How to get a confirmed rail ticket in India?
1-
As soon as you come to know of your plans, even
if they are not concrete, go to www.irctc.co.in
and reserve ticket. At most, if the ticket is confirmed, you will get a Rs. 100
loss if you somehow scrapped the plan and cancelled the ticket.
2-
If you had no time to book ticket and it is
within one week of the journey
a.
First see if there is a
Jouney plan
2-
www.irctc.co.in
e-ticket àwaitlist
àbook and wait five days
to journey until Tatkal activated àsee
tatkal àconfirmed
àDone!!
3-
See tatkal à
Waitlist à
do not book but look at the route to find other stations on the routeà Book from other
stations in the route following the procedure above.
4-
Waitlisted à
No tatkal à look
for NRI quota at station à
conf à
done
5-
No NRI quota or Tatkal à go to a legitimate travel
agent à
pay a fee for booking confirmed à
Done!!
Lessons
1-
Information is single most important and scarce
resource while travelling in India. Most of the travelers get information from
friends and family or more net savvy from internet and many travel guides. But
in my personal experience information is either not complete or not fully
accurate. Sometimes, details have changed by the time we visit the place. For
example, when we visited Dharmashala, we found that many restaurants mentioned
in the lonely planet guide have changed considerably from the description. In
these conditions, people tend to rely on locals for the information for good
place to stay, eat, shopping, etc. and no doubt they get cheated. For these
conditions, I am mentioning here a few lessons learned during the course of our
travel
a.
People with vested interest are anyone offering
any service. Taxi/bus operators, hotel operators, touts, restaurant walla,
shopkeepers etc.
b.
If a person is eager to give information, he/she
has a vested interest. May be the person doesn’t look like offering any service
but still may have a vested interest.
i. Our
ticket to Jammu from Ahmedabad did not get confirmed. We wanted to travel legally.
So we refused the offer from a shady person selling ticket in the next train.
Next we went to the platform and there we found a too eager TC lookalike
government officer. This guy told us to pay Rs 900 and promised to get a seat.
We hoped to get a confirmed seat in due course. We paid and later discovered
that we have paid an advance penalty fee to travel in the sleeper class. This
guy was a platform TC who probably got commission on number of penalties scored
in a day. Our fault was that we approached a person with vested interest for
information. We should have asked the question why this person is so interested
to give us a seat while no government officer seems so eager.
c.
Never take anything for free, it is a trap.
i. A
person in Jammu showed us a room. He said there is no charge for the room, you
pay whatever you wish. We immediately turned down the offer. In such cases,
first there is no obligation for providing good services. Also, a reasonable
person feel compelled to accept further services offered at inflated prices. In
our case, the person has a puja samagri shop right in front of the hotel. We
were sure that we would be compelled to buy puja samagri at high prices from
the shop.
d.
Never ask a person with vested interest for
information.
i. Taxi
wala in McLeod Ganj told us wrong timing for the last bus leaving for
Pathancoat. Bus timing was half hour earlier. Luckily we were at the bus stop
half hr earlier and got on the bus on time. Taxi wala has a vested interest in
tourist who can pay for taxi services. We certainly fall in taxi wala range of
interest. If we miss the bus, he will get to make money as there is no bus
available later.
2-
Who do we ask then?
a.
Good question!! We should ask anyone who do not
have any interest in that particular service and who may have the information. Ask
at least two people for the same information. For example, ask shop owners for
good restaurants (the one running most is generally the best in India). Taxi walas and hotel walas sometime
have commission in restaurants. For a hotel room, never ask taxi wala. He will
certainly have commission. Ask local tourists, sabji fruit wala, police wala,
locals like youth, uncle or auntie living close by.
3-
There are two types of arrangements made for
travelling. First those who do not want any trouble on the way approach travel
agents. Agents take a fee and book on well visited touristic places. This is a
safe and hassle free journey. But one gets to see only old touristic places
with lots of touts. Also, one does not get the service commensurate to the
price paid. In such a trip, one is at the mercy of travel agent for everything.
In my experience, most of the agents are concerned about maximizing their
profits than anything else which at the end results in a bad taste for most of
the tourist.
Second way is to search for places on
internet, online/offline guides and forums.
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