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June 30, 2005
Travel Modes in Rural India
I was clicking my camera on everything on the way to Ranganathittu. Here are some pictures; these pictures will not be in the perfect frame because I was clicking these from a moving car.
Posted by Sam at 08:59 AM | Comments (1)
June 28, 2005
Bangalore Weekend Getaway – Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary
Last weekend I went to visit Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary which is around 120km (75miles) from Bangalore. We (myself, my brother and a friend of mine) left Bangalore around 3.00pm and reached there at 6.30pm. Yeah it took us more than 3.00 hours to drive 120 km.
We checked into New Amblee Holiday Resort. This was a pretty well maintained resort. They had a nice swimming pool, two pool table and a ping pong table. As soon as we reached the resort we got into action. We did some swimming, played ping pong and played some pool. The next day was my birthday so we just spent the rest of the evening near the pool with some drinks. For those of you who tried to call me that day and thought that I was sleeping, sorry guys I was not sleeping.
We got up the next day and went to see the bird’s sanctuary. This was located just 2km from the resort. It was a small sanctuary but it was pretty impressive to see all the different kind of birds and especially some crocodiles floating in the water when you are traveling in a small open boat. If you don’t like too much crowd in the boat, you can get a private boat. Which cost around 200Rs, and if you pay them bit more they will take you closer and farther than the regular circle they cover. We paid them a little extra and took the longer route.
It was not a big place; we spend around 2 hours in the sanctuary and started back home.
Posted by Sam at 08:38 AM | Comments (8)
June 08, 2005
Ten Sport – Bangalore Marathon Coverage
Ten Sports telecasted their Bangalore marathon coverage for 45mins. One of the guy (I am sure every news paper had his picture, this was the guy in the sanyasi dress) in my running club (Runners For Life) recorded the coverage. For some reason I thought I might be there somewhere in the telecast, unfortunately I was not there. But it was a good show most of the telecast was about the organizing of the marathon. And it was inspiring to see Ramu finish the marathon.
If you ran the race and want to take a look at the telecast let me know. If you didn’t run the race and still want to look at it, let me know.
Posted by Sam at 07:15 AM | Comments (3)
June 07, 2005
Got someone fired
And I don’t feel bad about it.
I wanted to buy a car and thought I will get a second hand car. (A year or two year old one ). After running around for two weeks finally managed to find one which I liked. Luckily just before giving them the money I thought I will take it to the company for a check-up. They told me that the vehicle was an accident vehicle. Unless you know the person who is selling the car or you should be a expert in cars, its not worth to take the risk of buying a second hand car, so I decided to go for a new one.
I went to a Maruti showroom and looked at a Maruti Alto, kind of liked it. I told the sales person that I will think about it. This sales guy was calling me trice everyday to find out if I have made up my mind. Finally went and booked the car. As soon as I walked inside I told the sales person, that he need to tell me the exact date of when he can deliver the car (Is this too much to ask?). I told him even if he needs two weeks that’s fine but he needs to deliver the car on time. He told me that he will deliver it in two days.
Well one week passed by everyday I have to call them up and they will ask me to come to the showroom in the evening and once I reach the showroom they will give me reason why they were not able to deliver. I got totally frustrated and I went to the showroom and I told them that I wanted to cancel my booking and finally the manager got involved and he told me that he will throw in a central locking system free, and he didn’t want me to cancel the deal. Well since I was getting something free I thought I will take it and give them some time.
Another week passed by and nothing happened. Finally after lots of phone calls they told me to bring the cash and they will release the vehicle and when I reached the showroom they told me that they couldn’t register the vehicle that day so they can’t deliver it.
I was totally frustrated by now. Some how my brother got hold of the General Managers phone no. and he called the GM and told him exactly what was going on. The GM asked my brother to give the phone to the manager. After the phone call the manager told us that he will release the vehicle that day itself.
I got the vehicle, but I was totally pissed off about the customer service and the process they had and I wanted to do something. But I was not sure if they will take any action, since no one seems to be doing their job. After a week someone from the showroom called me to take my feedback. Her question was
“How was you experience buying a car from us?”
And my answer was
“It was horrible.”
And I told her everything from the beginning. She stopped for a moment and started typing everything I told her. She told me that she will get back to me in a week.
A week later the sales person called me and asked me if I made any complain against him. I told him that I did complain but against the entire process and not against anyone in particular. Because of the complain his incentive got cut and they fired another guy.
I was pretty impressed. And I am going to do my part from now on, it doesn’t matter if anyone is going to take action or not. I will do my part. That will be complaining.
Well customer service suck here, here are the complains I got to make
1. Tata Indicom (these guys took more than 20 days to activate my land line)
2. The doctor. (this guys took a lot of money for consulting but he spend less than a min on me. He didn’t even allow me to ask any question. If he is so freakin busy then he shouldn’t be consulting)
3. The ISP guys. (I keep complaining that my internet gets dropped all the time, no action has been take so far)
No Idea which all are going to be taken seriously, but I am going to do my part.
Posted by Sam at 08:17 AM | Comments (5)