Desicow.com blog

Although I run DesiCow.com, I am trying to share here unbiased ideas.

DesiAirTickets.com does something similar to what Desicow.com is in to. However there certain crucial differences between how desicow.com and DesiAirTickets.com works.

1) DesiAirTickets.com doesnt charge anything to travel agents; Desicow.com charges 10 cents every time Travel agents submits a quote.

2) DesiAirTickets.com shares your email, contact details with all agents who have registered with them;
Desicow.com shares contact details only if some agent offers to submit quote for your ticket.

3) Desiairtickets.com is full of sponsors banner and advertisement;
DesiCow.com is free of any advertisement.

4) Its very easy to register as spam travel agent with DesiAirTickets.com (I know one travel agent who uses DesiAirTickets.com just to gather emails & phone numbers of users); DesiCow.com at this point of time has comparatively lesser number of member travel agentsbut it has very high quality with respect to User privacy.

If I was buying ticket and had to use DesiAirTickets.com, I would simply create a dummy secondary email address for this purpose and would never give out my phone number.

In the days since you downloaded the DesiCow.com we have updated the US-India Travel kit, adding printable labels for your bags. Just print the label, write your name, address and phone numbers and stick them on to your bags. Happy Flying!!!

If a typical Desi family of 2 adults and 1 or more kids fly to India, every year, they accumulate a lot of miles. If you only spend a short time to learn about earning and consolidating frequent flyer (or buyer) miles, who knows you can earn atleast one ticket free every 2-3 year or so…

We will talk briefly about some Frequent Flyer programs… this time we start with Star Alliance. Star Alliance is the world’s first and largest airline alliance. It was founded in 1997, with 5 members; it has since grown to 21 participating airlines.

The advantage of flying through Star Alliance is that you can redeem miles that you accumulated from any Star Alliance member airline for any Star Alliance member flights. So you can redeem your Airline miles from say Singapore Airlines, in a flight operated by United Airlines, because both these airlines are part of Star Alliance.

Some of the participating airlines in Star Alliance are:

1. Singapore Airlines
2. United Airlines
3. US Airways
4. Air Canada
5. Lufthansa
6. Air India was scheduled to be a full member by mid-2009
7. Continental Airlines is scheduled to be a full member by September 2009

According to the Star Alliance Website, this is what you need to do to get your frequent flyer miles.

1. Quote your frequent flyer number every time you book with any Star Alliance member airline or travel provider. Your number appears on your membership card.
2. Show your membership card when you check in for any flight to ensure you earn your miles or points.
3. Save your passenger receipts and boarding passes. If your miles or points do not appear on your account, send your tickets and boarding passes to your frequent flyer programme service centre and have them credited to your account. Allow six to eight weeks from the date of request.

We will write more about Frequent Flyer Programs of airlines in subsequent newsletters… Till then… fly smart.

Best regards from The DesiCow.com Team.

I recently got married and went to a place called Coorg, for my honeymoon. We purchased our air tickets to India, packed our bags and were off to Coorg. It is a beautiful option for the India Traveler who wishes to go to a hill station on the Western Ghats (the mountain range on the western part India). It is located between dense green valleys, high mountains and lush teak wood forests. It lies on the southwestern end of the state of Karnataka, in southern part of India.

Getting Here:

• Closest Airport: For international tourists, the closest international airport is at Bangalore has(260 km), Mangalore has a domestic airport (135 km). The ride from Bangalore is 5 and a half hours by air conditioned taxi.
  
• Closest Railway Station: Mysore (146 km)
• Road: The Mysore - Mangalore highway (NH48) passes through Kodagu. The district headquarters Madikeri (Mercara), is 260 km from Bangalore and 120 km from Mysore. The distance from Mangalore is 136 km and from Cannanore and Tellicherry, it is about 115 km. There are regular buses plying from these places to Madikeri.

Best Time To Visit: April to November

Activities: There are a lot of activities that Coorg offers for the traveller.

• Trekking: Coorg has many verdant trekking routes in the midst of forests and hills, and it’s best to go in the months from October to February

• Golf: For avid golfers there is a 9-hole course at Virajpet.

• Angling: Valanoor is the backwater of the river Cauvery. It attracts fishing lovers from all over India. The best season is from October to May.

• White Water Rafting: There are a few good camps around Coorg that offer rafting down the Cauvery river. For some fast paced action, visit the Upper Barapole River to the south of Coorg in Brahmagiri. The best time for rafting is from mid-June to mid-September.

• Food: Coorgi food is famous and unique, especially for non-vegetarians as it is based on game meats, pork and other delicious ingredients. Popular dishes are pandhi (pork), koli (chicken) and yarchi (lamb) spiced with pepper, kokum, bamboo shoot, red chilly, bembla curry, kadumbuttu, noolputu, voti and excellent coffee.

• Shopping: Some of the popular items to buy are coffee, honey, spices, cardamom, pepper, pineapple papads and oranges ( season). Coorgi silk saree are also very famous and they have a different style of wearing them.

• Fairs & Festivals: Schedule your visit to coincide with one of the colorful festivals of the region. The festivals of the Kodava community are largely around agriculture military activities.
  
• The ‘Festival of Arms - Keilpoldu’ is held in the months of June to September. During this festival the weapons are polished and worshipped before resuse.
• Cauvery Shankaramana is based around the river Cauver is held in October.
• The harvest festival ‘Puthar’ is celebrated in November or December. The festival is accompanied by folks songs and dances, performed by the different villagers at their temples.

For travellers who love nature, Har-Ki-Doon valley (the hanging valley of gods) is a treat. It is a moderate trek and takes the India traveller to one of the least explored regions of Garhwal, (a part of the State of Uttaranchal in India). Har-Ki-Doon is situated in the Western part of the Garhwal Himalayas, at an elevation of 3,556 metres. Its a cradle shaped Valley which is surrounded by dense forests of pines and glittering mountain peaks.

The destination is not very well known, and hence less crowded, and less commercialized. Thereby giving the tourist, a taste of pristine Himalayas, in India.

The trek starts from Netwar to Osla. Its through dense forests of chestnuts, walnuts, willows and chinars. The trek from Osla to Har-ki-doon is through terraced mountain fields, lush green grassy land and conifer forests.

Har-Ki-Doon Valley is a base for Swargarohini ht. 21000 ft. It is mentioned in the hindu holy books that the Pandavas went to Heaven through this mountain.

Nearest International airport: Delhi, India

Nearest railway station:Dehradun, India.

Beth Whitman has written a very nice article about why people should still Travel to India. After recent attacks there were news all around the travel industry that lot of people have started canceling their trip to India. Beth describes 4 good Reasons Why You Should Still Travel to India.

couple of websites which have contact details of India Travel Agents [Desi Travel agents] in USA.

http://www.thingsindian.com/travela.htm

http://www.nyindia.us/travel-agents.html

http://www.thedesicentral.com/travelagents.htm

http://www.udeps.com/travel_agents.html

If you guys know of any more websites please let me know, I will be glad to add it to list.

Also do not forget to try DesiCow.com . DesiCow.com is a new website that connects you with Travel Agents. You submit your trip details and Travel Agents submit quote.

Marketing lessons from James bond

Lesson 1: Re - inventing product
James bond movies are always up to date. Every movie is in present time. However all james bond movie have some elements Hot chicks, action, danger, gadgets.

Entrepreneur should remember when reinventing the product or service.  Service quality, touch, quick response should remain same. But anything that show your product or service out of date changes.

Desicow.com will keep evolving as per people’s suggestion & need as time passes. But our commitment towards honest community efforts will remain same.

Lesson 2: Communicate well

If you can’t connect with your audience, no matter how much you talk, they’ll never hear you. Bond always talks common man’s language.

Desicow.com always will stay simple and easy to identify. If we are doing 10 things, we want to do 7 things which everyone does regularly and may be invent 3 new things and invite users to review it. We have feedback form and we keep receiving crucial feedback from Users who help us in driving this project. One thing we surely know is that we are moving towards a sucessful community project.

desicow.com went live last night. I mailed link to all my friends asking them to give a try and send me all feedback[specially negative critics]. I will start promoting website in next few hours.

website is still not ready and looks like launch will get delayed by one more week. I am positive to launch website coming weekend. Its quite possible that project still has some of the incomplete features and lot of bugs. But I want to launch website and let user try it.

Linkedin.com founder once said in a talk that “if you are not embarrassed with your first launch of product then it means you have delayed it”

There are two thoughts of schools:

website should be perfect before launch:

1) if users find bugs on your website, they will reject it and never come back
2) if you cannot develop a bug free website you should be ashamed
3) it OK to delay and get more time to fix bugs

launch early

1) launch early beta version, get feedback, fix issues, relaunch.
2) many users like to see your website evolving. They like websites which are started by some ordinary guy as side project and keeps becoming more useful and robust everyday
3) users like to point out bugs and new feature requests and want to take part community effect

Alright the heading was just to create curiosity and make you read this blog entry

Desicow.com is not a silly website. Its a simple website which solves some real world problem. Its a average website for an average user. Nothing rocket-science about it. More details about desicow.com’s purpose will be disclosed after website is launched.

regarding name “Desicow.com”

Who the hell keeps name of a website “Desicow” ?

Who the hell wants to buy or sell tickets to India on a website named “Desicow” ?

Isn’t “Desicow” some carazy silly funky name ?

Yes! It is.

However here are good reasons for selecting this name:

1) If you are have spent time searching for a good domain name you will know that almost all sensible names in the world are already taken by some one.

2) DesiCow.com is easy to remember.

3) try conveying this website name to someone on Phone, I bet you dont need to spell it. Its easy to pronounce and understand and there is no confusion about spelling mistake.

4) think of www.Monster.com - what comes to your mind ? ..A job site, rite? Do you ever think of a real Chinese monster with a lion head and gusting fire from his mouth Nops! only thing that comes to your mind is JOBS. Same way Desicow.com will eventually become a brand name amongst Desi junta. Once they know about what website does, this name will just remind them about buying and selling air tickets to India.

5) for many users(first timers) silly funky name itself creates little curiosity.