My daughter and I just got back from a trip to India thats main purpose was to visit my son who is over there for an internship. I want to thank everyone who helped with their insights and comments on traveling within India.It was much appreciated!

I have many thoughts and random comments but am still rather jetlagged to write about it all. I do want to ask a question about what to do with a major incident that happened while in Jaipur India.

My son,daughter and I checked into the Hotel Mansingh in Jaipur for three days (which is a rather nice hotel in that city).The booking was made on Expedia. The front desk asked for our ID's for registration and because my son had left his passport back in Delhi he used his drivers license from the states with the agreement that he would provide a photocopy of the passport before noon the next day-which he did.

However, one of the front desk staff who was nasty from the get go conveniently lost his ID within 5 minutes of our arriving and taking our passports and his ID. They tore the desk apart both that night and the next day but never found it. Needless to say, my son was very upset about it as it was his only second piece of identification for traveling around India,etc.( He was also hoping to use it to obtain an international driver's license and car rental for his job.)

We ran into hours over the course of the three days of trying to obtain some type of help from both their manager,security,etc. but to no avail. There was even an accusation at one point that we had it and they had never received it despite seeing them taking apart the front reception desk twice. No one would step up to the plate to help us from the hotel-everyone seemed to pass the buck. They finally agreed to cover the stay of the three days for our inconvenience but then changed their minds. They stressed to my son that the girl who had lost it would be responsible for paying our bill and since we were Westerners we could afford it more than she.

The bottom line came the last day when they would not give us a receipt when we checked out or any type of acknowledgement of staying there. We decided to go to the police station to file a report for identity theft,etc.The police station was a circus-all sitting around watching the cricket match on TV and drinking tea. My son joined them as he told his story and after an hour the manager and girl from the front desk were summoned.Long story short-although the police staff spoke perfect English and seemed quite friendly to us,it changed suddenly when the hotel staff walked in. They spoke only Hindi,repeated to my son in English about the girl having to pay for it and that since he was a westerner working in India he could afford all loses.The hotel then offered one night for our inconvenience and basically said tough luck.

We had already purchased train tickets to leave Jaipur so had to leave after almost 3 hours of BS. Nothing was resolved other than the chief of police stating that they would try and send the report to my son in Delhi.

My son tried to make them understand that this was a very serious matter of losing a piece of identity and what a problem it would be to get back to the states for a new ID along with reminding them that he was on an internship(read very little money while in India),etc.They could not have cared less.

So I am asking my Fodor friends what you would do? If they had said from the get go that they were sorry and went out of their way to be nice to us I would have forgiven them the hassle but everyday became another" situation" with them at the front desk and treating us like dirt and that it was our faults.

unfortunately, i think you have to chalk it up to 3rd world b.s. that one must deal with if problems arise...

remember the good things about your trip and move on....

write a very bad report on trip advisor and other like sites to black ball this hotel...write also to guidebooks....write especially to the group from which you booked the hotel if not directly....

its not as if your son has permanently lost his only ID...it is replaceable...

move on with a smile...

dutyfree - sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience. I hope the rest of the trip made up for it.

Does your son live in one of those states that puts SSN on the driver's license? In any case, he should probably let the embassy know that it has been "lost", and keep an eye on activity on his accounts at the credit reporting bureaus.

dutyfree, this disgraceful conduct of not being accountable and not accepting responsibility is par for the course for Indians. (Note: I am an Indian myself). The 'new' Indians have learnt all the American corporate buzzwords but not much else. You can imagine how tough it must be for the common man in India who has his toe stubbed at every step.

I recommend premium hotels in India for those who have the budget for a reason. In lesser hotels you are always taking a chance. You may have had better luck with illiterate village hands and their untainted naivete.

Thanks for the imput everyone.I am going to write a review on TripAdvisor and I have already called Expedia and they said they could do nothing. My son is so mad that he is talking to the head office in Delhi for Mansingh and to the embassy. He says that now its more of the principle of them losing important ID and not caring.

What I think is funny is when we checked into our room the single rose in the vase was super dead-kinda gives one a clue on what the stay was going to be?

Agtoau's comment about taking responsibility reminded me of a stay in a Rajasthani hotel (cannot remember which one) that was emphatically not in the luxury class. I made the mistake of washing something small and placing it on the radiator to dry. Imagine my shock when the thing started smoking and, next thing you knew, there were flames in the room.

I called downstairs in a panic, telling them there was a small fire in the room. The person manning the phones told me that housekeeping matters were not his job..he was the reservations manager! "Madam, this is not my problem!!!"

Ouccchhh!!

Oh well, there are bad hotels, and bad service, everywhere. But Dutyfree's story is really infuriating.

I hope you get it worked out somehow...keep us posted as to what happens, please!

So sorry this happened to you and your son. I can imagine it would be very upsetting. Getting the word out to all those sources about the place is a good suggestion.

This reinforces the value in keeping copies of all your documents, at least for your sake. The one time I did not do this my airline tickets were stolen by airline employees and remained missing my entire trip until threats by my local ground operator made the tickets suddenly appear.

Were there a few trip highlights of a positive nature you'd like to throw in here, or did you post some elsewhere? Hope there were some.

Sounds like you have all these issues somewhat resolved. In most states you can request a duplicate copy of your driver's license, especially in lieu of the fact you are in India. Go to the front of the line at your Department of Motor vehicles on behalf of your son.

And as a reminder to everyone else, make copies of all your important documents and id's. It's so much easier to get replacement when you can show the clerk a copy!!!

Good luck. We are visiting India in Nov 2008 but it is on a comprehensive tour; hopefully issues such as this will not arise. I always hate handing my passport in to those in charge but I do feel better knowing I have a copy.

Good Luck again.

Katherine

When I was just out of college, I spent six weeks with a girlfriend and a Eurail pass bumping around Europe. The clerk at a Florence pensione "gave away" my passport to another American woman guest who he claimed looked like me-not to be seen again. He handed me her passport and in true Italian style, the clerk shrugged his shoulders and raise his hand palms up with that look that says "too bad, but there is nothing I can do about it, it there?"

I ended up going to Rome and getting a new passport. I was young and there was nothing to do than to deal with it. We got to see the insides of(multiple) Florence police stations and understand the difference between the different types of police in Rome (Polizia di Stato and Carabinieri) as we had the opportunity to meet them all. The polizia told us to "lie" to the carabinieri as only "stolen" or "lost", not "given away by accident" passports could create a report. They had no idea what to do with "given away". We just got on with it and treated it as another adventure. What else are you going to do?

Things like this happen. The only place in the world I have ever had an issue with losing anything (and I travel a lot) is that one time in beautiful, civilized Florence. This will probably be the only time your son has a problem. I still love Florence and I'm sure he will leave India loving India in spite of this isolated incident.

Making copies of passport, visa and driver's license is always a good idea. I also scan all the above and keep them in an online storage vault so that I have a backup copy anywhere in the world.

I am sorry this happened, it's awful and maddening.

Please if you haven't done so, put this on TripAdvisor - I ask this as someone planning a trip - I am soo grateful always to people who take the little bit of trouble to post a warning (or a reassurance) about a place I might want to go.

If you're into this role, I hope you will also post things there about places you have been satisfied with, if only because then people will be more comfortable taking your warning to heart!

(On such sites, sometimes people post just our of enmity for the place they are posting about, so seasoned travel researchers tend to check out your other postings.)

My son fortunately had his passport scanned into his email so that is what he used till we got back to India. Yes, he has copies of his ID's but our concern was identity theft as our credit card people even said that India is the new hotbed of identity theft.He has mentioned that we are not to send anything through the mail or delivery over there as things "go missing" so that is why we cannot send another ID to him.
I quess that I was more mad about the indifference and the hours that were spent "talking" about what they were going to do to help us.I travel overseas to Europe everyweek for work and stay at many types of hotels and have NEVER seen such lack of concern for a customer.(Even our $30 a night government hotel down in the national park could not do enough for us each day at the front desk!!!)