A Nightmare!

It’s the Christmas season and as usual, I was excited as the vacation came close. This year, 21^st Dec, which is a Friday was also a holiday and then 25^th is Tuesday. And if you take 2 days off on 24^thand 26^th, you’ll get nearly one week vacation. I started thinking about the travel to my hometown in Kerala even before 2-3 months due to the huge rush. Then my sister told me, there is a travel agency near her place and she can reserve a ticket for me. I said ok. So she booked the ticket around 2months ago. They noted the date, destination and number of seats required and all. But they didn’t give us the actual ticket and said, they will give it later and added, don’t worry, you will be able to go home safe and sound. Ok, we thought. And as the dates neared, we asked them. They gave the ticket, not in the bus we asked for. Also not to the destination we asked for. We had a big fight over that with the travel agency and finally got the ticket the day before my travel. I didn’t want to take any chances. So I went to the bus office [which is from where I board the bus] and I asked them about the ticket. They were not even aware about this ticket and asked me from where I got this ticket. I told them about the travel agency and they told they don’t have a ticket for this date. It was seat number 9 and after some argument, they changed it to 20 and added if I am lucky there won’t be any double reservation [Again the time of the bus on the ticket was incorrect]. I called my sister and she again had a big fight with the travel agency. In the end, they said that some how they will get me home either in that bus or some other bus.

On the day of my travel, I reached the bus office by 5:30. Fortunately, when the bus came, only 2 persons were already there and seat number 20 was free. I thanked God. I was hoping that it will be a good journey, and the bus was almost on time, 6:30pm. The bus took off and reached another travel agency, and some people boarded the bus and there came one man who asked me whether my ticket is for seat no: 20. I said yes. I was getting tensed. He went out. Then there came a person for ticket checking. He checked my ticket and didn’t tell me anything. I was relaxed. The man who asked me, got a seat in the back. So that was the double reservation. After some time, there came another lady, who asked me the same. Oh my god! It was the second person who had a ticket with seat number 20. She also went outside and she got the back seat only. I think, only because, I boarded the bus first, I retained the seat. This happened with almost every seat and at almost every travel agency we stopped and by the time the bus reached Bangalore city limits, it was 8:30pm, 2hours late than it should be. I hoped all the problems were over. But the main one was yet to come, the Bus itself. It definitely is not an air bus or too old to be recognized as one. The ordinary KSRTC buses are better I think. Every time we hit a gutter, almost everyone in the bus wakes up. Someone was even thrown out of the seat once. That was one of the worst journey’s I ever had in my whole life time. Everyone was cursing all the time. There was nothing much to do. And finally, I am supposed to reach at my place by 6am, but I reached by 9am [mainly because of the initial delay] not safe and sound, but with body pain and sleepy eyes. It really was a nightmare.

Now I have some questions and suggestions,
Is it so difficult to organize a journey and the tickets?
Is there anyone to complain about these exploits by the travel agencies especially during festival seasons?
What is there to be done to make sure the buses start a journey and reach the destination at the right time in the case of Bangalore to Kerala journey?

And my suggestions are,
Never take the A-1 bus, with registration KA-41 2552. You will be in hell. The travels from where the bus started was Choice Travels, opposite to Bata shop and near MAS restaurant. Those travel people seem nice anyway.
I am sure atleast some of my readers have similar experiences with buses. But there was a time, when I enjoyed these travels very much, only before 3years when every thing worked fine.