This does not get easy in India and scenes can change anytime, its like climbing Everest, even if you see the peak, does not mean its within reach.
Girish already dropped off a day or two before my departure from Manila. He has a heavy load with the corporate reporting season coming up and as this his first year with this big securities house can even miss a day, ok so be it.
Just before Girish changed his plan, also after calling ‘n’th time Erich from Wild Chalet finally said ‘no can do’, resort fully booked on 4th find another place. And here we go again, back to square one. Even though Erich was apologetic and all and offered to have lunch with us if we can drop by his resort, its another example of how simple things can become difficult in India, a single database of room booking can solve all this problems but we have to do everything the hard way, how else will we prove our self-proclaimed superior intellectual capability, that’s the theory of Kunchi, people in India does not like following standard process and systems for the above needs.
Now I started calling up the next choice I had, Tuli Tiger Resort, it had some good reviews and though of going for it since after looking for few of the others. Since we were running out of time I started calling them up directly, Tuli, Kipling Camp and one more. None could be reached except the sales of Tuli, great. Talked to this efficient sounding lady Nita from there head office sales, she send me an email in 10min with the rates and I called back to book the jungle plan for the Tuli Tiger Resort Cottages, she said ok confirmed and will be sending me the payment instruction for booking in a few minutes as she is on the phone with other client. All looks great so far, or so I thought.
Next morning I started my journey to Calcutta, India. The air travel was uneventful and as expected. After reaching home in Calcutta I checked my email to get a shock of my life, Nita emailed that sorry can’t provide room on 4th all sold out, I replied back immediately that ‘how can all be sold out when you confirmed to me about our two rooms?’. The answer and excuse came in when I called up the next morning, while she was out some other colleagues sold the rooms etc etc. another example of what I said above, lack of system and process. Also our feel was because of the huge market size, some time the service companies are not as eager to please customers, wrong, wrong, wrong……..
Any ways, nice of her to suggest that she can still get me a place in there more exclusive and of course more expensive option at ‘Tuli Tiger Corridor’, the damage would be about times two but after talking to Joe, we decided to go for it. That was the most luxurious of the accommodation in Kanha and we are going for it, great.
It was nearly done but not completely, after some more running around about how to transfer money for the booking we finally resolved it and got some small discount as our upgrade was due to a fault of there’s. Now we are all set to go.
next>