A leading online travel company recently arranged accommodation for us at the Radha Park Inn, Chennai.
There seem to be certain practices by certain people at this establishment that will probably upset other clients as much as I was angered.
We arrived at the hotel at around 3am on the 30th January. We'd elected to use a local hotel as soon as we arrived, rather than face a 3 hour night drive to Pondicherry as soon as we landed after a 10 hour flight.
After grabbing a few hours sleep, we asked reception to organise a taxi to Pondicherry. I asked how much this would cost, and the guy behind the desk then spent the next five minutes banging in figures to his calculator. The resulting price was 4800 Rupees (around £61.50, not out of the question, you might think, for a 3-hour, 160 km trip). I was told that this could be paid by credit card. Now recall that we'd been travelling for the best part of 15 hours with 3-4 hours sleep at the end, so I wasn't exactly on top form.
After breakfast, I went to pay for the taxi at the travel desk, to be told that I would have to pay in cash "so that the driver could pay for petrol...". Again this didn't seem to be particularly out of line, it was India after all. I then changed a £50 Lloyds Bank sterling travellers cheque at reception to cover some of the cost. As I walked away with my money, I felt that the currency figures were wrong. I checked the confirmation slip to find that the guy had given me rupees for a 50 dollar travellers cheque. Call me old fashioned, but it's is blatantly obvious that a sterling cheque is just that, by virtue of the large '£' symbols all over it. Having spotted the 'mistake' I went back to demand that the cheque be exchanged to its full face value. This was done, although I received no apology, and therefore am led to believe that this person knew exactly what he was up to.
Sadly, the saga continues: finding that I still needed more cash for the taxi, I changed a further £50 cheque (no problems this time; it was a different person on the desk...), and paid the cash for the taxi.
We were driven to Pondicherry, which took the allotted 3 hours, albeit with a stop for a tyre change on the way, the old tyre having split around it's circumference due to extreme old age and having been remoulded at least half a dozen times.
I gave the driver a tip of 400 rupees, in my infinite wisdom. No wonder he nearly fell over, his face lit with joy - no doubt he's very cosy with the receptionist at the Radha Park Inn. And he never bought any fuel along the way, either...
The manager of our destination hotel in Pondicherry informed me that the true cost should have been a maximum of 2000 rupees, and that there was a much quicker, more pleasant route. Using a different driver, obviously, we took this route on the return leg. It was indeed quicker and much more pleasant.
Whilst we will return to this area of Tamil Nadu, I will not be using the Radha Park Inn at Chennai again following our experience.
The hotel itself was very good, air con, great atrium entrance and restaurant - but it just lets itself down by things like this happening.
