Platform7

After booking my Bangalore-Ernakulam ticket, I was busy searching for return tickets. I had to reach Bangalore by Sunday night (since Monday was an important day in office). I wanted to try the new Conti Travels’ Volvo 9100 – they do not have online booking. So called their Coimbatore office and they replied that they did not have any seat. KPN Travels too was full on that day. I checked Kallada Travels’ Ernakulam-Bangalore bus, and that was full as well. It was after a long weekend – and hence the crowd was understandable. I checked Hindusthan Travels, and lo! They had tickets! I quickly booked a seat on the first row, and chose to board from Omni bus stand in Coimbatore. Now begins my search for tickets to reach Coimbatore from Ernakulam. There is only one day operator from Ernakulam to Coimbatore – Supaa Travels. They did not sell tickets online, but gave a phone number to contact for seats. I’ve notice that they usually reach Coimbatore only around 12noon – this would be

I had just got off the bus that morning – after a scintillating run in a Kallada G4 iShift Volvo B9R. To top it, I reached office later than usual. I was already sitting in front of my computer browsing on RedBus! I found that SRS and some others had tickets for the next day night to Ernakulam. Another trip? Yes! I was booking another trip to Kerala that very weekend! I initially thought of calling my contacts for seats – but then thought of trying something different this time. Headed straight to the SRS Travels website and found some 6 vacant seats in their B9R to Ernakulam (Thiruvalla bus) the next night. The only window seats were in the first row – without much rethinking, I booked seat #2 – first row, left side window seat. The system showed it was a 44 seater bus – I thought it would be a new bus, since SRS’ old B9Rs were 49 seaters. I was excited about my first journey by SRS - but was that really worth the excitement? November 15, 2012: In my office, it is almost f

The journey to Trivandrum was on the drawing board for a long time. A family function at Ernakulam, and a short Vacation for college set the scene for my trip to Trivandrum. Choosing the operator was simple – but there still was some dilemma. I badly wanted to try the route via Nagercoil – at the same time, I wanted to travel through the Alappuzha route as well. My previous Trivandrum-Bangalore journey was by Kerala SRTC’s Garuda Volvo – which was just months old then. That was a mind blowing journey – there were no multi-axle buses at that time. So this time, I wanted to try the same route in a Multi-axle. The chosen operator was Kallada G4 – tickets were booked through my contact. The journey was initially planned for November 12, but I had to post pone it to November 14. The postponing process was simple – just called up Kallada G4’s office in Irinjalakuda – the person at the other end was very helpful. The ticket was confirmed – however, I did not receive any message. I called

I was busy looking tickets for a journey from Thrissur to Trivandrum. I had a waitlisted ticket in Jan Shatabdi Express that day, but the way the ticket was progressing did not seem encouraging. Not wanting to get stranded, I was looking for tickets in buses. I did not want to break my back sitting that long in a KSRTC bus – thankfully, the government is hell-bent on not allowing KSRTC improve. Very few premium services are offered by KSRTC, and those services hardly meet the requirements of passengers. I checked various options on RedBus, and found Kallada and Viji listed. I checked the website of KTC Tours, and found availability in their buses. KTC Tours is a part of the celebrated Kerala Transport Corporation (KTC) Group. KTC Tours had launched their inter-city luxury bus service sometime in June 2012. KTC Group is one of the oldest transport companies in India, and is also among the top 5 transport companies in India. KTC Group was founded in 1958, and since then has bee