Gem Tours And Travels Pvt Ltd — tour to leh and ladakh - misleading and false claims by the tour agency

Address:

Mumbai City, Maharashtra

We had planned a tour to leh and ladakh in may 2018 thro' gem tours & travels having their office at naman midtown, 15th floor, a-wing, mumbai 400013.

We were assured that it was a organized tour with their kitchen and maharaj chef and tour guide accompanying us throughout the tour. We were informed by their staff ms. Pooja that the group size was 30 people for the leh tour.

Unfortunately, on arriving at srinagar, we realized that out of the above, 20 were a part of some other destination and only 10 o[censored]s were of the leh tour (3 families)... Why can't they be honest and admit that they did not have enough guests with them for the tour rather than make a false and misleading statement..??

There was no tour guide throughout the tour... A taxi was provided to us and whatever information we sought was provided by the taxi driver who kept on changing for every leg of the tour.in fact, he did not know the difference between statue of lord buddha and lord shiva...

Anyway, gem had their representatives at sonmarg, kargil and leh. There was no coordination between them... As a matter of fact, we had the same food at sonmarg (For dinner), at leh (For lunch and dinner) and the breakfast the next day...

Mr manish shah at the mumbai office had assured us that all the hotels booked by them were centrally heated and we will not have any problems at the hotels booked by them... But it was not so... Neither were any hotels centrally heated as claimed by manish, at kargil they refused to even provide with us with heaters as the gem people had not made any such request to them to provide the same to the guests... After a lot of arguments, we were provided with only 1 electric blanket between 2 families.
When contacted, manish told us not to expect 5 star hotel treatment at these places... Later he even refused to even take our calls...

The arrangements at pangong lake were pathetic. We were provided a tent with only 1 bed and 1 table... There was no place to keep our luggage and belongings... The floor was not even carpeted... It was only stones... They did not provide us with jain food as they were not informed by gem tours to make such an arrangement... After lot of requests, they finally provided us with some food and that too after all other guests had finished their dinner... We were made to wait for more than an hour for food... All this when the outside temperature was 2-3 degrees c...

On coming back to leh, we informed the gem tours staff (Manan and rahul) of our hardships, but instead of listening to the troubles we had faced, they told us that they were freelancers and were not part of the gem staff... And hence they were not interested in listening to our troubles. On the contrary, they said they had nothing to do with gem tours since they were freelancers for only 3 months in a year... They advised us not to raise the issue at the mumbai office since many other guests had faced the same issues and that the mumbai office was aware of all these issues but would not take any action...

Finally, being fed up of such uncaring and pathetic attitude, we decided to cut short the tour and return back to mumbai. We then contacted their main person in mumbai mr. Manish shah to help us with the return tickets, since there are lot of connectivity issues at leh (There is no telephone connectivity at nubra valley and pangong lake). Manish agreed to book 6 return tickets to mumbai at a price of more than rs. 2, 000/- per ticket than what was available on jet airways website or make my trip website.

After 2 days of dilly-dallying, manish shah finally told us at 11 pm that we should make our own arrangements and then he even refused to take our calls.

We told manish to refund our return air fare and the hotel stay charges at kargil and srinagar since they did not book our return tickets and asked us to do so, but he flatly refused... They refused to help us fully knowing that there are no telephone services at nubra and pangong lake. It was impossible for us to contact anyone else to help us and book our tickets, but he did not help us...

Finally we somehow booked 6 tickets on our mobile and came to mumbai.

Two days back, i had a long talk with mr. Ankit bahuva at their mumbai office regarding the various issues faced by us. We had booked our tour thro' ankit who is their sales executive. He assured us that he would talk to manish and revert back...

No call has been received by them.in fact, when i called to follow up, i was told that they are busy with other customers and will call later.

Till date, they have not called up...

Our only aim in writing to the forum is to warn and inform all prospective clients not to travel and make arrangements thro' gem tours & travels.

They only know how to mislead and misinform the guests and eventually cheat them...

In fact, all 3 families had cut short their trip and preponed their journey back to mumbai with all of them deciding never to travel with gem tours and even suggesting to others not to do so...

- sanmeet shah and mehul shah

Kindly feel free to contact me on my email : [protected]@rediff.com