Sounds of a moonless night

The violent rocking of the bus, though unlike the gentle sway of a cradle, had put me to a rather, hmm... whats the word... ah right - "deep" sleep, last night. So, when I woke up this morning, I half expected to be in Mangalore. But wait, it was a little too dark to be 6:00 am! The pre dawn deep blue sky rose over the silhouette of a distant mountain range. "Crap!", I thought, "we are still in the western ghats. This does not look good. Not good at all."

Sitting in a bus, where the acronym AC expands to Air Chilling and not Air conditioning can be quite a strain on the delicate urinary system of most mortals. Why would anybody maintain 18 deg Celsius in a bus? Wouldn't 24 be more comfortable? The violent rocking hadn't subsided either. It had only gotten worse. "Looks like I'll be sea sick on land", I fretted as I drifted back to an uneasy morning sleep.

Last night, Googie, Vivek* and I set out from Gandhinagar on two different buses for Mangalore at 2300 hrs. The weird booking was thanks to the Eid and Dassera double whammy weekend and our last minute booking. Googie and Vivek were on the Ideal travels Volvo and I, on the Manjunath Road Lines Volvo. Googie, VMK a.k.a WeeWake a.k.a. Vivek, Paddy and I were to proceed to Kodachadri from Mangalore. Dynamic plan i.e. no plan was the plan!

The usual route involves negotiating the Shiradi ghats on the Hasan - Sakleshpur - Upinagadi route. However, oil laden multi-axel vehicles and an unrelenting monsoon has mauled it to Swiss Cheese. The road literally has holes in it, not potholes, just enormous gaping pits strewn with rocks. Even the roads to Leh would score higher on the motorable quotient! Understandably, the bus operators use the longer Mysore - Hunsur - Madikeri - Sulia - Puttur route to Mangalore these days.

Sounds of a moonless night

Back to the hills - Kodachadri

I still haven't finished my blog on the RTMC 6A and I am all set for the next trip. So typical that it ceases to worry me :D

So the plan a.k.a hope is to reach Mangalore on Saturday morning, Kollur by afternoon and from there trek to Kodachadri. Spend the night at Kodachadri, and return to Mangalore by Sunday afternoon. Probably stay the night and get back to Bangalore by the morning flight on Monday. Tentative plans, but leaving for Mangalore on Friday night is certain.

Sometime earlier this year, I had blogged about red tape on the internet - courtesy the Great Indian Railways. And it happened again! This time thanks to the KSRTC website.

To quote from the website. Yes dear, KSRTC has a website!

KSRTC has reached yet another mile stone in its IT field by introducing a new system named as AWATAR (Any Where Any Time Advance Reservation), by which any passenger can reserve tickets well in advance on-line from any part of the world through internet, to travel from any place to any place on the routes on which the Corporation operates its services. The passengers can reserve their seats using debit or credit card also. KSRTC is the first transport Corporation in India to implement the software of this kind.

Which, in my opinion means, that anybody a.k.a. you and I, can book a bus ticket online. Yippe!! No more visits to 4th Block to book tickets to Mangalore.

But, where - o - where is that convenient link. As you might have guessed, it points to "http://ksrtc.in/#", i.e. No where! No link, no convenience, no ticket. However, if you are an operator or a franchise, you have a live and working link - "http://ksrtc.in/AWATARWeb/login.jsp". Something fishy. Very very fishy. I wonder how many people got paid to "delink" the customer login page...

The reasons are quite clear. Crystal clear. Net savvy customers, like you and me, were booking tickets online. A loss of revenue to travel agents. And also, making the jobs of those reservations counter fellows redundant. Not just that, even private bus operators would have felt the heat. Insider information is that they are struggling to break even. Very apparent by the recent move to switch all buses to a combination of sitting on level 1 and sleeping on level 2. These guys are trying every possible trick to maximize, no! stay, profitable. Conspiracy theories can be aplenty, but the ground reality is that, an excellent opportunity is being throw away! For no reason, no reason at all. Sabotage, plain simple sabotage. They are the best state run transport corporation, they could have set the bar just a bit higher, but the great Indian Babudom got the better of them. Shame on them.

This discovery necessitated a trip to 4th Block. And that is where I witnessed the scam these KSRTC employees are attempting on unsuspecting cutomers, like you and I. A big board was propped up on the reservation counter - "Internet problems". Printed in Red paint on white background. All capitals. "Yeenteernet konecksion hoog bit aithe saar. Booking aagak illa...", the pan chewing reservation counter fellow stated unapologetically.

It didn't strike me as sinister at first. Then, it looked hilarious. "They have connectivity problems so often, they actually have a board painted with an excuse", I chuckled to myself as I walked to the nearest private tour operator to book tickets on a private bus to Mangalore.

After booking with the private operator, I couldn't help speculating the possibility of the ticket counter fellow being bribed by the private operators to divert KSRTC business to them. Possible. Anything is possible. Jai Karnataka. Jai Bharath!

Anyways, I have confirmed that even the private buses will take the Madikeri route. So nothing much to worry on that front. I have picked up a couple of interesting things for the trek ;) All excited... plus the met department predicts no rain till oct 14th... hehe... we know how that works out!

12/10, 2030 hrs.
Update : Heading out now... and orkut has an eerie warning for me - "Serious trouble will bypass you"... wooo... now that would be interesting ;)

Back to the hills - Kodachadri