Train Ticket Purchasing

Lately, I've been spending a good chunk of my spare time finding and buying train tickets for next month. Amazingly, we are able to do this online! (Until recently we had to send a detailed request to our travel office who sent 'a boy' to the railway booking office in town, and he would see what he could get for us.)

Even though we're very thankful that we can get the tickets online, the website is rather quirky - but you would have to do your own searches to fully understand what I mean when I say that!

A few funny things that I must mention anyway:

-the site regularly logs you out or changes your date details in the middle of searching for tickets, so PAY ATTENTION and DOUBLE CHECK everything! - and if you don't have your password memorized yet, you soon will!

-at 11:30 pm I was about to purchase my last ticket and instead a screen popped up saying that purchasing tickets can only be done between 5:00 am and 11:30 pm Indian Standard Time. ummm... we figure it's because each time I order a ticket, some poor chap in a run-down office has to manually scribble down my details on his list so that my ticket is officially reserved and at 11:30 pm he gets to go home. Ok, maybe not exactly like that, but, what a funny way to run an internet booking site!

-So the next day, when I was about to again try to purchase my last ticket, I now had a screen pop up that said that I was only permitted to make 10 transactions in a month, and I had now reached that limit, so would not be allowed to buy my last ticket. Hmmmph. Solution: set up another user name and buy the last ticket under that account! FINALLY DONE.

It could be very frustrating if you don't see the humor in the system. And in the end, we have to just remind ourselves that -hey, at least it works, and it IS less hassle than it used to be!