Archive for the 'Travel' Category

IRCTC Is Being Ridiculous Now

Published on 11 months ago in Travel. 1 Comment

It’s 8 in the morning and I need to book a tatkal ticket. I have my computer connected to a 4 mbps connection and the minute it shows 8 in my clock, I fire up the browser and hit the irctc url. The page loads up, I enter my password and hit enter. After an agonising wait, the home screen loads up. I have done my homework well and have noted down the train number and the station code so that I do not have to search for the these using the crappy irctc interface. The left hand sidebar has an option for quick book. I hit the quick book option as I have always done in the past. But what do I see? Instead of the quick book form coming up, I get an error screen telling me that quick book has been disabled for the 0800 – 0900 hours time interval! WTH!

When you make excuses like millions of people trying to access a page at the same time being the reason for the service to be slow, it is understandable and bearable. But when policy changes such as these are made, one can only look at the screen in exasperation and wonder what survey led to such a policy proposal. How dumb must have the people been who allowed the change to happen. Let me try and explain why I am so pissed off at irctc.

Booking a tatkal ticket is like going to war. If you fail to complete the transaction by 0810, there’s a very good chance that all the tickets have already been booked. So I use the quick book for that. There is no need to search for the train. You can do it earlier and make a note of the train number and station code. In the quick book for, just enter these in the respective forms, fill up passenger information and you are good to go. Enter the card details and ticket has been booked. The only problem in the whole process is that of the server being overloaded due to which pages fail to load sometimes.

Now what irctc has done is to disable the quick book option during the first hour of tatkal booking. So now I have to waste my time searching for the train whose number I already know, get the availability information which I did not want to in the first, and only then proceed with passenger information. I now have to do 2 extra post queries and wait for the responses from the server which takes an eternity.

I have been taught to always optimize the process, reduce the number of steps required to get any work done and minimize the inconvenience caused to customers. Perhaps the clever busy bodies at irctc have been taught another definition of customer experience and satisfaction. I seriously hope they be able to think like normal intelligent human beings.

Popularity: 14% [?]

First Time Travelling In Sleeper Bus

Published on 1 year ago in Travel. 0 Comments

I have always preferred train and after yesterday night’s experience I see no reason why I would want to change the preference. Not being able to book a tatkal tickets in Kacheguda-Bangalore Express I had resigned myself to a bus journey. Having a sleeper bus ticket in hand I thought the experience might be better than that of semi-sleeper ones. Alas, it turned out otherwise.

My seat number was U11. There were 12 seats in the bus, so I was pretty much in the last row. Just as the bus started I got out my laptop and started watching a movie. Movie + checking EPL scores + looking at my location on the goolgle map killed about 3 hours of time. By then everybody was asleep and the lights had been put out. I packed up and lay down to sleep.

It’s amazing that when you are occupied by something how you tend to ignore everything else around you. Now that I had nothing to do but close my eyes, I realized how much the bus was tossing me around. The driver makes a turn and I get pushed across the wall of the bus. A speed-breaker and I get tossed up. And whenever the driver braked sharply, I feared I would fall down. Somehow I managed to sleep.

And arriving at the destination at 6 in the morning didn’t help either.

Nice thing I have already booked my tickets for Holi. Journey by train is way better than bus.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Chapter 1: At Persuasive Best

Published on 2 years, 4 months ago in Travel. 0 Comments

A long weekend was looming large. Having wasted away the last long weekend, I was determined not to let go of this one. But therein lay the difficulty. What could you possibly plan at such a short notice. It was already Wednesday, and it being the Dussera weekend, we would not get train tickets to almost any place worth visiting. And for sure I did not want to plan a trip to Goa with only 3 days in hand.

There was only one destination that I could think of. Having discussed it with my team mates Vishal and Mali, I knew the trip was feasible. But it would require enthusiastic people to take up charge and set an example, for it would be tough, both mentally and physically.

A short background at this point is essential I suppose. We are a small group of friends, highly excited about bike rides. However, most of us have only recently started biking, and have at most gone for some 60 kms on a single ride. A few of us, like Rohit and I, had only just learnt driving bikes. I wasn’t sure how much we could endure if a long distance plan was proposed.

Never the less, I called up Vipin and laid down my plan in front of him. We could start early from Bangalore to avoid all the city traffic and head towards Mysore. A 150 km long ride would get us to the Mysore city. Stay at the city for the day and start for Ooty the very next early morning, The same evening, we return back to Bangalore. This is what I thought was a possibility. Vipin though, slightly altered the plan. He suggested we first reach Ooty, spend the night over there, and then return to Mysore on the day of Dussera. This way, we would be covering the larger and tougher part of the journey while we were relatively still fresh. And later on the urge to reach home would be the driving force for the return journey.Still, the one thing we agreed upon was that if we told the complete plan to everybody, there was a very high chance that they might pull out. There was a tacit agreement between the two of us to reveal our complete plan only at a very late stage.

Now that Vipin was in, it was time to spread the word and get as many people excited about it as possible.Vipin and I started buzzing people and telling them about our plan. Suhas immediately agreed. The count now stood at 3 people, 3 bikes.

The first shock was the refusal of Akshay to take part in out trip. He had already been to Ooty and Mysore, and did not wish to make that trip once again. No amount of persuasion could convince him to come along with us.The next bad news was from Lakke, who was leaving for home the same weekend. If any more people withdraw, our efforts could suffer a major setback I thought. So it was all the more important to get Sumeet onboard.

Vipin, Suhas, Sumeet and I were gathered in the pantry to discuss the weekend affair. Upon hearing the planned trip to Mysore, with a slight possibility of going to Ooty Sumeet was unsure if he wanted to do such a long trip. But then Suhas and Vipin put on an impressive show and listed out all the pros and cons in such a way that Sumeet had no choice but to agree. This would be our first victory. Now that Sumeet was in, it would be relatively easier to get others involved.

My flat mate, Rohit, instantly agreed. He was also itching to make the Ooty trip and did not want to miss this opportunity. Vipin called up his flat mates and two of them, Naveen and Aditya agreed.

I called up Arpit and he tentatively agreed, only to later reject citing migraine. My brother Ambuj was already on his way to Bangalore and would be making this trip with us.

At the end of the day, Friday that it was, we were at the cafeteria playing caroms and watching the live telecast of the cricket match. We were to leave the following day. A start time of 7 am was agreed upon by everybody. In walks Lakke, with his charming smile. He comes up to us and lets us known that he couldn’t get tickets to go back home, thus leaving him available for the weekend. This was like the icing on the cake. I broke into laughter and knew that the trip could be not not successful. With Lakke in, we would have lots of unlimited fun. Things couldn’t have ended on a better note. In less than 12 hours we were to start. We were an impressive team of 9 adventurers on 5 bikes:

Vipin and Aditya on Pulsar 180
Suhas and Naveen on Apache 160
Sumeet and Lakke on Hunk 150
My brother and I on CBZ Xtreme 150
Rohit on his Stunner 125.

This was to be our first long, very long bike ride. And we couldn’t possibly be less excited.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Planned Unplanned Trip To Ooty and Mysore

Published on 2 years, 4 months ago in Travel. 0 Comments

It was all so spontaneous that even I was amazed. Working 5 days makes one tired, and induces a tendency to spend the weekend resting at home. And yet, when a plan to go to Ooty on bikes was casually proposed by Vipin and I, people agreed ! Well, it took a little bit of convincing, but it was much less than what I had been expecting.

The trip was great fun. We had an exciting adventure, thanks to the 180cc Pulsar of Vipin. The courage of Lakke and out of the way help from a complete stranger has made it a memorable 3 day trip. At one time we were stuck up in the middle of a forest at 1900 hrs, entry into which is closed for all vehicles after 2000 hrs, and a few anxious hours later we were excitedly chatting away our fears sipping tea.

Not to forget the first experience of negotiating hairpin bends, all 36 of them, and descending the steep slopes on the return journey. Ah, and yes, the joy of driving though a thick cover of fog and mist, when it felt as if we were riding through clouds.

The grandeur of the Mysore palace and the striking beauty of the Brindavan Gardens were like balms to our tired selves. Having driven for almost 650 kms already, a nap in the garden was enervating.

Buoyed by the success of the trip, and glad that we made it through to the end, I am really looking forward to many more such journeys. We have a lot of places marked that we would like to visit in the coming months. Its just about picking the right spot at the right time.

And of course, I shall write more than one post detailing our awesomely adventurous trip. I just love my bike, and my friends too. Thanks everyone !

Here’s a map of our journey from Bangalore to Ooty.

View Larger Map