The Places And Traces — bogus architectural tour agency

Address:	Bangalore, Karnataka
Website:	www.facebook.com/placesntraces

Places & Traces claims to be an architectural tour agency but they have no knowledge of architecture, nor any local or knowledgeable guide who can lead tours. They are not even upto the mark as a generic tour company for leisure travel.

Our recent trip to Sri Lanka was terribly disorganized and led by someone who was quite unprepared and ignorant about locations, food, things to do, etc. Just visiting a country for work a few times does not qualify you as a tour guide. Professionals going on a tailored specific tour wouldn't be interested in knowing where the guide stayed when he first visited or how he didn't like the local food.

The tour we went on was supposed to be tailored for architects interested specifically in Geoffrey Bawa's work, and the guide had no clue about it. None of the arrangements on the tour were made properly or in advance. In order to visit certain places, we needed permissions and bookings in advance, and many of them were not done. We had to call up these places and take permissions ourselves on the way to the locations. We also had to email some of them and follow certain protocols on the way which was supposed to be taken care of by the agency. When we got there, we were informed that no one had contacted them and the agency had not taken any prior permissions. One of the buildings we were to visit which was mentioned on the itinerary was already demolished years ago! We went and saw the site was under demolition/reconstruction and the guard told us it's been closed for two years!

The itinerary that we had been sent before travelling was never seen by the guide who accompanied us, and he saw it for the first time when we showed him a print. He had another itinerary online. There were times when we were just sitting around waiting for the next location on the itinerary, only to be told that the bus driver has gone home early or that the place is closed on that day. The guide was wrongly informed by the driver that the place is closed, and found out that it was open so we went very late in the night after having wasted one full day. Some people who had arrived at 6am were left waiting until 11am at the airport for others to arrive. One of the cities we were to visit and the hotel that was mentioned on the itinerary was Bentota, and instead our hotel was booked in another village an hour away called Hikkaduwa, where there was no significant architectural space to visit and which wasn't on the itinerary at all! The hotel was not upto the mark, it had broken locks on the door, no ventilation in the bathroom and ants. The only motivation to book this hotel would be to save money and not provide the standard we paid for.

Even before traveling, we weren't informed about the guide, given any details of hotels, number of people, etc. The agency had all our details including our passport copies, but we didn't know until the last minute who was accompanying us. Someone who called himself Anup said he'd be accompanying us but when we landed we were met by someone else. When we discussed our issues with the rest of the group during the trip, we found out that Anup identified himself as John to some and Shreyas to others, without even changing his very strong accent!

When I called up Anup/Shreyas/John at the end of the tour to give feedback, he called me a liar and started mocking me. He also said I should've complained earlier. Only when I threatened to record the call did he quickly hang up. As a group we tried talking to our tour guide during the trip, because he claimed to be the managing partner, but he didn't take any of our feedback and didn't even try to salvage the rest of the trip. We made the best of it ourselves. He said Anup was an employee but Anup claimed to be managing partner.

Not any unqualified or inexperienced person can gather a bunch of people and call it a professional tour. But everyone can be courteous and provide good customer service. Places & Traces lacks both of the above skills or the willingness to improve. All they care about is money and hiding their true identities.