Red Bus – A Myth
My friend told me about a bus which seemed more as a dream then reality. His story was that once when he was coming from Lucknow to New Delhi he saw a luxury AC bus on the Bus station which was coming to Delhi and reservation to this bus was only through internet. So the very next time he google searched, found this site booked an online ticket and boarded this bus from Lucknow. In his own words it was a lifetime experience. The seats were so cozy, with special leg rest and semi reclining stretch. The AC was so good, the people were all sparkling. The floors were clean and the whole journey even in such bad road to Delhi was smooth and jolt free. The only draw back was that journey from Lucknow to Delhi took him more than 12 hours. Well no body would mind it for such a comfortable journey even if it cost you fare equal to an AC 2 tier of train when its more comfortable than latter.
So after this long description we come to our experience with red bus. We planned a trip to Nainital so we looked up internet and found the site www.redbus.in. I read the impressive story about how when one of the techs could not find a way to reach home on Diwali formed an internet booking site which books buses to places both AC and non-AC. So my first myth was broken here that red bus is not a bus company but just an online booking site which books online ticket on behalf of you on other bus companies. The internet site was more of a maze because after I traced my journey from Delhi to Nainital I was not able to trace my return journey because it got stuck there and would not let me know my options for any other place or date. So my second Myth was broken that you cannot find many options for your journey on Red bus internet site, you have to call the red bus call centre for booking.
I called the Red bus booking site and a beautiful female voice answered it, she enquired about my phone number and my requirement and promised to call me back. She did called me back and as per my requirement informed me that there was availability of seats in Volvo bus for both to and fro journey. I said yes and soon I got a message that my both journeys were confirmed with the call centre lady taking extra care by providing seats in the middle of bus. Which were supposed to be jolt free? My 3rd myth was broken when I came to know that Red bus prices are not only high but they are very keen on delivering the tickets then customer collecting the tickets from their office because it cost extra for ticket delivery. Red bus services are not at all fare although they book tickets all over India for private bus owners but they charge Rs. 50 extra per ticket then actual for onward journey and Rs. 100 extra per ticket for return journey which does not make sense as this difference does not provide any extra benefit also.
I had noted down the address of Red bus office and it was close to my house so I decided not to pay extra for ticket delivery and go and collect the tickets on my own. When I started for Red bus I never had imagined it will be so difficult to find an office of such repute. The office was located in a deep ‘gali’ with all shaggy building around. It was dark when we entered this building and the office was located on the 5th floor in a very small room with two parallel desk with lot of phones and one person sitting there receiving calls nearly one after another. We were disappointed to see the office (actually just a call centre) so unkept with no reception. We asked for our tickets and the call centre person gave us two zerox with our seat numbers and lots of instructions were imprinted on the ticket, which I will come to later. So when we wanted to pay by credit card our 4th myth broke that Red bus tickets are probably never supposed to be collected from their office because they don’t seem to have one primarily, secondarily they don’t have working credit card working machines. So that guy somehow found credit card machine and after repeated attempts came to inference that his machine was not working. So we had to run a long distance back find an ATM machine then paid for our tickets.
Time of departure mentioned on the ticket was 9 pm so as instructed even though I had purchased the ticket I was instructed to call and inform the Bus company prior to confirm our tickets otherwise our reservation seats could be taken by someone else on the whims of the bus owner and Red bus will not be responsible for this. So I called the number of “City Heart Travels” given on the bus ticket (our transport service) and a husky voice responded the call. When I told him about my reservations and seat numbers first of all like a typical Punjabi Delhite he blankly refused my reservations and told that he has no such information giving me a string of shock. After sometime while I kept holding the line thinking what to do if my tickets are not accepted by the Godfather like figure on the other side of line, then his voice cracked again and he confirmed with some unpleasant tone that I do stand confirmed seats on his bus. When I enquired about the time of departure he told me to reach his office at 9.30 pm. My 5th myth was broken Red bus services do not hold alliance with any good standard bus services. There could (would) be delays in the departure of buses and definitely delay in reaching the destination Red bus will not be responsible for this.
We reached with anxiety the kashmeri gate ISBT and my 6th myth was shattered when I saw that such a costly service which we booked had such dirty office situated at such a dirty place. City Heart Tavel had an office which was like any old dirty tourist thug tourist services which are being run over all over India. People who are not experienced like us get into trap through a reputed bus service like Red bus service who holds no responsibility whatsoever of such pathetic bus services. Office of City Heart Travel was one room small congested office with many people huddled into their suffocating room office awaiting to be cheated by these thugs. As soon I met this guy who was sitting there I realized how rude and unconcerned he was regarding our reservations we had made. Obviously he knew that we had already made the payment and that too Rs. 50-100 extra from those people who had come directly or through his agents who were wondering all over the ISBT bus stand to bait innocent people and cheat them. The city heart travel person first of all changed my seat numbers so this was my 7th myth broken as seat numbers can (will) be changed according to wish of bus company person against your wish and Red bus will not be responsible for this. When I protested regarding change of seat number the rude person gave an argument that my tickets were booked for a bus capacity of 40 people and he is sending me in a 54 capacity bus so he had every right to change my seat numbers, obviously change of bus is bus provider right and Red bus will not be responsible for this.
As there was no seating arrangement I had to sit in a chair shaped thing outside City Heart Travel office with my wife in that cold chilly weather, just adjacent to that place was a Dhaba cooking some oily concoction on their huge pan which was giving some relief from that cold winter night.
We kept on waiting and the rude City heart Travel person was not even interested to answer us that at what time will the bus arrive at their office premises from where we were supposed to board and his gestures seemed to be as if he was laughing on us that we have been fooled by his travel agency. His agents kept on bringing people from nearby ISBT bus stand and he kept on filling more and more people and we realized that the pathetic service for which we had taken so much pains had paid 50 Rs extra to Red Bus service, was actually making us all wait as he was filling his empty seats in his office. We felt very much disgusted for our ignorance we could have come directly to this stupid office got ourself reservation on the spot and also negotiable as some people also had paid Rs. 50 lesser then the told ticket price.
After waiting for more than one hour people around us started moving to a dark gali behind us. I was not sure what was the matter and the rude City Hear Travel person also did not bothered to tell us anything. After asking and after a long time we came to know that bus was standing deep into a dark and dangerous looking ‘gali’ and we were supposed to walk to the bus carrying our luggage’s. At this point I was very much disappointed and realization that I had been fooled by an internet service namely the redbus.com who has not only overcharged me but also pushed me into a very substandard bus service.
When we reached the bus the conductor, cleaner and driver were busy loading commercial boxes which had been brought with some goons who were totally drunk and were shouting abuses to everyone. This AC 2x2 Volvo private bus service was primarily meant to carry commercial products across the city in the name of tourist bus. In exchange the businessmen pay hefty money to the bus owners and save lot of hassle and money which they would have normally paid to policewala’s and truck to cross between the cities. As a result of this all the passengers had put their luggage inside the bus and I was required to jump over the luggage to reach to our seats. Our seats were badly kept the arrangement was congested, the seat covers and curtains were dirty and the whole bus was stinking like anything. AC was not started rather a window over the roof of bus was open making us all chill cold. The loading of luggage took another one hour and even after reaching bus station at 9 pm we were still waiting for our journey to begin till 11 pm in hope that rest of our journey will be uneventful.
After driving for around half hour bus reached Anand vihar and running on the muddy ground of ISBT Anand Vihar for another 10 minutes with lot of jolts and pushes awaking every child, person in the bus came to halt in the dark ground. There was hardly any living being around so what was this bus doing in that dark and cold winter. Answer came soon when another agent of ‘City Hearts Travel’ soon entered he will make the bus halt while rest of his goon-agents will search for passengers in the ISBT Anand Vihar stop across the road. The whole thing looked so illicit and spooky. Driver and conductor were discussing how less spacious this bus was in terms of passage between the rows of seats that they are unable to seat passengers on the passage. This was the standard of costliest and the best bus service available from Delhi to Nainital provided through Red bus and as mentioned in the ticket Red bus will not be responsible for this.
After waiting for another hour one innocent student was pushed into the bus who was victim made by the goon agents into the ISBT station he was made to sit on the last seat and overly charged.
Bus departed after another hour so at around 12.30 am midnight my journey to Nainital begain. The other passengers finally need a short description, most of them were local businessmen or locals of the destination area. Three Sardars who were badly drunk continued hurling abuses on the way to each other. Few people vomited at the start of journey which made the already congested bus smellier. As AC was being regulated on the wishes of driver he used to stop the AC after 5-10 minutes in an hour. The roof window was closed so there was no fresh air, AC was stopped, there was hardly any way to breathe, all one could breathe was vomitus, alcohol, dirty and stinky curtains.
The curious thing was that most of the people were not resisting and were seated patiently. My comments, resistance was of hardly of any use the bus staff hardly cared to listen or pay attention to any situation in the bus. I felt as if I am stuck between some dead bodies who are just being taken to dump in some refuse pile.
My rest of the journey was uneventful except that bus like a local city bus kept on picking and dropping passengers on its way. The halt taken in between was in a very filthy restaurant where even using toilets make you puke.
After reaching Nainital I was again suppose to inform the City Heart Travel office about my return journey to save my return seats. I realized that I was going to travel in the same bus back because it seemed that it was the only agency running the bus and all other agents after booking passengers use to hurl their passengers into the same bus afcourse charging their own set of commission. So it was a wide nexus where all bus operators were working together fooling innocent people and charging heftly for substandard services.
My return journey begain first of all with changing of seat numbers on the whims of conductor which the ticket of red bus clearly mentions and Red bus will not be responsible for this. Before start of journey a fight erupted when one of the passenger who had paid heftily to one of the agents for confirmed seat was denied reservation. Passenger made it a point to beat the bus conductor well and not let the bus to begin its return journey. Somehow bus started its return journey driver was probably drunk and in fast speed descended the bus from he hills, the congested and suffocated bus made people nauseating and the whole bus was puking like anything. Oblivious to this the bus driver was turning on and off AC on his will. With all my efforts I was trying not to puke but it was hard to control as whole bus was filled with smell of vomitus, the speed of descent of bus the suffocation all together made the environment as if we are sitting on a Roler Coastar ride after eating a heavy lunch.
There are many more pages to write about my Red bus journey but my aim of writing this dreadful experience is that how can an internet bus booking service who is charging you per ticket deceive us and push us into a substandard bus service. Providing online ticket and charging extra for it is all that is what is responsibility of this online service provider. My suggestion to people who are yet to experience Red bus is that its better to find your travel agency on your own and do not trust red bus services. Do not use red bus if you do not have money to unnecessarily waste. And finally CITY HEART TRAVELS is never to be used they provide worst services.
My friend told me about a bus which seemed more as a dream then reality. His story was that once when he was coming from Lucknow to New Delhi he saw a luxury AC bus on the Bus station which was coming to Delhi and reservation to this bus was only through internet. So the very next time he google searched, found this site booked an online ticket and boarded this bus from Lucknow. In his own words it was a lifetime experience. The seats were so cozy, with special leg rest and semi reclining stretch. The AC was so good, the people were all sparkling. The floors were clean and the whole journey even in such bad road to Delhi was smooth and jolt free. The only draw back was that journey from Lucknow to Delhi took him more than 12 hours. Well no body would mind it for such a comfortable journey even if it cost you fare equal to an AC 2 tier of train when its more comfortable than latter.
So after this long description we come to our experience with red bus. We planned a trip to Nainital so we looked up internet and found the site www.redbus.in. I read the impressive story about how when one of the techs could not find a way to reach home on Diwali formed an internet booking site which books buses to places both AC and non-AC. So my first myth was broken here that red bus is not a bus company but just an online booking site which books online ticket on behalf of you on other bus companies. The internet site was more of a maze because after I traced my journey from Delhi to Nainital I was not able to trace my return journey because it got stuck there and would not let me know my options for any other place or date. So my second Myth was broken that you cannot find many options for your journey on Red bus internet site, you have to call the red bus call centre for booking.
I called the Red bus booking site and a beautiful female voice answered it, she enquired about my phone number and my requirement and promised to call me back. She did called me back and as per my requirement informed me that there was availability of seats in Volvo bus for both to and fro journey. I said yes and soon I got a message that my both journeys were confirmed with the call centre lady taking extra care by providing seats in the middle of bus. Which were supposed to be jolt free? My 3rd myth was broken when I came to know that Red bus prices are not only high but they are very keen on delivering the tickets then customer collecting the tickets from their office because it cost extra for ticket delivery. Red bus services are not at all fare although they book tickets all over India for private bus owners but they charge Rs. 50 extra per ticket then actual for onward journey and Rs. 100 extra per ticket for return journey which does not make sense as this difference does not provide any extra benefit also.
I had noted down the address of Red bus office and it was close to my house so I decided not to pay extra for ticket delivery and go and collect the tickets on my own. When I started for Red bus I never had imagined it will be so difficult to find an office of such repute. The office was located in a deep ‘gali’ with all shaggy building around. It was dark when we entered this building and the office was located on the 5th floor in a very small room with two parallel desk with lot of phones and one person sitting there receiving calls nearly one after another. We were disappointed to see the office (actually just a call centre) so unkept with no reception. We asked for our tickets and the call centre person gave us two zerox with our seat numbers and lots of instructions were imprinted on the ticket, which I will come to later. So when we wanted to pay by credit card our 4th myth broke that Red bus tickets are probably never supposed to be collected from their office because they don’t seem to have one primarily, secondarily they don’t have working credit card working machines. So that guy somehow found credit card machine and after repeated attempts came to inference that his machine was not working. So we had to run a long distance back find an ATM machine then paid for our tickets.
Time of departure mentioned on the ticket was 9 pm so as instructed even though I had purchased the ticket I was instructed to call and inform the Bus company prior to confirm our tickets otherwise our reservation seats could be taken by someone else on the whims of the bus owner and Red bus will not be responsible for this. So I called the number of “City Heart Travels” given on the bus ticket (our transport service) and a husky voice responded the call. When I told him about my reservations and seat numbers first of all like a typical Punjabi Delhite he blankly refused my reservations and told that he has no such information giving me a string of shock. After sometime while I kept holding the line thinking what to do if my tickets are not accepted by the Godfather like figure on the other side of line, then his voice cracked again and he confirmed with some unpleasant tone that I do stand confirmed seats on his bus. When I enquired about the time of departure he told me to reach his office at 9.30 pm. My 5th myth was broken Red bus services do not hold alliance with any good standard bus services. There could (would) be delays in the departure of buses and definitely delay in reaching the destination Red bus will not be responsible for this.
We reached with anxiety the kashmeri gate ISBT and my 6th myth was shattered when I saw that such a costly service which we booked had such dirty office situated at such a dirty place. City Heart Tavel had an office which was like any old dirty tourist thug tourist services which are being run over all over India. People who are not experienced like us get into trap through a reputed bus service like Red bus service who holds no responsibility whatsoever of such pathetic bus services. Office of City Heart Travel was one room small congested office with many people huddled into their suffocating room office awaiting to be cheated by these thugs. As soon I met this guy who was sitting there I realized how rude and unconcerned he was regarding our reservations we had made. Obviously he knew that we had already made the payment and that too Rs. 50-100 extra from those people who had come directly or through his agents who were wondering all over the ISBT bus stand to bait innocent people and cheat them. The city heart travel person first of all changed my seat numbers so this was my 7th myth broken as seat numbers can (will) be changed according to wish of bus company person against your wish and Red bus will not be responsible for this. When I protested regarding change of seat number the rude person gave an argument that my tickets were booked for a bus capacity of 40 people and he is sending me in a 54 capacity bus so he had every right to change my seat numbers, obviously change of bus is bus provider right and Red bus will not be responsible for this.
As there was no seating arrangement I had to sit in a chair shaped thing outside City Heart Travel office with my wife in that cold chilly weather, just adjacent to that place was a Dhaba cooking some oily concoction on their huge pan which was giving some relief from that cold winter night.
We kept on waiting and the rude City heart Travel person was not even interested to answer us that at what time will the bus arrive at their office premises from where we were supposed to board and his gestures seemed to be as if he was laughing on us that we have been fooled by his travel agency. His agents kept on bringing people from nearby ISBT bus stand and he kept on filling more and more people and we realized that the pathetic service for which we had taken so much pains had paid 50 Rs extra to Red Bus service, was actually making us all wait as he was filling his empty seats in his office. We felt very much disgusted for our ignorance we could have come directly to this stupid office got ourself reservation on the spot and also negotiable as some people also had paid Rs. 50 lesser then the told ticket price.
After waiting for more than one hour people around us started moving to a dark gali behind us. I was not sure what was the matter and the rude City Hear Travel person also did not bothered to tell us anything. After asking and after a long time we came to know that bus was standing deep into a dark and dangerous looking ‘gali’ and we were supposed to walk to the bus carrying our luggage’s. At this point I was very much disappointed and realization that I had been fooled by an internet service namely the redbus.com who has not only overcharged me but also pushed me into a very substandard bus service.
When we reached the bus the conductor, cleaner and driver were busy loading commercial boxes which had been brought with some goons who were totally drunk and were shouting abuses to everyone. This AC 2x2 Volvo private bus service was primarily meant to carry commercial products across the city in the name of tourist bus. In exchange the businessmen pay hefty money to the bus owners and save lot of hassle and money which they would have normally paid to policewala’s and truck to cross between the cities. As a result of this all the passengers had put their luggage inside the bus and I was required to jump over the luggage to reach to our seats. Our seats were badly kept the arrangement was congested, the seat covers and curtains were dirty and the whole bus was stinking like anything. AC was not started rather a window over the roof of bus was open making us all chill cold. The loading of luggage took another one hour and even after reaching bus station at 9 pm we were still waiting for our journey to begin till 11 pm in hope that rest of our journey will be uneventful.
After driving for around half hour bus reached Anand vihar and running on the muddy ground of ISBT Anand Vihar for another 10 minutes with lot of jolts and pushes awaking every child, person in the bus came to halt in the dark ground. There was hardly any living being around so what was this bus doing in that dark and cold winter. Answer came soon when another agent of ‘City Hearts Travel’ soon entered he will make the bus halt while rest of his goon-agents will search for passengers in the ISBT Anand Vihar stop across the road. The whole thing looked so illicit and spooky. Driver and conductor were discussing how less spacious this bus was in terms of passage between the rows of seats that they are unable to seat passengers on the passage. This was the standard of costliest and the best bus service available from Delhi to Nainital provided through Red bus and as mentioned in the ticket Red bus will not be responsible for this.
After waiting for another hour one innocent student was pushed into the bus who was victim made by the goon agents into the ISBT station he was made to sit on the last seat and overly charged.
Bus departed after another hour so at around 12.30 am midnight my journey to Nainital begain. The other passengers finally need a short description, most of them were local businessmen or locals of the destination area. Three Sardars who were badly drunk continued hurling abuses on the way to each other. Few people vomited at the start of journey which made the already congested bus smellier. As AC was being regulated on the wishes of driver he used to stop the AC after 5-10 minutes in an hour. The roof window was closed so there was no fresh air, AC was stopped, there was hardly any way to breathe, all one could breathe was vomitus, alcohol, dirty and stinky curtains.
The curious thing was that most of the people were not resisting and were seated patiently. My comments, resistance was of hardly of any use the bus staff hardly cared to listen or pay attention to any situation in the bus. I felt as if I am stuck between some dead bodies who are just being taken to dump in some refuse pile.
My rest of the journey was uneventful except that bus like a local city bus kept on picking and dropping passengers on its way. The halt taken in between was in a very filthy restaurant where even using toilets make you puke.
After reaching Nainital I was again suppose to inform the City Heart Travel office about my return journey to save my return seats. I realized that I was going to travel in the same bus back because it seemed that it was the only agency running the bus and all other agents after booking passengers use to hurl their passengers into the same bus afcourse charging their own set of commission. So it was a wide nexus where all bus operators were working together fooling innocent people and charging heftly for substandard services.
My return journey begain first of all with changing of seat numbers on the whims of conductor which the ticket of red bus clearly mentions and Red bus will not be responsible for this. Before start of journey a fight erupted when one of the passenger who had paid heftily to one of the agents for confirmed seat was denied reservation. Passenger made it a point to beat the bus conductor well and not let the bus to begin its return journey. Somehow bus started its return journey driver was probably drunk and in fast speed descended the bus from he hills, the congested and suffocated bus made people nauseating and the whole bus was puking like anything. Oblivious to this the bus driver was turning on and off AC on his will. With all my efforts I was trying not to puke but it was hard to control as whole bus was filled with smell of vomitus, the speed of descent of bus the suffocation all together made the environment as if we are sitting on a Roler Coastar ride after eating a heavy lunch.
There are many more pages to write about my Red bus journey but my aim of writing this dreadful experience is that how can an internet bus booking service who is charging you per ticket deceive us and push us into a substandard bus service. Providing online ticket and charging extra for it is all that is what is responsibility of this online service provider. My suggestion to people who are yet to experience Red bus is that its better to find your travel agency on your own and do not trust red bus services. Do not use red bus if you do not have money to unnecessarily waste. And finally CITY HEART TRAVELS is never to be used they provide worst services.
