Once my exams were over, my family and me decided to spend our vacation in Goa. First, we tried booking seats in AC 2 Tier on trains bound towards Goa. But alas, there were none!. So, we decided to travel by bus. We booked 3 tickets from Paulo Travels main office situated at Race course road, Bangalore in AC sleeper(2+1) from Bangalore to Goa. Later, as we browsed the net for reviews on Paulo travels, we were shocked to read the horrifying reviews by lots of people. Anyway, we decided to go forward as there were no sleeping availability in any other bus.
Surprisingly, the Paolo bus arrived in time contrary to the reviews and looked quite decent from the outside. Similarly, the interior of the bus also appeared very neat and clean.The AC coach had around 34 sleeper berths - both upper and lower berths. Every sleeper had 2 curtains which when drawn gives your own private space. The lower berths have small windows whereas the upper berths have larger windows. Every sleeper has its own small LCD screen where Bollywood movies are screened. The audio however, is too loud in some sleepers. Ours also had no audio control and hence we completely switched off the audio and were still able to follow the movie as we could hear the dialogue from the neighboring berths. The pillows are too flat and fixed to the berth. It is advisable to carry a pillow and a bedsheets /blanket as it becomes too cold due to the AC. It also had a charging point which did not work.
The journey went on quite comfortably except for the swaying of the bus and the sleeping passenger adjacent to us in the lower berth found it difficult to hold on and even sustained a fall as there were no railings to grasp on. However, the upper berths have iron railings to prevent falls. After 3-4 hours, the passengers were hungry and also wanted to go to the washroom. But, the bus didn’t seem to stop anywhere. At around 12: 30 am, there was a short break at a road side hotel in the Karnataka border. Thankfully, the toilets were clean and usable. Then we decided to have dinner at the motel.
After this halt, the bus never stopped at any other point. We slept on and off and by 6 am the AC was either not working or it had been manipulated. The AC gave out hot air and we were suffocated in the closed AC bus where the windows could not be opened. We asked the conductor to put on the AC but he never obliged. All the passengers were left irritated and suffocated. We felt hot and were sweating profusely for the next three hours till we reached Mandovi Bridge which was the last stop. We felt much cooler in the outside air.
We were glad that we reached Goa in time and also that we did not encounter any bed bugs or cockroaches as stated in the reviews. But yes, we did suffer by the malfunctioning of the AC and the callousness of the conductor and the bus driver.