Polar opposite ticket experiences

3 Oct 2010

There were two tasks for today; train tickets and commonwealth games tickets. Luckily we had booked tickets for the latter so it was just a case of collecting them.

After locating the ticket office (one specifically for tourists) at Delhi station we were pleasantly surprised how easy and swift the system was (for India). One simple form, a chat to one of the booking staff and some cash and voila; a ticket. We managed to book all the tickets for all our various journey, ten in total, in about 45 mins, including a trip to the cash point. We were seriously pleased with ourselves now!

Next stop, the other side of Connaught Place to collect the CWG tickets. Luckily that was on the same road as the tourist office (the real one) so we knew were to go for that too. Seriously pro at the Delhi game by now. Arrived at the collection point after some asking about. They hadn’t bothered putting up any CWG posters or signs and as such no one really knew where to send us. Found the unimposing office set out with just three computer stations from which to collect tickets. This might’ve been a problem except there was hardly anyone collecting tickets since that had sold so few. Unluckily, the chap behind the desk said there was a problem with the booking and although the money for the tickets had left my account, the tickets hadn’t been booked at all. He said we needed to go an visit the IRCTC booking office to sort this out.

GREAT! This office is the other side of Connaught Place, about three mins walk from the station where we started from! This was also a strange place to be sent since the ‘IR’ part of the name stands for Indian Railways – hence the location. Still, India has weird and wonderful ways of making simple things complicated so we accepted that the railways staff could solve our Commonwealth games problem and travelled once more across Connaught Place.

Having found the IRCTC building, and a mother daughter couple in the exact same situation, we were told; yes, our tickets had been cancelled but we would be refunded. No, we could not book more tickets in his office; that was strictly the job of the bookings office – back from where we had just come. He was very sorry for giving us the run around but he couldn’t do anything. Realising that our good luck booking train tickets stopped at just that, we accepted that collecting pre booked tickets for an international event in India WILL take all your time.

Back across Connaught Place, the rickshaw drivers now wondering what the hell we were up to when all of central Delhi was shut in readiness for the opening ceremony, to the collection office. Unfortunately the server had just crashed and there were no bookings being taken. We waited the re-boot out and eventually they were back up and running. Out of three terminals however, only one could accept bookings (new ones), the other two were only for the three people in the hour we were there for to collect their tickets. Simply amused by this situation we sat and waited for about an hour until eventually it was our turn. The booking process itself was swift, 30 seconds at most, and that made it all the more frustrating that it had taken from midday ‘til 5pm to book two tickets!

Moral of the story: don’t bother with the Commonwealth Games – wait until 2012...