and may even feel like puking.

Jog Falls pathway

The Jog Falls is a Majestic tourist attraction and has roughly around 1300-1400 steps all the way down. The steps themselves neatly laid out and it gets steeper by the flight as you reach down. It takes roughly about an hour to go down and between an hour and a half or two hours to come back up. We carried only a couple of bottles of water along with our bags down. It is highly recommended that you keep some food like biscuits or the likes while going down. The time when we went was in November and hence the water was pretty less in the falls itself. Like I said earlier in one of my posts this was more of a backpack trip and we had to do it in haste without rhyme or reason.

The best time to go would be between June to August during which time the thunderous falls are a sight to behold.

Safety along the stairs

There would always be a question what happens to you if you go alone all the way down or even with another person all the way down. Would there be somebody who would pickpocket you? Or rob you? Or mug you or even much worse. What is worse is that there are just two security guards at the bottom of the falls. These guys cannot help much and they are just there to control the crowds. Sometimes there could be a set of unruly people who just want to have fun. So far I have not heard of any mishap but there is a genuine risk of something happening. Going down is essentially at your own risk although it is not a very difficult thing and you do not hear incidents happening every other day.

Some things to take care of while going down

take a few bottles of water and something to eat like biscuits
preferably go between 9AM to 11AM or even earlier
as the sun rises it gets pretty difficult to come back up again
safety is at your own risk so be aware of your surroundings
the mobile signals are not available as you go down so be aware of that
preferably go with someone else or as a group of people
time your descent and ascent accordingly
while coming back up again take as much rest as you want wherever you want
do not stress yourself to climb up the stairs fast
ample time to come up give time for others to take rest but at the same time keep looking at your watch in order to come back in a reasonable time
the staircase USA open between 9AM in the morning and 6AM in the evening
if you are going during the monsoon, take an umbrella and use proper clothing like shoes/raincoats etc.
It could also be cold during monsoons, so cover your ears and chest if you can

Food options at Jog Falls

The Options for eating food at Jog Falls are extremely Limited. So you need to be aware of this and plan accordingly. There are a few stores selling frozen paratha or chapati along with some ill made curry.

The shops also stock a lot of ice creams & beverages cold and hot. So you should be able to get your Coke or Fanta or Pepsi easily. Please avoid the rice items here as the rice is not well cooked. Additionally there is also a KSTDC hotel which is only slightly better than the shops around.

Still this restaurant has its own flaws. Not all of the items listed are available at all the times. And if you go somewhere in the afternoon most other items are not available.

The best solution is to pack your own food and take it along with you so that you have something tasty and something made by you that is more edible than the ones available there.

Options to stay near Jog Falls

The couple of hotels that I did notice which is very near to Jog Falls. One of them is the Gerusoppa Maurya by KSTDC. I also noticed Jungle Lodges and resorts nearby. Barring this your nearest best option would be to stay at Sagar or Shimoga.

The total time it took for us to visit Jog Falls and be back is a little more than half a day so you need to plan accordingly if you are going there. This was of course from Sagar so if you are staying at Shimoga it could take much more than that.

Even though it was November it was pretty humid and sweating all the time. The climb down and back up only makes it worse. If you are going between July and August and plan to go down the staircase, don’t forget to take a raincoat or an umbrella and still continue to take water and some food. This should help you to be hydrated as well as mitigate the sweating problem during rainy season.

Conclusion

The Jog Falls is a must visit for everybody at least once in their life. Be careful to choose a place nearby to Jog Falls for your stay. Take care to pack food and water while going down Jog Falls pathway. Try to avoid the food which is available there. Time your visit properly. It would also serve if you can read about Jog Falls and its history before going there to appreciate the place.

If you like this post and photos please consider sharing and leave your valuable comments for me in the comment section below.

The Green Embassy, Sagara – Why you must check out this hotel when you visit Jog Falls

Introduction

My cousin arrived from United States of America and I had a chance to decide to have a backpack trip with him. It was a short decision to make and I had to hurry to make the best use of the time I had with him. For over 40 years I’ve never visited Jog Falls and I was always wanting to go there to see what it felt like to stand in front of the Majestic waterfalls of Karnataka.
We had to quickly book a mode of transport to get us there & also had to book a hotel for our stay there. Besides this we also had to find ways of reaching Jog Falls, seeing place and getting back to Bangalore within a day.

Route map

The distance from Bangalore to Jog Falls is about 445 km and it roughly takes about anywhere between 7 to 8 hours to reach there. We had a few options to get there which included KSRTC, going by train or driving there.
I have given to many places already within India and I was kind of fed up of taking my car out for this journey. As one would expect getting train tickets is extremely difficult to go to this place since this route is always busy and many people book the tickets in advance. So that left me with only one another option which was KSRTC.
My cousin said he would take care of the booking for the KSRTC bus and my responsibility was to book the hotel in a place called Sagar which was close to Jog Falls. The train actually goes to a place called talguppa but it is a place which is a bit nondescript and has only a railway station there. Please bear in mind that this place does not have proper hotels or stay options although there are some homestays near by.
Your best option would be to go to Shimoga or Sagara. There are frequent buses from Sagar to Jog Falls and it would roughly take about an hour to reach there. Although Google Maps says that it’s about 38 to 40 minutes one must factor into the route the railway crossing as well as the drive Downhill and again a bit Uphill to reach Jog Falls. Given this consideration and some wait time at the bus stand in Sagar it is better to keep about an hour for your travel to reach there.
I have already written a blog post about the KSRTC bus booking service online which you can read more about here. For this blog post I will focus on the hotel that we stayed in which was called the green Embassy in Sagar.

Criteria for the hotel choices

One of the main criteria that I had for choosing a hotel was that it must be very near to the bus stand or railway station or both if possible. Not only that it also had to have a decent restaurant as well as should be available at a value for money price. After doing a bit of research I did find that the gerusoppa kstdc hotel at Jog Falls itself was booked completely for the weekend.
Also since it was pretty expensive I had to choose something more reasonable. This is where I came across green embassy hotel which I finally booked.

Distance

The green embassy hotel is about 4 minutes by drive and about 10 to 15 minutes by walk from the bus stand or railway station in Sagar. This actually ticked my requirement for having hotel nearby. For the uninitiated this hotel is not a four or five star hotel but a more reasonable hotel in the area. It has nearly about three to four floors with a decent amount of rooms.

Rooms

The rooms are surprisingly clean and had large Windows and curtains. The beds were large and neat and the room also had a writing table and the customary wardrobe in it. One of the most important things everybody Looks for while booking a hotel is how good the toilet is. I was pleasantly surprised with the toilet within the room. Again it was not of four or five star quality but then for what it was it offered a very neat Western commode a good large and neat wash basin, with all the toiletries kept beside it.

Toilets

The toilet also had a shower partition and the water was quite hot for a good satisfying shower. One of the problems I always have with hotels is the pressure from the shower. Sometimes the pressure is so low that the whole experience of having a good shower is lost. The green Embassy was good in that respect.

Restaurant

Breakfast was complementary along with the hotel cost per night but since we stayed only for the day we had to pay originally for the breakfast. The breakfast is not a generous spread, but rather a few items of the menu that the waiter will discuss with you. Based on what you like he will be able to make a the crispy dosa and serve you Idli and vada, besides offering a few other things like Hot and Cold beverages and a few other items.

There are two restaurants within the hotel one is called swadishta and the other is called garlic. One the first one is a pure vegetarian restaurant the second one is a combination of veg and non veg food. We preferred to have food in the vegetarian restaurant and hence could not get a chance to check out the garlic restaurant for the vegetarian choices there.
The restaurant itself was very pricey and for just a handful of items that we eat we ended up paying up to almost 500 rupees which was high in my opinion. Not to worry though because there are very good restaurants around the area just if you step out of the hotel. All these restaurants can be found between the hotel and the railway station as you take a walk. So if you are not in the mood for having pricey food within the hotel you can always step out for a walk to eat somewhere cheaper.
The food itself was good but it was not of the best quality that you get in other major towns. How it was still tasty and we liked it a lot.

Cost of stay

I had already pre negotiated my time of arrival with the hotel and the chicken itself was pretty smooth and not a major affair. Our room was already ready by the time we reached Sagar.
Typical Hotel costs in These areas can range between 2000 to 5000 rupees. Green Embassy was somewhere in between. The room rack rate was 2000 rupees and we got the room at about 2300 rupees without breakfast. With breakfast it would amount to about 2800 rupees which is slightly on the higher side for a place like Sagar.
I also ordered a couple of beverages using room service which cost about 78 rupees.

The good parts about the hotel

[ ] proximity to railway station and bus station by walk
[ ] very neat and clean
[ ] good toilets
[ ] decent breakfast
[ ] a large enough car park

The bad parts about the hotel

[ ] breakfast is a bit pricey
[ ] the TV has very minimal channels and to do very well with an attached set top box

Conclusion

The Green Embassy is a very reasonable hotel for a place like Sagar. Its proximity to the bus station and the railway station makes it all the more likeable.

The varieties of restaurants available should cater to most people who want some good. The neat rooms and a friendly reception plus a reasonable car park and front entrance make this hotel good to stay in.

If you’re going for short stay which does not involve breakfast you can negotiate the rates with the hotel upfront. The best way to get to Sagar would be by bus or by train. Driving there is pretty long distance and can make you tired.

If you like this post and you wish to visit Jog Falls please do share this with your friends. If you have any queries or comments type them in the comments box below.

Ensure to insure

(image for representational purpose only)

I bought myself a swanky two wheeler and was thrilled to take it out for a ride. It was a normal day for me and I was full of energy and positivity to make my day at office productive. I prayed that my ride was smooth like any other day.

I started driving out to the office and while I was on the road there was an auto which took a sudden u-turn without warning from my left lane to the extreme right lane on the side of oncoming traffic. There was hardly any moment for me to react and I wished and prayed that nothing drastic happened. My two wheeler crashed into the auto and both the vehicles were badly dented.

Upon mutual discussion I gathered that the auto driver did not have valid vehicle insurance which I could use to settle the claim. Since I had my own valid two wheeler insurance, I could log a claim and complaint and get the vehicle repaired soon.

These days driving a two wheeler around Bangalore is a nightmare. The traffic is a chaos and bigger vehicles do not spare a thought about smaller ones or give way to them. There is another extreme set of drivers who keep changing lanes without warning incoveniencing two wheelers. These people exhibit a complete lack of discipline and do not care about anyone else on the road.

Some of us don’t wear helmets, some of us carry more than two passengers, some of us hold kids in precarious positions and some of us get wet in the rain and continue driving at night without proper road lighting.

I have even seen buses constantly honk by driving very close to two wheelers from behind them scaring them out of their wits. Just one touch is enough to send the two wheeler driver flying onto the road. Also in general lots of people flout rules for their convenience such as talking on the mobile or using a shortcut one way road etc.

There are lots of us who offer prayers to the lord before we leave for work each day. We even get very concerned if bad omens occur such as cats crossing on the road or if we sneeze before leaving somewhere. Some people have lemon and chillis hanging in their vehicles to ward off bad incidents. Similarly we feel good if bird poops on our vehicles, or hear bells as these are considered as good omens.

Bharti Axa has put up an ad that reflects the reality of how we believe more in superstitions than take up a rather concrete resolution of having something as important as insurance which would matter more in emergency circumstances.

While these things can alter your state of mind, the reality is that you need to be very careful while driving in this crazy traffic that is getting worse day by day.

In the worst case that you did have an accident with your two wheeler god forbid, having a comprehensive bike insurance will save you a lot of hassles. Arguably getting an insurance for your vehicle can be pretty cumbersome as you need to go around town in search for the same wasting your time. But the good news is that most insurance companies now offer you online two wheeler insurance.

You can visit their websites, punch in a few personal details and information regarding your vehicle using which you can decide on your insurance amount almost then and there. For some rare cases the vehicle needs to be inspected in case the insurance may have expired. Having online bike insurance is a boon for people who are busy at their offices as its a pretty seamless application process. Also the more expensive the bike is, all the more important it is to have proper bike insurance.

There are different types of insurance available from basic to comprehensive and sometimes even pedestrian coverage. It is always prudential to have a good insurance cover for yourself and your vehicle rather than get into a police case mess during accidents. Not having insurance will attract additional penalties as well as you are flouting the rules while driving. It will also increase costs of repair for your vehicle.

Given that every day of our life is precious for us and our families it is important not to let down the people dependent on us. We do not know what surprises are in store for us on the road, but it would be a good feeling to know that we are secured if we have comprehensive motorcycle insurance. Being insured is always a safe feeling and this is one of the reason for you to ensure to insure yourself !

The enormity and beauty of Pamban Railway

I had never visited Rameswaram as far back as my memory goes and was not sure what to expect out of the Pamban bridge. My sons have special interest in digging up maps of all places and when I showed them where Rameswaram was they were more than eager to get there to see the historic Pamban bridge.

How to get there?

There were few options for me to get there: Rail, bus, car or part flight-then car. We booked a train from Bangalore to Madurai and then an Innova for the rest of our journey. We stayed at Astoria business hotel in Madurai on which I have a separate post if you would like to read.

The shortest distance is about 560km via Salem-Trichy-Pudukottai-Karaikkudi and would take nearly 10 to 11 hours of driving with stops in between. Since this was too much of drive, and I wanted to spend the night traveling the best option was train. I took a train from Bangalore to Madurai. Two common trains are the Tuticorin Express and Nagercoil Express. If you want to know the exact list of trains, click here. I reached Madurai at about 7:00 AM. Please be advised these trains can be late sometimes and if you have tickets in coaches S10 and beyond you can expect lots of people from unreserved compartments to be flooding these bogies as well. If you want to read my experience on that read my blog post here.

Commutation from Madurai

Once you are in Madurai – major places such as Kanyakumari, Rameswaram and Kodaikanal are all nearby – about 3 hours by drive. We took up an Innova on hire from Madurai to Rameswaram which costed us between 10-12 Rupees per kilometre. There is a fixed cost and and a variable cost split in this arrangement. Be aware that if you are going to the hills, then a separate hill stay charge of upto Rs.600/- is levied. This could be 100 or 200 higher depending on the market fluctuations.

Travel from Madurai to Rameswaram takes a good 3 hours by the time you reach you should be hungry for sure. As you go along the route, you will first enter Rameswaram via the Pamban bridge. Most vehicles make an undesignated stop here owing to the popularity of the bridge.

Pamban Bridge Railway

We went in the month of April which was presumed to be hotter but was not really so. Humid yes, but hot no. So you could go to Rameswaram within April end but no later. Best time to visit Rameswaram is between August to February when temperatures would likely be bearable. Its not so much the heat but the humidity which will kill you.

(image source: Wikipedia)

Pamban is an island that has the town of Rameswaram and it is linked to the mainland via the Pamban Bridge. It is the second largest sea bridge after Bandra-Worli Sea Link. The bridge is nearly 2km long and was rebuilt after the initial construction in 1914. Due to a cyclone that damaged the bridge in 1964, the Government had to repair it after. In 2013 the bridge got a damage due to a naval barge again. At a cost of 25 crores, the existing 65.23 metres (214.0 ft) long rolling type span was replaced with a 66 metres (217 ft) long single truss span which could be opened automatically.

The beauty of this bridge is that it even takes the weight of goods trains which are more heavier than passenger trains. At the same time when ships need to go through it can be opened up to allow them to pass. The sea with its myriad shades of blue, indigo and purple is a sight to behold at Pamban. The enormity and beauty of Pamban Railway cannot be stated and has to be seen with one’s own eyes.

This is a 4K video of a train passing through the Pamban Bridge which i hope you will enjoy. If you have a 40-55 inches TV, this would be worth a watch on that size of a TV, its almost as good as being there in real. Remember to set the resolution to 4K on YouTube.

What do you think of the Pamban Bridge experience? Write to me in the comments section.

Bengaluru’s metro corridors – trying to understand them – green line

There was much fanfare over the launch of the green line for Namma Metro, which was considered an important milestone for Bengaluru. There were lots of things which were positive about this development.

Much of the underground work was completed and functional
The critical link between Jayanagar and Malleswaram sides were fixed
The distance covered by the metro was now longer and much more viable
More importantly South Bangalore was connected to the West and to East

The map from WikiPedia is worth looking at. It shows the exact extent of coverage of the Metro within the city with the Green and Purple lines

(image source: By Doc.aneesh – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18874026

While the east to west Bangalore covers about 18km of distance, that of South to North covers about 24km of distance. In absolute numbers this is relatively decent but the real extent is seen in the benefits for the passengers.

Important areas are now more accessible such as the city central railway station, KR Market, Vidhana Soudha and Malleswaram shopping areas. Puttenahalli and JP Nagar are residential and semi industrial areas, Banashankari has a Bus terminal which is a major interchange connecting different parts of Bangalore. RV road, Jayanagar and south end circle are areas of commercial activity and green spaces including Lalbagh as well as educational institutions such as National College, BMS College, KIMS, etc.

KR Market and Chickpet are some of the oldest areas in Bangalore and hosts the famous shops of SP Road, vegetable and fruit markets as well as shops selling lots of other stuff from photo frames to books and everything in between.

People who travel from Banashankari are now able to reach Byappanahalli much more easily and this reduces the time it takes for them to come to work which was otherwise a good 2 hours each way during the day.

Similary connections to North Bangalore and shopping areas such as Malleswaram is definitely making a lot of people happy as they can now access the many shops in and around the area including the famed Mantri Mall, CTR, Janata, Asha Sweets, Veena Stores and many more.

In fact Mantri already boasted of Greens in the vicinity but now also has the Centrium with an asking price tag upwards of 4 to 5 crores. Given that for the effluent the metro runs right near their apartment (almost into it) this project is a good buy. The Kempegowda interchange is something to write about in another post.

I parked my car at CMH road station and reached Malleswaram in about 30 minutes max which was an otherwise impossible task on a regular weekday. Even on Sunday morning 730am the rush inside the train was unimaginable. Given the frequency is nearly 15 minutes once, this is the most immediate issue that BMRCL will have to solve. With countries like Singapore having an every 2 minute train service, Bangalore seems like a tortoise, but I guess the government will understand this sooner than later.

I had to take tokens from CMH to Malleswaram and the cost for 4 people one way was 112 rupees. Its not exactly steep but its not exactly cheap either. For me by cab the entire journey for the same place would be about 200 bucks for 4 people. Its almost on par with nations like Singapore who charge about 2-3$ for an up and down journey.

Links:
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Inside_the_MRT_train%2C_Singapore.jpg)

(https://previews.123rf.com/images/jennzhen/jennzhen1512/jennzhen151200034/54240440-Singapore-Dec-13-2015-Singapore-MRT-train-station-Bukit-Panjang-The-Mass-Rapid-Transit-or-MRT-formin-Stock-Photo.jpg

This said the reason I keep comparing to Singapore is simple. They have one of the best MRT and LRT services in the world (of course the London Tube is much more complex no doubt).

(https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/05/06/15/tube.jpg

In another post let me tell you about my visit to CTR using the train 🙂

Review of the Astoria Business Hotel Stay, Madurai

This was a long pending post from my side and I finally found some time to write on this topic. I had a chance to plan a trip to Dhanushkodi and got the opportunity to stay at Astoria Hotel in Madurai for a day. This is a business hotel and I needed a stay only for a day so I chose the hotel.

A few notable things about this hotel are the following

Its walkable from the railway station as long as you don’t have too much luggage
Its preferred to take an auto from the station if you have kids
It is situated somewhat nearby to the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai which is easily reachable by auto within 10 minutes

The front facade of the hotel is one vertical block which mostly present the corridor end windows and the conference room windows on the top floor. There is no access to the terrace as such for visitors.

The entry lounge is good with ample light and seating. This hotel offers 24 hours checkin and checkout with prebooking via multiple travel portals or directly via calling the hotel. I paid nearly about Rs.5000/- per day which is on the steeper side and includes breakfast along with the room. The rooms themselves were well appointed, but were kind of small. Since its a business hotel, the type of travellers mostly expected are the ones who stay in the hotel for about a day and move on to other places near madurai for their business needs.

To this extent the rooms offer the comfort necessary from the relentless heat of Madurai. Thankfully I landed there at a time when Madurai received some rainfall the previous day so the city had cooled down a bit from temperatures of over 38 deg C.

The rooms have thick and large curtains shielding all the harsh light coming in, have a study table with a suitable chair, and a small coffee table with a lounge chair. The beds themselves are a bit soft and springy, the types which you can sink into, though my personal preferences would tend towards slightly harder beds which are not known to aggevate back problems.

The television set is mounted on the wall and the wall also has shelves that hold the glasses and coffee maker. The bathroom is well appointed though the shower is not movable enough making it spray all the water all over the room. It could have been designed better though it does the job for a business traveller. The bath has dispensable soap machines which is the trend nowadays and in my opinion, I prefer this over hundreds of small soap cakes being produced that go a waste on daily basis.

These days hotels have reached a situation wherein you can also say whether or not you want the towels washed or not in order to save water and effort and I highly value this mode of working as it conserves resources.

The cafeteria was good and well appointed in terms of furniture. The breakfast was expensive on the second day, but on the first day it was complementary. I did use the room service once or twice and found it to be good. The people attending to you at the hotel are quick and respond pretty soon to your requests which is what a traveller looks for.

The food itself was good with lots of variety ranging from indian, western, veg and non veg options and was tasty too.

The Astoria Hotel has a view to die for and you can see the Madurai Meenakshi temple very well during the clear nights in the city. The central location, accessibility to Railway station and reasonably close from the airport (~ 10-12km) and a decent variety of rooms, food make this place a business friendly hotel.

If I go again to Madurai, I will stay in Astoria and would recommend this hotel to others too.

Why I may not stay in Daiwik Hotels, Rameswaram again

The travel industry is at all time peak since few decades now, and hotels are doing everything possible to ensure their customers have a pleasant experience while they stay with them.
I had a grand plan for a Rameswaram trip, covering other places along and off the route. My interest was stoked when I wanted to know and in person experience the historic Pamban bridge. Consdering I had read about Autocar’s Mercedes GLS 4×4 review driven in Dhanushkodi, and the kind of scenicness the place offered, Rameswaram and Dhanushkodi got listed as my top priority for this year’s travel.

This post is not really about what these places have to offer, but consider APJ Abdul Kalam was born in Dhanushkodi, consider that Pamban railway bridge is one of the more difficult bridges to have been built and being maintained, and the fact that Dhanushkodi is now a ghost town, after the cyclone that devastated it five decades ago – all these reasons made me to want to see these places.

Add to the fact that the often discussed reality of the bridge Rama built from Dhanushkodi to Sri Lanka and many different versions of its real existence, this fact alone heightened my interests even further. Add to that the absolute beauty of the merging of Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean creating a calm beach on the one side, and a rough and choppy one on the other side, this was surely something to see and have fun.

A quick look on the internet yielded very few hotels in Rameswaram of which Daiwik was the one that has the highest number of ratings on TripAdvisor. For me a hotel is as good as its website and reviews. A brief look at the website made me feel comfortable to go ahead with booking at Daiwik for a couple of days.

The booking process was ridiculously cumbersome. I had to mail and/or call them to enquire about direct rates, and travel portal rate charts. Each mail of mine to them on initial customer engagement, needed a follow up phone call for them to respond to my mail. The hotel is run by people from Kolkata and you have people who do not understand English very well at the front desk. Its either Tamil or Hindi. Each time you have to give a context of who you are, what is your email id, what dates you have asked for the stay and then you will receive a lousy response for all the efforts you have taken with some not so detailed information about what you needed.

Update: The hotel has clarified on their response times, but I am not going to correct the fact that I had to call them almost after every clarification for them to respond. I strongly believe there were times to my knowledge that the hotel did take over 24 hours to respond. And I feel established hotels should process their mails more frequently than this timeframe.

Couple this with the fact that you have to prepay all amount to block a room and this is kind of a financial trap which you cannot get out of. Anything might force a change in your plans and hotels need to understand that its always their customers who are at receiving end of losing money, and not them. They can always find another customer within no time but having no flexibility even to the tune of 50% is a bit disappointing.

Update: As per the hotel’s comments, they have clarified that I will lose 50% if I cancel within 48 hours which is fair. Still I would have preferred something shorter to accomodate travel plans. Anyway this was not the major issue as such.

Anyways after some extra efforts and calls and mails back and forth and a NEFT transfer of the whole amount to them, I finally had a confirmed booking and arrived at their hotel. The hotel itself is very well appointed and decently constructed. After a welcome drink it took like eternity for them to show me my room. This considering the fact that there were only two customers including myself. The staff at the reception is untrained and clueless how to handle customers visiting the hotel. I am not saying this in the ugly sense of the word, but more on the impact and perception it creates in the traveler’s minds.

The room was good and spaciously appointed. However any calls to the room service was basically redirected to the dustbin. It was a repeat telecast of the booking process here. The guy handling room service for over some 200 rooms is the same guy managing the restaurant part. Just imagine the chaos. I waited nearly 20-30 mins each call, and with multiple reminders at 15,10,5 mins each. When you have two impatient kids who are otherwise well behaved, its pretty disappointing to have to teach a room service guy how to handle requests. If you want to compain about this to the reception, it makes no sense as they themselves need to be trained first on many things.

Update: The hotel has clarified that they have only 90 rooms. The Reason I mentioned 200 is an approximation by how many floors and how many rooms they may have roughly had. So I stand corrected to say it is 90 rooms as per their clarification. However the fact remains I had rather unusual wait times on room service calls and the room service charges being higher does not match with the received level of service.

The third part of this hotel was the restaurant. Too many houseflies. I really mean it. You cannot sit and eat at a place which has insects. Really, I have matured a lot over last two decades and there are certain things I really DO NOT like, and this is one of them. I cannot eat in a place with such disturbances. That said, an order took eternity with both me and the waiter being clueless on what is being prepared and when it would be served. Given he was the same guy handling room service, they were lost in attending to customers. Zero marks for this. Sorry you have to answer something to pass an exam right?

In all frankness, I like the place and all that, but the service levels were really pathetic owing to the understaffing of the place. How much more lucky can you get? Yes you can. The days that we stayed there, unfortunately the aircon in the entire 2nd floor had a glitch and they had to switch off the aircon all over the floor. You can probably bear this in a cold country like UK, but imagine doing this in Rameswaram where the average temperature was over 40 deg C ! And again no one explains to me why the aircon does not work. On top of that heavy drilling work. Upon my persistence on this matter, they agreed something was wrong on 2nd Floor and gave me another smaller room in 1st floor. At least I had aircon, and did not have to go through the noisy shit in the other floor.

Update: The hotel have clarified that the room given to me was another deluxe room like the previous one, however I felt it was smaller than the previous one. And no one had explicitly told me that the room given was of similar style. And, until I asked regarding the AC not working well, no one spoke to me on getting shifted out to another room. My only point is that if there is something wrong on the floor, its the hotel who must be proactive to inform guests on this. And not wait until the guests have to ask. Further, it is not that I said things cannot go wrong (such as the AC), which the hotel misunderstood. Its about how the situation is handled post that.

Another small but pesky thing. In one of the rooms opposite to mine, someone tried to open the door with either a wrong card or left the door open for too long or something like that. Apparently the lock technology decided that it was time to beep. At 10PM. So loudly that I could not sleep. I called room service who would respond by 11PM in all my knowledge and they finally plugged the matter. We stay in hotels not to be disturbed by daily city life. And these kinds of issues irk customers a lot. Especially after a long and hard day full of exercise and fun, we have to hit the bed in peace.

Finally the checkout process. You expect the hotel gives you a feedback form if they really mean improvement. And I am a customer who diligently fills it up if given to me. I really mean to give feedback in all respects and expect the hotel to address them depending on priority. After all I have paid a lot to stay there and my opinion should matter to them. But Daiwik did not even bother to offer me a feedback form. And I am not surprised. If they were really meant to take feedback, then they would have done it even without the form. Simple questions like “How was the food”, “did you enjoy your stay” – would do. You can get some really valuable answers.

But no they did not bother. Absoulutely did not even try. And that’s it. I have made my call. I will think twice to stay with them again.

Update: The hotel claims that feedback forms are available. First, I did not find them or ask for them. But while running a hotel, it is the duty of the hotel to understand their guests. Not the guests to understand the hotel. So I stand my ground here. And I wished the hotel gave me their feedback form. It is upto the guest whether they want to fill it up or not. But not being offered feedback form only creates further perceptions which cannot be avoided. Again, this is not about bad-mouthing the place. It is about how the hotel handles guests and their feedback.

There are other better hotels coming up there and its only a matter of time. Including the famed Hyatt right next to Daiwik. It’s a pity when the hotel is good, but people don’t care. Since Daiwik runs their hotels both in Shirdi and Rameswaram both places being piligrimage centers mainly, perhaps they have an understanding that other customers may not turn up there. There are interesting places such as Pamban, and Dhanushkodi and Daiwik management must understand for the sake of tourists from other parts of the world coming there, that they must focus on what matters most – customer engagement. Word of mouth is a powerful weapon and if it is fired wrongly it can damage reputations. I am not meaning to say my blog post does, but there could be others who start talking crap and that would make a difference.

Again the hotel itself is very good. The whole place is understaffed terrbily. To the point that you dont get any attention to matters that you want solved urgently for yourself. So when you go to Rameswaram keep this in mind. Whether or not you book Daiwik is your call. But for me if there are better hotels available by the time I go again, Daiwik will not be a choice on my list.

Why the Park Chennai does not cut it when it comes to 5 Star hotels in Chennai

I had an opportunity to stay in the Park hotel, Chennai for business reasons. Most people needing to travel to Chennai to the US embassy prefer this hotel due to location. Also its a 5 star hotel. I did the booking on on Booking.com a fairly well known travel website. It was painless to book and the hotel clarified whatever information was needed when they were called.

First the traffic around the place is horrendous. Gemini Flyover sure has seen generations in chennai and the traffic around this place makes it impossible to cross the road unless one uses the subway. If you think people will behave the same way as other cities when it comes to driving skills, be warned – this city wont wait for you to cross. If you value your life, be safe.

Now to the hotel itself. Given my very brief stay, I did not get to experience the restaurants, pool and other areas towards the terrace. The building is rather old and it is beginning to show at many places. The rooms were comfortable, and had mostly everything you would need. Two bottles of mineral water, a well stocked mini bar, tea/coffee making machines with creamer, sugar and coffee/tea supplies. The mini bar was as expected chargeable if you were to take anything from there.

For a change the bed was NOT spongy and springy like other hotels. I had a stiff but comfortable bed something that I usually long for in hotels, and soft pillows to provide even more comfort. Each room gets an individually controllable central airconditioning with the temperature setting panel on the wall. Now this is where I would like 5 star hotels to think a bit. When smaller hotels offer a remote control how come such a hotel decided not to provide this?

There was a sofa, stool and a high stool to place luggage which is wishful thinking. There was no fan in the room. Now you might argue that in a 5-star hotel a fan worsens the ambience. But thats not the point. A fan provides some instant air circulation while the aircon takes it own time. With all the windows closed, and curtains around, any hotel room begins to become stuffy. And this is exactly where you need a fan. If you cannot provide a ceiling fan, give a table fan or a tower fan. In a country like india, there are thousands of options available, you need to just think.

The lights were dim and not sufficient to work, I personally prefer some white light in the room, but this one had only yellows. To each his own opinion so I will leave this there!

One of the most important parts of the room which is lesser spoken about is the toilet. While the toilet itself was good and it was well appointed with whatever you would expect I found one glaring issue. A missing health faucet. Even the train I came by to chennai had one and I simply cannot understand why a 5-star hotel like the Park decided to do away with it. For me cleanliness is very important and people like me who are very personal hygiene conscious will surely be pissed off with this omission.

The bathtub was great, and so was the showers (plural). I did find another thing quite annoying. the flush in the toilet would go off only after 30 seconds each time. Now do we really need to waste water like this because we are a 5-star? In India everyone is expected to be conservative even if we flaunt money. Someone somewhere in the hotel chain needs to make this distinction and take the baton. A few hotels have begun not washing the bedding if we say so, and water conservation is just another similar matter.

Also the hot water was not really hot, at best warm. Which turned cold every few minutes once. What is the point? In spite of keeping my AC completely turned off in the room and without a fan, the whole room was so cold simply because the aircon in the corridors was too cold. After all this, if you find that you do not have hot water, hot enough to your wish it becomes very difficult to stay put in the room. I complained, someone did something, and nothing changed much.

The room service menu was a horror to see. You know its not the money part really that pinches me. Before you begin to assume things about me, I have the money that it takes to order whatever is there on that list. But when the rates of items are in dollars you seriously begin to wonder what is the value they bring compared to any really decent hotel nearby. We have heard of indians being charged less and foreigners more in tourist places. Why can the hotels not adopt similar policy? For indians charge in rupees and for others charge in their currency at a certain reasonable amount.

A cup of authentic Madras filter coffee is priced at Rs.250/- Even cafe coffee day will have to hang their head in shame at this rate. The best one can give for a cup of filter coffee in chennai no matter where it is served is 50 bucks. Not five times that. Well you may now begin to say I don’t deserve to stay there if I cannot consume something at that price. Not exactly. Any item you see in the list is either 550, 750 or 1000 bucks. So for example a dosa maybe 1000 bucks. Can I see you frown now? I’m glad you get the point.

This is perhaps the only hotel where alcoholic drinks are cheaper than tiffin.

Thankfully there was free WiFi – the basic needs of engineers according to the revised Maslow’s laws of hierarchal needs. And it was quite fast. I hate any hotel not offering complementary wifi these days. And the Park did not disappoint. I never even bothered to ask anyone for travel arrangements within the hotel. I had Ola, Uber and the million autos just outside the gate. So that’s one brownie point less to the Park.

The next morning was the complimentary breakfast. Now I must say the restaurant 601 in the hotel, did an exemplary job with the kind of breakfast spread they offered. Simply amazing. Tasty. And full of variety. English breakfast, South indian everything you needed was there. Good job Park.

Check in was quite late but check out was not. They can have more than three reception staff as the flow of visitors is high. Further, I was offered during checkout that I could come and refresh and go even later in the day, which is a nice touch. I did read the book kept in the room on the hotel rules and I must say I did not feel so welcoming with the way the language was presented. Perhaps someone needs to be more youthful in whats shown to visitors. You can’t do this, you can’t do that, we dont appreciate this, we dont appreciate that. You know the whole book sounds negative. Dont be rude to our staff, we dont like pets – blah blah blah.

I dont mind you saying we must not be rude to your staff, but it also applies the other way round. Please understand that visitors to the hotel are generally tired, and not always in the best moods due to whatever other problems they are in. I do get the point that some visitors act like they are the Kings and Queens of some faraway kingdom, but not all are like that. That is why hospitality is a difficult business. Its all about how to put up a nice face even when the customer has issues with the hotel. Anyway this is something for you to handle, and not me. But putting up the rulebook like what you have – I would have changed certain things in it the way it was said.

In Summary, I did have a nice time at your hotel with some awesome breakfast, and a comfortable room, but with some important things being omitted in the room and toilet, and the horrendous pricing of your food items, I guess this is only a place to stay not to eat. For eating there is always a Saravana Bhavan at a stones throw away (<1km, Gopalapuram) which you can walk to. With room rates around 6000 to 7000 a night, I think a lot more can be done to better the experience for visitors.

When no amount of planning makes any sense …..

I wanted to write this article for a long time but there were too many things in my way blocking me from making this article available on the blog. Pretty much things that correlate to the topic in question – planning.

After a month’s worth of planning to go to a trip to the Arabian sea front, and after booking relevant train tickets, and air tickets after much thought it was the day for us to leave Bangalore. The unusual rains that wrekced the city in the last two days did not bode so well with my thought process and it had left me pretty spooked about the trip itself.

I had a Taxi for (un)Sure booking at 5:30pm on the 26th of september. Being a Friday and peak hour, I decided that the booking at this time was perfect enough to reach the railway station in 2 hours from then, a reasonable assumption these days for people traveling in Bangalore. It was about 14-15 kilometers and by any means 2 hours is sufficient time for me to reach the station by 7:30pm for an 8pm train. Or so I thought.

After having a bitter experience with Taxi For sure in chennai, I assumed that the problem with that service is limited to only Chennai and Bangalore would be perfect. My worst fears came true when I call the company and enquire about the whereabouts of my cab. The reply not only astounded me, but also permanently erased any sort of existing respect for Taxi for Sure that I still had – “Your taxi may take 20 mins more to arrive sir, you need to wait while we check out and inform them”.

My immediate question to them was “How do you guarantee to me that after 20 minutes I would not get the same response saying that the cab is delayed again by 20 minutes?” for which as expected of an immature player in the industry came the answer “Not sure” – yeah – “Taxi Unsure”.

My mind raced ahead to do the math and I knew I was not doing good to reach the station on time. This is when I decided to try out Uber through an app I had installed just the previous day. After giving my credit card details as required by the company. I did not get a Uber Black, so went ahead with Uber X. After a few minutes I got a confirmation that an Etios was on its way to my house. Pretty neat. Really.

Luck does play the fool with you sometimes and that Thursday night was no expception in my case. I took a route which was not the best, and ended up in a 2 hour traffic jam. Every single traffic light was red. Every minute I moved about few inches. Viveknagar road was jammed due to Infant Jesus Church rush, Richmond Circle was perpetually jammed in a sea of vehicles. I got a bit luckier on the KG Road stretch and reached the station at 7:40pm. 20 minutes for the train to go. Should be able to make it, I thought.

On the way into the station (after Uber’s pleasant experience of not asking me to pay the driver anything but charge to my card instead), my wife managed to quickly catch hold of train information which said the train is waiting on platform 5. With four sets of luggage – 2 bags and 2 kids – I rushed up the overbridge (god damnit railway authorities have put up the escalator elsewhere than where it should be) and started walking down platform 5. The clouds had by then gathered in full swing and history was set to repeat.

I saw the train, the train perhaps saw me. We were 20 minutes away from departure. And all hell broke loose just 10 steps between the train and me. There was so much rain and so much of water that any possible thought in the mind turned out to be a bad risk management strategy. The whole platform was gushing with water. The ingenius mind which decided that we would go with as little luggage as possible, put us into a situation where raincoats were not there, umbrellas were scant – basically I had packed a recipe to get me drenched.

My wife decided that we must make a dash and get into the compartment before the train departed whatever the state of our mind and body were and so we did it. Luggage wet, me wet, wife wet, kids wet, everything wet. Thanking god that this was over, I noticed the compartment I was in was S5 and my seat was at S3. So me knowing all too well about the vestibule thanked god again and quickly trotted with kids along two compartments away to get to S3. Found our seats and sat there saying how we managed to win this round of travel planning. A grandpa there exchanged pleasantries with my kids – which kids dont like grandpas? and which grandpa doesnt like kids? – and finally popped me the most important question of my lifetime: “What is your seat number my son ?” – I said its S3, and seat 28. And then he tells me in a composed manner, – “Son, thats not possible, thats my seat, please can you check your ticket again”.

I check my ticket and realize its ES3, not S3. Its then that the evil design of Indian Railways comes to my mind. This Kannur Express is a part Karnataka, part Kerala trains merged together by a couple of general compartments. I understood that ES3 is beyond S8. And I am in S3. The train is on its way and I trudge along with my luggage bumping into each and every passenger and with my wife and kids in tow through vestibules upto S8. It is there that I got another slap on my face. The vestibule connection ended in S8. And I had four more compartments to go to to find my seat. The train was moving, S8 was overflowing with people and rainwater, and there was no vestibule.

After quickly assessing the situation with few people there I understood that the only option was to get out of the train in the next station and make a dash for the right compartment. The next station was Kengeri. A few older folks agreed to help me out and one of them agreed to take my elder son, while my wife comes with the younger one and me with the luggage. Great idea it seemed until I reached Kengeri.

The train was to stop for just 2 minutes, and it was dark outside, it was raining treacherously, the whole platform was full of water puddles, and there were a few hundred people on the platform running to enter the train and a few hundred people like me trying to dash to the other side of the train. The run began.

My elder son was the first to go – or rather to be whisked at the older man’s mercy of speeds and he was flung into the AC compartment ahead at the kerala bound part of the train. While I started running I realized that my body and mind were slowly giving up. My glasses were wet, I was practically blinded. My footwear started slipping. I had two trolley type baggages running on their own behind me as I tugged them and this entire setup was just one step from a royal tumble on the platform. I had no idea where my elder son was and I had a strong belief that the younger son and wife were doing fine behind me.

Finally I found my elder son and threw my luggage forcibly into the AC compartment. My wife had meanwhile gotten into the general compartment by mistake and people directed her to the right place. According to her she almost fell between the train and platform. Somehow she reached the AC compartment as well.

The entire sky had drenched us. I could not distinguish sweat from rain. My entire body was shivering and quaking. My heart was pounding like that was to be the last day of my life. I was almost at the point of collapse. My elder son was disillusioned and disoriented and fully wet. My wife and younger son were not any better either. My younger son was afraid, crying and wet. He was terrified out of his wits. He for the first time understood the fury of the rain. None of us understood what we just went through.

Our stupidity in planning our luggage for the trip and reaching late to the station for reasons beyond our control also meant that we did not have a single bottle of water with us. I was so thirsty, tired, wet and my head was spinning like never before. If there was a stretcher someone offered I would have gladly collapsed into it.

From there we went three more compartments by dragging our wet selves until we found our seat. Our entire compartment was wet and full of water. Luggage could not be kept down on the floor. The toilet water and rain water was mixed up and it was stiking all over.

Every cloud has a silver lining. The only decent idea I had planned was to cook some food and take it with me. And it paid off. That was the only freaking thing I had for the entire train journey. Except for some coffee that came by now and then.

We changed our clothes, and rented some bedsheets and pillows to make the kids warm. My kids were swearing that I must never get them off the train at any cost. Until they saw some sunshine the next morning. My younger son developed a viral fever and did not enjoy much of the trip. At 102 degrees he needed constant care for the remainder of the trip. The airline trip to return to Bangalore was perhaps the best part of the trip. After all this mess we went through.

Lessons will always be learnt. This time too. And here they are for your consumption if you care not to have an experience like me.

* Leaving 2 hours early is also not sufficient if you want to reach from outer ring road to majestic station during office peak hours
* Taxi for sure is bullshit – Uber is 100 times better and the costs are similar. I will never ever ever recommend Taxi for Sure to anyone anymore.
* You need umbrellas and raincoats or jackets. Nothing can be assumed about Bangalore rainy seasons.
* You need to read your ticket properly. Read the coach number properly at any cost. Every train is different and it also pays to do some research on the compartment structure at sites such as http://indiamike.com
* Trains from Bangalore city will leave exactly on time. Since they start there. Rain, sun or hell no one cares. Not the railways for sure.
* You need water and biscuits. These are integral part of any god damn luggage.
* Bangalore City railway is the last place you must ever think of boarding. In our case it was inevitable but to board there. Even after 37 years (my age basically) there are still no easy way to get to platforms. Even if there are, they dont work early in the mornings or late at nights. Just because Railways thinks human beings dont use trains during those times.
* The overbridge or underpass are mandatory tortures you need to go through at City station however young or old you are and however enterprising you are.
* Backpacks are better luggage compared to trolley type luggages. Trolley types are better suited for aircraft. Not trains. Not during the rains most definitely.
* Its impossible to run more than 4 compartments at a station where train halts for 2 minutes or less. Even that is practically impossible if the whole platform is wet, if the station name is kengeri and its raining outside like hell. Not a wise move to plan a shift there. Better to wait for Mysore where train halts 20 minutes.
* Floors of compartments are not suitable for placing luggage anymore. During rains it can get extremely wet and stinky and all your non waterproof luggage can take a beating and make everything inside it wet.
* For trains that travel across states the compartment allocation is slightly different and awareness is key.
* Always have enough time planned to look whether your name is on the chart or not before boarding. you will save yourself time and effort.
* Always carry something to eat, you never know what situation you will get into where you need food.
* The preferred mode of transport if you have money is AC coach. not a normal compartment anymore. Since Railways basically do not have a vision of what a train must look like in 2014 or even 2020.
* Pack some food at home. You will thank your stars later.
* No amount of planning is good planning if you end up in a situation like mine. Perhaps the plan itself was a waste. Change the mode of transport if plans are designed to fail.
* If its thursday do not take the viveknagar route lest you get stuck in Infant Jesus traffic like me.
* Never opt for a train in the evening, or during peak hours. Morning trains are better to use since the sun shines and there is practically no rain in Bangalore on such mornings.
* Never take ridiculous risks such as what I took when you have kids. Even if you miss the train its ok, but be together as a family. When its raining outside like hell, mobile phone is the last thing that comes to mind to sync up. Its not worth leaving your family in bits and pieces in this puzzle. I could have lost my wife and younger kid, I could have lost my elder kid, I could have hurt myself falling on the platform, anything could have happened.
* My experience ended fruitfully. Others’ might not. Be aware of this.
* Traveling in a taxi with AC for 2 hours in the road filled with traffic is very very stressful. It confuses the kids and elders, makes them figity, makes them hungry and tired and basically reduces energy levels by the time you reach the desitnation. An open auto rickshaw maybe a better choice if it does not rain.
* God exists.

I hope you learn something from my experience and pass this message along for others to read. Learning from others’ lessons is always better than getting stuck yourself. Not always you will encounter impacts like these, but good planning is meant to save yourself from this. And no one needs to understand or debate how good your plan is. The fact that you have a plan puts you in better shape than others who love to live by the minute.

Good luck in your planning!!