After spending almost an entire month in searching for this, I am finally giving up on my dream of finding an unlimited International Direction Dial calling (IDD) plan from Kuala Lumpur. But in the process I've got enough knowledge to educate different options available for IDD. So, this post is dedicated to the telecommunication industry of Malaysia.
There are primarily five Mobile operators in Kuala Lumpur (KL) region, and none of them (mind it) has full coverage in the entire of KL. Call drop, Signal loss are common for all the networks. Sometimes it is due to the location (basement of a mall, metro station, at higher levels of buildings e.g. at 78th floor in twin towers) and sometimes it is because of the poor network.
Apart from the mobile operators there are many options of VOIP calling as well. After my research I found there are two types of VOIP calling available. In one you need to have an internet or wifi connection to call a mobile phone in India, while in another you don't need wifi or internet, just a phone with local calling facility. It seems they re-route the call from some local number to the international numbers. But given that even the local calls in Malaysia are not cheap, second option becomes pretty expensive.
Following table summarizes all the options and their calling rates to India
From the table above one can clearly see that "Google Voice" is the cheapest option available as of now. As soon as I found this out, I purchased the credits for Google Voice and till now, I am quite satisfied with its service. I'll dedicate a seperate post for Google Voice later.
Just came back from Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams. Here goes my travelogue :-)
Recently my parents were in town, I wanted to take them to the famous Tirumala Temple situated in Tirupati. It is around 650 Kms from Hyderabad. Initially it was quite confusing, as everyone was giving different suggestion on how to go, where to stay etc etc. I was totally confused on what to do as there were no tickets available for the temple, even the bus tickets prices were high. I did not have any idea of the lodging and food in Tirupati. But Finally the trip was a success, thanks to APTDC.
Why Triupati ?
Quoting wikipedia "The temple is the richest pilgrimage centre, after the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, of any faith (at more than INR 500 billion) and the most-visited place of worship in the world." i.e. to feel the rich heritage of ancient India one should at least go once to this place. And the story behind this temple is simply described in the following video
Booking the ticket
I booked a ticket from APTDC website on Monday and took the tickets for Wednesday. You've to register on their website and search for the packages available in "Enquiry/Reservation" section. Sadly there is no phone number given on the website for the enquiry but I was impressed with the chat facility (bottom right side of the page) provided on their website. It gives correct information about whatever you ask. I took 3 days tour package which was suppose to start from Hyderabad on Wednesday evening and drop me back to Hyderabad on Friday morning. Unfortunately, there were not enough bookings for Wednesday so they cancelled the tour and informed me on Tuesday evening further they gave me two options
Cancel the trip and full money will be refunded to my account.
Go for the booking on next day I was made assure that they have sufficient no of bookings for Thursday, so there is no chances of cancellation.
I opted for the second one. There are no phone numbers given on the website, so it might become difficult for you to contact them. The numbers I called for these bookings and confirmations etc is : 04066745986
Day 1 - Hyderabad to Tirupati :
We reached at APTDC's Kukatpally pick up location at 5:00 PM. There was nice seating arrangement to wait for the bus. Receptionist was polite and he confirmed my seat after checking my ticket. And yes, don't forget to print the tickets which will be mailed to your mailbox as soon as you book the ticket. At around 5:15 the Bus arrived, It was a Mercedes and in very good condition.
Bus started at exactly 5:30 and stopped at two more pick up location before leaving Hyderabad. At around 10:00 PM bus stopped at "Hotel Delhi Darbar" on the highway for dinner. The restaurant was good and the dinner costs 250 INR for three people.
Day 2 - Tirupati
We reached Tirupati at 7:00 AM next day, as soon as we entered the city guide "Mr. Reddy" hop on to the bus, woke us up and explained plan for the day. Guide was very good and patient while answering questions. Bus stopped at Srinivas Guest House, and rooms were allotted 2 person in one room. Since we were three we were given only one room, but later, I was given a separate room alone. Rooms were clean and tea facility was there, however they charge 10 rs per cup and some tip to the waiter.
1 hour time was given for to freshen up, after that, guide instructed us to keep all our luggage in the BUS except mobile/wallet/purse and have breakfast at a near by restaurant. It costs around 70-80 rs for the breakfast. We started at around 10:00 PM for Tirumala Hills by a local transport bus (Non Ac). View of Tirumala hills while the bus climbs up was awesome.
On reaching top, guide instructed us to keep our mobile/camera at a shop. It charges 10 rs per item (mobile/camera). You can carry your wallet/hand-bags with you inside the temple. Next, he asked if someone wants extra "Laddus". If you want extra "Laddus" you can give 50/- rs per Laddu to guide, which can be received along with the two free Laddus (which is included in the ticket) after the darshan. Guide arranges for the 300/- rs ticket (included in the package) and we went in a queue. Since it was a friday, we finished darshan within 1 hr and we were free by 2:00 PM. After darshan, we collected our mobile/camera did some photography on the hill top and then started for the Tirupati city to visit Padmavati Temple. Before visiting the Padmavati Temple, guide took us to a restaurant for the lunch. The restaurant was good with excellent food. They have Thaali as well as chiness and other indian foods. I ordered fried rice and Manchurian, which was tasty. Food costs around 150 rs per head.
After the lunch, we went to visit Padmavati Temple, and then we started our journey back to Hyderabad. In between the bus stops at APTDC's own restaurant for dinner. Food was cheap and good. It costs 200 for three people. We reached Hyderabad next morning 7:00 AM.
Good Morning gaonwalo..
seems m getting addicted to this android thing (naya naya josh hai :P), so i'll talk & talk & talk bout this thing in my posts... (hi hi hi...)
today i'll list some useful applications for ur android...lets start with the coolest thing i found..
Google Gesture Search: after installing this i've forgot to go to menus to launch applications, uber cool app with real time search results from ur mobile contents..
Bollywooodji: let me tell u first m a big bollywood fan (read AC) ....i went to see "tere bin laden" instead of Avatar (u can say height of crazyness)...... excellent collection of all masala from bollywood... after this u wont even miss "--" (put whatever ur thinking rite now :p ) of our bollywood hotties........ (
Mass Text Personalizer: m a message freak....i sms a lot and love to annoy frnds with dhem.......well, android don't have inbuilt feature to send group smses, u need to install an app 4 dat...and i found this one very useful, neat & adds free... :) , u can make groups, send mass messages and keep track of ur log also..
Astro File Manager: for peopel who love to be organised ....its a must one...since u need to keep track of folder on ur sdcard as well as the inbuild storage, which keeps (atleast) ur mind organised about your data and content.....
Blutooth File Transfer: there is a sad news about android 1.6, it doesnt support file transfre over bluetooth....but good news is that we've an excellent app to do this, u can browse, download, send etc....means can do ny stuffs u ever wanted (wait....other than "that" stuffs) with your bluetooth device...
Process Manager: jst like windows task manager.......useful if u want to save your battery, gives detailed info about each process/running-app/services etc, u can kill them to save memory......
Documents to go: to view microsoft office files......
Open Sudoku: i personaly like to play sudoku in free times......its a nice app which gives three types of input methods.....with aound 90 puzzle......best thing is that it gets installed into your memorycard...more puzzles can be downloaded from internet........
dats it for now.......'ll keep updating it....... :)
Hello friends,
This is my first post in this blog and I will start with the review of my new phone. First let me tell you "Android" is a great OS and i really loved it. I was planning to buy a Nokia C6, but m happy with the final decision.
Although there are some issues with the phone...still u cant have all the great things at a time... :)
Whenever u get a gadget u always compare with the ones which u've previously used, and in order u end up with missing things.....so first I'll show the darker side of the phone...means the difficulties m facing..
Here are the few observations for first four days...
Incoming call photo display is very small. It would have been better if it was full screen.
There is a delay in zoom activation
No video calling.
Battery backup is poor (some say u can increase it with some tweaks, still its a big issue)
Voice dialler is not good.
Unorganised/unnecessary folders in SDCard. Seems they don't follow any pattern to organize file/folders. Different apps are creating their own folders.
Default applications (which comes installed with phone) cannot be uninstalled. :(
No option to hide or delete icons from menu..SO it keep on growing with no of applications.
dats it for now.....will write the good part in my next post.. :)
