Our Varanasi tour with IRCTC
We had recently gone for the Kashi Varanasi weekend deluxe!! Tour ( ER 050 ) with IRCTC. Though we could fulfill our long wish to visit Varanasi in the weekend , however the tour was not at all as per our expectation with what the IRCTC is claiming with its advertisements in the Internet and newspapers. Being a Subh Yatra member and being associated with this tourism industry directly or indirectly for a long time , I think it is quite justified to ask for a clarification for the few basic issues, which I could summarize in the next few paragraphs. Along with it , If anyone is interested to go with them for this or other tours , MY HUMBLE ADVICE WILL BE to check out everything in details before you start your journey
Our journey date : 10 . 10. 2008
Our tour Conf no : 9834 ( Transaction ID 91614 )
Hotel and Ambience
Perhaps the worst part of the journey. We were put on the Sri Ram International , near to Viswanath temple and ghats. In no consideration , that can be called as a deluxe hotel. The hotel lacks basic cleanliness , Room where we checked in ( R 201 ) has no view , no balcony , no symmetry of furniture’s with the room ( dangerous to have the huge glass top table with razor sharp edges ) ; Bathroom : a 3X6 feet room with bad smell & no ventilation at all ;
Air con , was not running during the power cuts , it is centrally controlled from the reception ( At least these are possibly not the signs of a deluxe hotel )
Hotel does not have any restaurant , room does not have any menu card ( Obviously ) , so we do not know what to order , totally we are dependent on the room service boy ( He was bright , clever , honest and always with a good smile. )
For the morning breakfast , we had to take only deep fried puri and not so hot idlis , as nothing other than that was available.
Organised tour
As given on the tour itinerary, Food will be given on MAP basis. But on the second day of the journey nothing has been organized other than the breakfast . When we called Mr. Manoj while waiting for the train in the station, he was kind enough to inform us that nothing can be arranged for the dinner as there is no arrangement for packed dinner in Varanasi on Sunday !!!!!!!!!!! We had to take aweful colour mixed butter chicken packed in a recycled plastic bag with hard rotis , and my eight year old daughter refused to take the same in the train during the dinner time because she was getting the smell of plastic from the chicken. There was no decent food packing system around Varanasi station.
The car, which was given for he conducted tour, has too many dents outside , the seats may be cleaned in the last year ( we do not expect also these small issues ) , and for some unknown reason , the driver was not running the AC. With requests in the afternoon , he was kind enough to switch it on , however at intervals it was running on fan mode !!!!
Overall Experience
Our experience for this whole tour in one word is NOT VALUE FOR MONEY , which IRCTC is charging , and the persons fixing the hotels and other arrangements for IRCTC are not qualified enough to understand the term DELUXE . Given a choice, my family members including myself would not like to take any tours of such kind in future. I will also advise my business associates and the known persons in my fraternity to avoid it.
Please understand that my sole purpose of writing this long letter is not to criticize only , it is to point out the issues , which a common traveler needs when he is paying so much ( We paid Rs. 11500 for the tour + incidental expenditure Rs. 3500 ) for a weekend gateway. The traveler must not feel at any point of time that he has been cheated and not getting the good return, which he had paid in advance.