Last weekend we booked an adventure tour to Dandeli and it was ‘interesting’ in the Chinese curse sense of the word. Normally when I blog about trips I tend to avoid posting about the bad parts of the trip in detail since we usually end up having a lot of fun and can ignore the bad parts. However in this case I will be posting all the ‘fun’ things that happened to us during the trip. This trip was booked through Thrillophilia for 7 people and was another bad experience with them. (I actually didn’t post about the last trip as I was annoyed enough by the trip to decide it was better to not write anything). The booking was done on-line and we got a confirmation email a day later with a map location for the resort. I did notice that the name of the venue wasn’t listed on the email (It only said ‘Dandeli tours’) but paid it no attention at the time.
We left from Bangalore around 11pm due to traffic and the drive was long… It took us ~14 hours to reach the location shared with us as it was raining and we couldn’t drive fast. When we finally reached the map location we found that the location shared was for Dewdrops adventure tours and they were quite helpful in trying to help us figure out where we were supposed to go. Since we didn’t know the name of the place we couldn’t get accurate directions. There was a number shared in the email and we finally managed to get through to it after multiple attempts as the connectivity was quite bad in the area. That’s when we figured out that our booking was for Panther and had to drive another 2 kms to get to the venue. After driving 14 hours to get to the place it was not a great start to the experience. Unfortunately things only got worse as we continued.
The last mile road to Panther was quite bad and our TT actually got stuck in the mud once while getting there. Thankfully our driver was quite good and we managed to get unstuck and arrived at the venue. At a first look the venue looked nice and we walked over to the reception to check in. When we tried to check in, Mr Veeresh, the person in charge tells us that we were booked for tents even though we had paid for 3 cottages at a twin sharing basis (with an extra bed in 1 cottage) and we had received the confirmation for the same. As per him they had gotten a request for tents and not rooms. After showing him the confirmation email he told us to hold on and disappeared for almost 30 mins. Finally he came back and gave 2 cottages on a 4 person sharing basis as that was the only option available. We didn’t want to take tents as it was raining quite heavily and wanted to avoid the joy of common showers/toilets. Since no other options were available we had to take the rooms offered and checked in. He did tell us that we should reach out to Thrillophilla for the refund (as the twin sharing rooms were more expensive).
Once we got the rooms, we dumped our luggage in there and since we had been travelling all night and had a very light breakfast we were all quite hungry and it was another 1 ½ hours before lunch would be served. So we walked over to the dining area and asked them for some snacks before lunch. We were told that they can’t serve us anything and we would have to wait till lunch was served. Even when we offered to pay they refused us point blank. With no other option we had to dig in to our snacks bag and try to survive on Chips/nuts etc.
We all freshened up and rested for a bit while we waited for lunch to be served. After lunch we decided to get in the water and Canoe in the Pool. So we all changed and walked over to the area. Thankfully the pool (?) was empty at the time and we got the entire place to ourselves. Jani refused to enter the water as she wasn’t comfortable with the other people staying at the place (more on this later) and the fact that the water was filthy.
Kayaking at the Venue
Kayaking at the Venue
The kayaking venue had algae floating it in and filled with frogs and other insects/creepy crawlers and it didn’t look like it had been cleaned this year. But since we weren’t planning on taking a dip in the water we got in the boats and fooled around in the water for a bit. But we couldn’t stay in there for long as the water was filthy and we didn’t want to risk an infection by staying in it longer than required. So we got out and decided to try out the rain shower. Unfortunately, the rain shower setup was taking the filthy water from the kayaking place and showering it on the people. The floor of the shower was caked in algae and I couldn’t stay in the water for long. So we immediately got out and decided to try out the pool which was a different setup and we hoped that it would be cleaner. We were disappointed when we reached the ‘Pool’. It wasn’t actually a pool, it was a big tub masquerading as a pool which had water which was so dirty with mud, dead insects, algae and filth in it. I don’t think it had been cleaned anytime in the near past. Since we had entered the water we needed to take a bath in Dettol (Thankfully we carried it with us) water to disinfect us after entering this unclean water.
By this time it was around 3:30-4pm and since the weather was amazing we decided to get some tea and just hang out. So we asked for tea and were told that nothing is available and tea will be only served at 5:30pm. Which is bizarre behavior, but with no other option we had to wait. When the tea was finally served it was served without any snacks as snacks are only served starting at 7:30pm. Is this a college canteen or PG accommodation we were staying at? I have travelled extensively and this is the first place where people are refusing to serve food even when you offer to pay for it when they have a working kitchen. In our last trip the place we stayed didn’t have an attached kitchen but they still served us tea and snacks when we asked.
So we had our tea without pakoda’s and then played a little carrom and badminton to kill time. We did manage to do the Zipline and Burma bridge and thankfully both were decent and nothing broke which was a pleasant surprise considering the state of the rest of the place..
By now we noticed that there appeared to be only three girls in the entire camp and the rest were a bunch of very rowdy guys who spent majority of the time drinking and creating a ruckus. As we didn’t want to interact with them and there weren’t any other options available to pass the time we retreated to the room and passed the time playing cards, and uno. Both were a lot of fun since we had a great group of people with us. If we had come here alone we wouldn’t have enjoyed it at all.
Group photo at the Room
Later in the evening a campfire was organized even though the wood was quite wet and it was a valiant effort. They also played some music so the bunch of us decided to turn the dining area into an impromptu dance floor. The dances were hilarious and no I am not going to share the videos that Jani took. After a while the other groups joined us in the dancing and that’s when we stopped for dinner as they were just weird. We had dinner and then headed back to the room and played some more cards and Jenga since we couldn’t step out to go somewhere else due to the constant rain.
It was Akanksha’s birthday so at midnight we cut a cupcake to celebrate the event. We couldn’t get a cake as it would have spoilt if we had carried it from home and there was no place near the venue to get it. After the cake cutting we walked around a bit inside the property but had to quickly comeback to the room as the guys I spoke about earlier started creepily staring at the girls.
Cupcake cutting at midnight
Next morning we (me and Jani) slept late while the rest of the group went for a Jungle safari. Apparently the drive was through some amazing scenery but they didn’t see any wild animals except the usual deer etc. Interestingly the only way to get to the jungle safari place was using your own vehicle. I was expecting the venue to provide transportation to the place but I guess that was too much hospitality to expect. After the safari we had breakfast and started the long drive back. We picked up a cake on the way and properly had the cake cutting. The cake was fine although the grated coconut on a black forest cake was a bit surprising. We reached home after about 12 hours of driving and by then all of us were exhausted and basically crashed.
Cake Cutting at Kamath
The over all trip was fun because we had a good group but the venue was not at all worth the money we spent on it and we were quite disappointed with our experience.
We have reached out to Thrillophilla and complained about the experience. They are looking into it and will get back to us once their investigation is complete. Depending on how that goes we will see if we want to ever book with them again as this was the 2nd or 3rd time with these guys with a bad experience everytime.
Well this is all for now. Will write more later.
– Suramya