Our Sikkim trip: A comedy of mishaps (Part 2)

22nd May 2010 - Frustration

On the day of the journey (i.e. on 22nd May), everyone was very excited for the trip and waiting for the railway final reservation charts to be out on the IRCTC web site. Finally we lost the game of luck, the tickets were not confirmed. It was time to execute the fall back plans. I rushed to the nearest railway station, cancelled the tickets and got the refund out of them. As the next step, I called up the travel agent immediately to opt for the lucrative plan of adjusting the money with another trip in future. But they were unable to satisfy that since it was too late to cancel the reservations according to them which includes even the money paid for the car pick up from NJP to Ravongla (Rs. 3000/-). Everyone was upset and depressed on this event.

23rd May 2010 - Refilling the spirits

To keep up the spirit and also to save the booking money as much as possible we decided to go with other options such as car booking and bus services etc. The final option was to go with the bus service. Next day (i.e. 23rd May 2010) morning I went to Dharmatala where all the long route buses have their terminus. Fortunately I managed to book an air-conditioned bus to Siliguri (last long distance bus terminus in West Bengal before Sikkim). I booked couple of extra sits so that everyone can relax during the travel. I also booked on an AC sleeper bus for our return journey with the same bus service. The bus service was provided by Shantanu Bus Service. We boarded the bus provided from Dharmatala on the same evening at 8:00pm. The bus runners estimated for nearly 12 hours to reach Siliguri which is pretty impressive timeline though.
The bus was little old with some sits broken. Some of the AC ducts were lacking their regulators. But we had very little or no options. We found that, most of ours co-travelers were the back-benchers who had tough luck with their earlier plans or railway reservations (little healing for us :). During the entire journey we spent useless efforts to have some sleep. Most of the passengers were busy in filling up their AC ducts with paper, cloths, bus window curtain etc. The funny part was that, once the ducts were closed water drops started to ooze from them. Meanwhile the bus took some halts in two or three places for dinner, tea and bio needs for the travelers but the places were unhealthy for most of the passengers.