Promised day trips not provided

On a trip to India, July 5-23, 2008, my daughter and I created our own itinerary, choosing not to travel with a group. However, we did use the services of two India-based travel agencies to help with some of our arrangements.

Rajin Singla of Club Travels Holidays & Adventures (411, 4th Floor, Jaina Tower I, Janakpuri District Center, New Delhi 110058, India; e-mail club@bol.net.in) followed through reliably with everything he promised. He was patient with the changes I made as I began to comprehend the relationship between distance and travel time in India, and when suggesting accommodation and transportation he was alert to the safety of two women traveling alone.

In New Delhi, through Dialtrip, the in-house travel agency at our hotel, The Beaufort Inn, we arranged visits to the Hindu holy city of Haridwar and the yoga center of Rishikesh, both of which have evening ceremonies on the Ganges.

We paid Dialtrip RS6,470 (near $127), and that covered a taxi to New Delhi station (unfortunately not including return to our hotel), train tickets to Haridwar and back, accommodations at the Narayana, resort tariff, and taxi from Haridwar station to the resort and back.

Though concerned when asked to prepay cash for the trip, I acceded when told payments had already been made on our behalf. I requested an itemized receipt. The receipt was given to me by a hotel clerk late on Tuesday before our 6 a.m. start Wednesday, so I could not question it but assumed that it included the tours of the two towns we had been verbally promised.

On Wednesday, before noon, we were met at the Haridwar train station by a driver who immediately took us out of Haridwar and on an hour’s drive to Rishikesh, where we passed the Ram Jhula Bridge and veered away from the Ganges up a steep road into the foothills, the location of our resort.

Through our driver’s boss, we inquired about our tours and were told that they were not part of our trip and that we would be collected and taken back to the Haridwar train station at 4 p.m. the next day.

Having been informed by this hotel that they could not summon taxis, we telephoned Deeraj at Dialtrip to complain that we were stuck at a hotel with no way to see the Ganges and its ceremonies or explore the towns. He said he would get back to us.

The resort had a beautifully manicured lawn, but the pool was full of algae and had a colony of bugs swimming under the surface.

Our first room overlooked a dump, and when hotel staff were unable to get the room door to open we were shown to a room into which the toilet had leaked, soaking a rug. The bath was held together by tape, with notices warning that it was fragile. Wall plaster was crumbling, and there were bugs on the floor.

We again called Deeraj to say that we were in an untenable situation.

Four hours and multiple calls to Deeraj later, we telephoned Rajin at Club Travels. Within 10 minutes he had organized our move to The Great Ganga, a hotel on the Ganges that we found clean and completely agreeable, for $45. We were able to walk across the Ram Jhula to the evening ceremony, wander through the bazaars on both sides of the river, meet people and get a sense of the place.

At 9 p.m., Deeraj finally called to suggest a meeting when we got back to Delhi.

The following day we explored more of Rishikesh, and shortly after 3 p.m. the driver collected us to ride back to the Haridwar train station, from which we departed two hours later. Arriving back at the New Delhi Central Station after 10 p.m., we were on our own getting back to the hotel.

On Thursday we met with Deeraj, who said that we had received what we had paid for, that the resort he had chosen was nice and that we could have walked from it to the evening ceremonies on the Ganges.

Our hotel was some distance from the Ganges and on the opposite bank from the location of the evening ceremony. In the dark and on a narrow road with no sidewalks, we would have had to walk down a hill, across the long pedestrian bridge and from there to the ceremony — about two miles, which would have been uphill on the return. We willingly would have paid more to get a tour or at least some sort of transportation around Haridwar and Rishikesh.

Deeraj did offer to talk to his boss and get back to us. After five days, I inquired and was told they would contact us. After returning to the US, I wrote to Deeraj and received an e-mail saying that Dialtrip would investigate and get back to me.

I am not objecting to the costs, since India is an inexpensive place to travel and we were there in monsoon season when rates are lower than usual.

Additionally, my daughter’s cell phone bill was $140 just for calls made from the “resort” back to Dialtrip and the hotel.

JEAN DENMAN

Columbia, SC

ITN sent a copy of the above letter to Dialtrip (R.K. Associates, The Beaufort Inn, 14-Main Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 014, India) and received no reply.

Ms. Denman followed up with this note: “Dialtrip e-mailed in early November saying they would refund the cost of the hotel room at the Narayana which we did not use, and I gave them an address in India to which a check could be sent; it included a person’s name, an office number, a building name, a road and a postal code. Dialtrip then wrote that they had tried to deliver the money but needed a more detailed address. I replied with lots of details, but that was the last of it. I have heard no more from Dialtrip. They did inform me that they would no longer use the Narayana Resort in Rishikesh.