A pre-booked reproach: On the way to India

This summer has been empty to me. Going pretty fast and it worries me that I haven't travelled anywhere abroad this year. All I had was a day out to Portsmouth beach :) It was still nice and I managed to click away the beauty of the city from the top floor of the Spinnaker tower.

Okay, coming back to the point... not that I travel every summer but I had been doing so, for the past 4 consecutive years. And I guess that's why I am sort of disappointed of this summer.
Spending hours and hours planning on where to travel, where to stay, who to take with et al is a usual thing for me and my friends. But it worked out only once! And that was To India. I wouldn't say it was that fun as we didn't have much sight-seeing but a great travelling cos it was the first time to travel abroad with friends and that was during sixthform. It was mainly planned to have a feel on how the health system is like in countries like India. So we landed in one of the private hospitals. But once we got there, some staff were telling us that it would have been better if we had gone to a government hospital cos that's the best place to see the reality than in private ones. I hope to do that if the future allows me.

Leaving all this behind, the highlight of the trip was the airlines!! I am sorry but that was the worse airlines I ve ever travelled and I seriously wonder why it seems like there were no complaints made about them! I don't wanna mention which airlines it was, for some good reasons. The price was no cheap or nothing, of £750.00 each. Obviously, food is one thing that should be beared during travelling but the food we were given was beyond our flexibility...and the most unfavourable thing was that the sheets we were provided with looked like as if they had never been washed cos I could see some dried rice grains on it! It was a transit ticket to Chennai via Bombay. And because they delayed the flight from London to Bombay, we missed the one from Bombay to Chennai as they didn't bother to wait for the transit passengers!

Okay, thinking that there must have been an alternative arrangements for the transit passengers as every other airline does if they couldn't wait, we went to the check-in counter to ask what was happening and the answer we got was shocking, unexpected and a total ridiculous.. "Sorry madam, I don't know. There hasn't been any arrangements made".
Whaaaaaattt...an irresponsible response!
And we questioned him what were they going to do with the passengers on transit and he replied that we just have no choice other than making our own way. To escalate my surprise, a girl we met on the flight didn't even bother to ask any of the staff about it and she said that it is stupid to stand and ask those staff as it will be of no use and she straight away made her way out. We stood there still, feeling lost.

We then decided to talk to the airlines manager and asked one of the guys for the direction to the manager's office. And he directed us to the 3rd floor. So we walked towards the lifts dragging our luggage. Guess what, the damn lifts didn't work -Out of Order! So we climbed up the stairs with our luggage....trust me it was painful. Once we got to the 3rd floor, somebody else said the airlines office is actually in the ground floor. I felt like burst out crying. We stood at the 3rd floor and decided to ask a few people, to find out if they actually say the same direction. If you don't know something that a person asks you about, you just simply say 'I don't know'! And there were a number of guys in the airport couldn't say that. They said something as if they would be punished if they said they didn't know and all of them said different floors. And to my amazement, there were no signs of directions displayed in an International Airport! Was a place of pure mayhem.

We went down to the ground floor and decided to search for the office as somebody said all the airlines offices are definitely located on the ground floor. Managed to find it after a long walk. We were really annoyed of the every single thing that we came across since we stepped out from the flight. And we talked to the manager in an almost-shouting tone while maintaining pleasant demeanor. Thankfully, he was in fact really nice to respond to us very calmly... asked us to leave the luggage in his office and arranged one of his staff to take us to their tickets office where they booked us on a local flight to Chennai. And thereafter everything went smoothly except the fact that we had to wait there for more than 3/4 hours, if I remember correctly.

And another thing was that when we got off from the bus that took us to the local airport there was a guy who seemed to be working on the bus started asking us money and he didn't even give us a chance to ask him why he wanted. The was another man who came along and he was speaking for the other guy and told us to give him some money.
The rest of the journey in the flight was uneventful compared to the time we were in the airport.The whole journey was much exciting, thrilling but with many troubles. Arguments that my friend had with one of the high hierarchy people, some weird unexpected experiences in the shopping mall etc....and it continues to be a long list.

I really learned a lot from this travelling! One is never to take that Airlines anymore. There was another unavoidable travel on the same airlines as BA was delayed due to some flooding in India. And that was not pleasant too. And this complaint is not a personal idiosyncrasy cos I ve heard from many individuals that the particular airlines has been a widespread-unpreferable. lolz. A holiday is to basically have a good time, to escape boredom etc. but it would all be only until when staying within the comfort zone.

I think some thoughts need to be given to the care and basic needs of the customers as equally as they do for their business needs and before proclaiming to be giving the ultimate experience of travelling!!
Anyway, I think I have ranted very long, and thanks for reading so far. This was one of the unforgettable travels of my life and you can well imagine how it would feel like to face such situations when you undertake a travel voluntarily without parents being beside you.