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Windhaven Resort (Kerala, India)
by koshkha ~Strange Places~ Sometimes you can't help but wonder why when you find yourself in a very strange place, a long way from any attractions or much in the way of habitation. Such was our feeling when, after a long day in the car, we rolled up to the Windhaven Resort in the tiny village of Ramakal. The village has two attractions ... (though I use the term quite loosely) ; there's a great big hill with a statue on top and spectacular views (if it's not raining) and you can follow a small trail to see the footsteps of Ram (he of the Ramayana) in some rocks. Other than that, it's hard to understand why we spent over an hour in the car to get to this place from the perfectly pleasant town of Thekkady and the same time going back the next day. Our travel agents, makemytrip.com, mostly did a great job of putting our itinerary together but sending us to the middle of nowhere for a second rate hotel wasn't their finest achievement. We passed the hotel before we arrived because our driver took us up the steep hill to the viewpoint before delivering us to the hotel. This turned out to be a wise move because the clouds rolled in as we stood on top of the hill and everything disappeared as we watched. When the cloud isn't in the way you can see for miles looking out over the border between Kerala and the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu. The border is one of more than just geography - Kerala is the predominantly Christian state with a history of being run by the communist party whilst Tamil Nadu is a majority Hindu state typically appointing members of parliament who are ex-film stars. The Tamils are associated with tea picking and Kerala is covered in tea plantations. That's a very simplistic summary but the two states are quite different. ~A Haven from the Wind~ If the hundreds of windmills nearby are anything to go by, the Windhaven is well named. The hotel is a pristine modern building painted in an attractive shade of orange. The gardens have play equipment for children but other facilities are somewhat limited. There's apparently a tree house bedroom but we didn't spot it. We were thrilled to find wi-fi access, and not so thrilled to find that despite having the password, we just couldn't connect. For check in I had to spend a few minutes filling in a pretty exhaustive registration form with all our passport details and visa info - despite the fact they'd already taken our passports for photocopying. We were offered a glass of cold orange drink and then taken up to our room - the ominous Room 101. Our paperwork told us that we'd got a room that was graded 'luxury' but checking on the website, I realise that we got upgraded to the hotel's only 'suite' which should cost about £8 a night more than the 'luxury' room. There are 'deluxe' (i.e. standard) rooms, 'luxury' rooms, the 'suite', the tree house and some multi-occupancy rooms with 6 or 10 beds for groups or large families. Room rates vary according to both the room type and the food 'plan' you want - they mysterious Indian CP / MAP /AP scheme which never fails to baffle me. CP is 'continental' plan which I think is B&B. MAP is 'modified American' plan which I think is half board and AP is American Plan which is probably full board. But I may be wrong so please check what's included in any 'plan' before you book an Indian hotel.The rates are very reasonable - ranging from about £25 for CP in a deluxe room up to £60 in the tree house with all meals. ~A room decorated by the colour blind~ We were led upstairs to our room by a porter and delivered to a room with one single bed propped against a wall, a large wardrobe and two armchairs, a small flat screen television on the wall and a full sized fridge in the corner. The floor space was massive but I wondered why we had just one small bed. My husband spotted the door in the corner of the room and headed through to reveal the proper bedroom - a standard sized double with a conventional Indian ultra-hard mattress and just one bedside table. The bedroom was a bit of a squeeze compared to the acres of spotless tiled floor in the sitting room so I did wonder if the architects had rather mis-planned the layout. The bright red bedspread was fairly garish but nothing compared to the curtains which consisted of shiny textured salmon pink drapes with a deep cerise flouncy pelmet with zillions of tassels. A door opened onto the balcony which looked out across the valley and where there was plenty of space to sit. Talking of sitting, back in the sitting room area of our 'suite' we soon discovered that the distance from the arm chairs to the tiny television was sufficient to ensure that only those with hawk-like vision could actually see anything. With my short sight I was doing well to see the television set, let alone what was on it. It was all rather immaterial though since the power cuts happened so frequently that we didn't bother with the television. I tried to charge my laptop from the socket where the fridge was and had to construct a complex support of books and bits and bobs to get it the plug to stay in the socket. The bathroom was another inspirational mishmash of colours with a proper bath and shower, a loo and a sink unit. Several parts still had their original wrappers in place so it looked pretty funny. The hotel had clearly gone way beyond the normal call of duty with soaps, shampoo sachets and proper real toothbrushes. It was a shame they'd forgotten the towels and that everything in the bathroom was completely soaked. I assume a rain storm blowing in the wrong direction had come through the mesh window and soaked the loo and the toilet roll. I got my emergency tissue stash out of my bag and decided not to bother asking for a new loo roll. ~What else can you expect?~ There are no fancy facilities here. According to the website, there's a meeting room for a few dozen people though it's hard to imagine too many companies choosing this for their 'off site' needs, there should be a massage centre though we saw no evidence of it, and there's a computer in reception which guests can use. There was a restaurant offering a 'take it or leave it' buffet and - given that there's nothing else for miles around - we of course took it. Dinner was due to be served at 8 pm but took an extra half hour because there were multiple power cuts to interrupt the chef's progress. When we realised we had a bit more time to kill before dinner we decided to go and chat to the people in reception to try to collect our passports and ask for some towels because there hadn't been any in our room. The lady owner was confused and eventually said "Oh, you want extra towels?" - I explained, we didn't want extra, we just wanted some towels because we didn't have any. Dinner was a small buffet of vegetable rice, vegetable curry, jeera potatoes, a chicken dish which we avoided and some 'crispy veg' which had confused us because it was classified as 'non-veg'. The penny eventually dropped that it contained egg in the batter which made it 'non veg' in the Indian definition of vegetarianism. The food was very good but the choice wasn't very exciting. As far as we could make out there wasn't any alcohol available though the waiter seemed overjoyed to sell us a couple of bottles of Fanta. The waiters fussed over us with vigour and plenty of enthusiasm which was sweet but rather odd. According to the hotel's website, "We have a very spacious and luxurious restaurant where we serve all kinds of food as per your choice (Indian, Chinese, English, continental & American). We have a chef dedicated for English food and we serve full English break-fast round the clock." Our experience suggests that they failed on just about every promise in those two sentences. There was no choice (other than 'eat it or don't'), the food in the buffet was all Indian and if there was an English food chef, he wasn't there. They also say that their restaurant offers views of the mountain but again, you'll only get the benefit if you go in summer since the mountain is invisible after dark and in the rain. I have to suspect that November wasn't a time when they were providing full service. The hotel was probably busy for Diwali and Christmas but most of the business would be in the summer months. ~Words of Wisdom~ You cannot fail to spot that the hotel has lots of inspirational phrases framed and hung on the wall. Over dinner we were suitably inspired by the thought that "Winners don't do different things but they do things differently" and our room carried the words "When you are good to others, you are best to yourself" - wise indeed and well worth remembering though perhaps not what you expect on your holiday. Tony went out with the camera to photograph his favourites which seemed to please the lady downstairs - I hope she never realised he wanted to taunt a few colleagues with them when he got back to work. During his photo taking he met a gentleman and his son on the stairs and got into a long conversation. The man couldn't believe that foreign tourists had rolled up in such an out of the way place and interrogated him about why we were there, where we'd been, pretty much our entire life histories. Eventually after dinner and after the second time of asking, a chap appeared with towels and proceeded to spend several minutes doing origami with them on the bottom of the bed so it was clearly worth the wait. Our views were excellent - when it stopped raining - and once all the kids had gone to bed it was pretty quiet in the hotel with no noise from outside except for crickets and other chirpy things. ~A new day~ Breakfast starts at 7.30 but when we went down it wasn't really ready and the guys said it didn't start until 8.30 but they could do toast and hot drinks for us and then they added eggs to our options. Since that's all we wanted anyway it wasn't any big deal that the breakfast buffet wasn't available. An Indian family weren't quite so impressed when they turned up a bit later and had quite a major row with the receptionist when they were due to leave. This hotel clearly can't deal very well with running things to the client's timescale rather than their own. They were lucky with us - we had nowhere to go and we weren't in a rush so it made little difference what time they fed us, but I can imagine for anyone with time constraints it would be horribly frustrating. Our shower had only cold water but I'm not sure why and we didn't interrogate them. I suspect that it might have been due to the use of solar panels to heat the water since the previous day had been wet or overcast for much of the time so maybe they just didn't get enough heat. Checkout caused no problems and the bill was 590 rupees (about £8) for dinner and drinks the night before. I tried to access email on the reception computer but had to give up because it was blocking google which seemed like a pretty extreme thing to do. We went outside whilst the unhappy Indian family had a bit of a fight about the bill because we didn't want the owner to be embarrassed about us witnessing it, but when they were done we headed back inside. Our driver had gone missing and returned to the hotel in a really stinking temper. He was furious that there were no driver 'facilities' available and that he'd not been able to get breakfast. He was late to pick us up because he had to go off and find somewhere to wash in the village and had waited an hour for a bathroom to use. Keeping in mind that you really can't stay at the Windhaven without transport, they really will need to fix the problem with driver facilities. Shijo was in a foul mood all day after the hotel's lack of facilities meant he was late to get us and I guess he probably had to sleep in the car which can't have been much fun. Since his employers booked the place he asked us to please complain about the hotel when we sent our feedback forms. ~Recommendation~ My recommendation would be to not stay here unless you have a pressing need to be in Ramakal as the location is very isolated. It's probably better to go in the summer and I can imagine that if you live in a noisy, hot Indian city, this place might seem like paradise. For us it was a nice enough building, everything was absolutely spotless and our room was fine. The staff tried their best but there's not too much they can do about the power problems or the weather. Check before booking whether the restaurant will be fully open and whether they have improved the situation regarding driver accommodion. Otherwise I would recommend to stay in the town of Thekkady, 40 km away where there's lots to do. ~Details~ Windhaven Resort Ramakal Kerala http://www.windhavenresort.com/index.htm​l Read the complete review |
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Westwood Riverside Hotel (Kerala, India)
by koshkha ~Why it's Cool to get High in India~ For our trip to India in November I decided to share the arrangements with a local travel company called 'makemytrip.com'. We would fly into Mumbai, take an internal flight down to Kochi and then they would take over for a few days and arrange a tour in Kerala. Then once the tour was over, ... we would revert to hotels that I'd chosen again. This meant that for a few nights if the hotels were rubbish I could blame someone else. The Westwood Riverview in Munnar was the first of the hotels selected for us by makemytrip.com as part of our four night itinerary. We had already stayed at the Abad Airport Hotel in Kochi which we'd added into our trip but that had been our choice rather than theirs. Munnar was the place I most wanted to visit on the mini-tour. It's Kerala's great 'hill station' - the place where people have long escaped the heat of the summer down by the coast to flee to the cooler mountain air. I have a weakness for high altitude India but this place is different from many in that it's not quite so 'British' as many of the hill stations (architecturally it's not so 'Anglo' as places like Mussoorie, Darjeeling or Shimla for example) and of course it's not in the Himalayas. It's not so well known as Ooty, the other great southern Indian hill station that's accessible by a narrow gauge railway, and consequently it's much more a place where Indian people go on holiday rather than foreign tourists. I didn't have too much idea what to expect from Munnar (other than tea plantations) and even less what to expect from the Westwood Riverside. There were few reviews on line to go by but sometimes you've got to trust your online travel agent. They had originally intended to put us somewhere else - a good half hour down the hill from Munnar so finding that we were in a more central location was a bonus. The hotel is just a short distance down a quiet side road that branches off from the main road through Munnar town and we had the benefit of being quite close to the action (if you can call it such) but overlooking a beautiful wide river and woods beyond. Peace and quiet in an Indian town is not something you can ever take for granted. ~First Impressions~ We arrived after dark so we didn't get to have a proper look around on the first night. Check in was polite, friendly and edging towards fawning. Clearly they were determined that nothing should be too much trouble. The guy from the front desk personally escorted us up to our room after taking our passports for copying and reassuring us that breakfast was included, telling us the hours and pointing out the restaurant. With the porter following on a few minutes later, her took us up to the 4th floor and our room 401 which I'm pretty confident in saying must have had one of the best positions in the hotel. There are facilities on the 5th floor - an ayurvedic spa and treatment centre and some kind of 'fun zone' - but the 4th is the highest accommodation floor and has the benefit of being well above the trees that stand between the hotel and the river so that the views (once the sun came up the next morning) are absolutely fantastic. ~Room with a View~ When I describe an Indian hotel room as having 'character' it's not always a good thing and often means there's something hilariously quirky or bizarre about the place. The Westwood Riverside is different - it has character but in a positive and pleasant 'no pet cockroach' kind of way. The room was not particularly large or small - just a good standard sized double with plenty of space to get around the furniture without falling over yourself. Joy of joys we actually got a double bed - something rarer than hens' teeth in most Indian hotels. I suspect the great view means it may be one of the rooms they use for honeymooners who don't want to buy into the whole 'over the top flower petals on the bed' deal of which Indian hotels are so fond The bed was a standard double with white self-striped soft cotton bedding and - further joy of joys - a duvet, no doubt a concession to the lower temperatures up in the mountains. I have begun to believe there's a government department somewhere in India who insist that all hotels under 5 stars have to have uniform beigey-brown scratchy blankets and sheets that aren't long enough. Somehow - perhaps with the application of charm or bribery - the Westwood Riverside has escaped the brown blanket brigade. The mattress was thin and pretty hard but that wasn't a problem for me - when it comes to beds, better too hard than too soft.. A small bedside table on either side came in handy and the only complaint my husband had was the strip lighting over the bed which annoyed him when I was reading and he was trying to get to sleep. In addition to the bed we got two rather stylish leatherette armchairs in a rather funky 1960's Scandinavian style. These were accompanied by a small round coffee table but since no kettle or coffee were supplied they soon got covered in the normal detritus of hotel living. We had a full sized fridge which was bright red and well stocked with soft drinks and snacks. We never found out if the hotel had a license but failed to spot any beer during our stay and didn't want to offend anyone by asking. A long desk and a bag stand meant we had lots of space for our things and there was a wardrobe, a smaller cupboard and a deep drawer. A wall mounted flat screen television meant we had some entertainment in the evenings after dinner. The floor was wooden and had been painted a strange and rather ugly dark brown. The walls were wainscoted up to hip height with a prominent dado rail above. The bathroom was small and rather gloomy with a tiny sink area that made it a problem to know what to do with our toiletries bag. The shower was close by the loo but had a curtain to prevent a soggy seat but the drainage for the water was on the far side of the room and it drained very slowly. However all was clean, tidy and we got fresh loo roll each day. The water is only hot between 6 and 10 in the morning and then again between 6 and 10 in the evening but there was plenty of hot water when we needed it although the temperature control was a bit erratic. On our first morning we used the towels and hung them over the wardrobe door to dry so we could use them again. When you've flown several thousand miles for your holiday it's not exactly a grand gesture to try to use your towels again. They disappeared. We didn't notice until someone turned up at the door bringing us a bottle of water (we got a free one each day) and holding two soft fluffy white towels. When I realised these were just hand-towels I went to look for the big ones and they'd gone. When we went for dinner we asked if they could send us some big towels - and when we got back, the housekeeping guy turned up with two soft fluffy snowy white towels. I can guess that all those of you who stay in hotels in the UK are thinking "What's the big deal about that?" In fifteen years of going to India I've never seen fluffy white towels in anything less than a five star hotel so I was on fluffy white cloud nine to have such luxuries. ~Treated Royally~ Whether the hotel gave us their extra-special new towels I'm not sure but the service from the time we arrived was so astonishingly eager that nothing would surprise me. If someone had rung ahead and told them we were hotel inspectors, I don't think they could have tried harder. Twice someone came to bring us things and to ask if we needed anything. When I said we didn't he then wanted to check "Any complaints madame?" Service in the restaurant was extraordinary. On the first evening they told us that the only food was the buffet. It was a Sunday evening so that seemed entirely fair and we didn't argue although the guy told us it was "excellent price madame" and so it turned out to be though it wasn't very 'buffet' because the staff insisted on serving us at our table with the soup and pudding though we were allowed to go and get the main course. At breakfast the waiters swooped on us, guessed we'd not be up to the traditional south Indian breakfast and insisted on bringing us toast and omelettes as well as making our coffee. Whether these were what my husband calls "pinkie privileges" or not (we were the only Europeans in the entire hotel), I'm not sure but their kindness and eagerness to make sure we had everything we could possibly need was touching. On the second night the guy in charge of the restaurant admitted that they did have other food but asked us to please have the buffet because they had an enormous group out on the covered terrace and he didn't want us to have to wait whilst the kitchen was so busy. We were more than happy to help him as dinner the first night had cost us around £8 for the two of us and hearing the banging music and kids screams from the terrace we weren't terribly keen to hang around too long so the buffet was a good quick option. ~Very minor niggles~ This brings me neatly onto the only thing we didn't like about the hotel and for which they really can't be blamed - other people's children. There was a large Indian tour party of families, mostly with pre-school age children. They filled two buses and blocked us in the car park on the first morning so we couldn't escape until they'd gone. I can't claim British parenting would win any awards (not if reality TV programmes are to be believed) but well-to-do Indian parents seem to place no restrictions on how much time their little princes and princesses go running round the corridors shouting their heads off without any concern for their fellow guests. Had we stayed when there were fewer kids in the hotel then I'm sure we'd have struggled to find anything to grumble about except for the internet access in the so-called Business Centre. The computer had some kind of out of date security certificate which blocked every new page until I'd clicked the box six or seven times over. I gave up after just 20 minutes. Sadly - or not, depending on your attitude - there's no wi-fi and that computer is the only available access. At least it was very cheap. The hotel has a cute little garden between it and the drivers' car park which has pretty flower beds and some play areas for the kids. The other thing of note is the weird décor in the atrium which has been decorated to look like a Swiss chalet painted by an Indian who'd never been to Switzerland but had read a lot of Dickens as well as over-dosed on the adventures of Heidi. In addition to weird faux beams there were a series of 'murals' of what look like historic white folk - a sort of Sherlock Holmes meets crinoline ladies mash-up. ~Recommendation~ Our room was lovely, the staff were absolutely outstanding and we were treated like royalty. We were close to Munnar city centre without having any of the noise or disturbance of being closer and aside from not enjoying large family bus groups who shared the place with us, I'm struggling to fault this lovely hotel. Read the complete review |
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Oberoi Hotel (New Delhi, India)
by jodolan I am currently in India and visit Delhi on a regular basis. One of the best things about this is being able to stay at the Oberoi hotel. This is my haven. The rooms are very comfortable and best of all overlook the golf course. It is a joy to look out in the afternoon and watch the sun go down. There is a very modern and ... well equiped gym and a large pool with a pleasant sun bathing area. The staff are very attentive and bring you frozen grapes, bottles of water and even provide you with suntan lotion. The restaurant where you get breakfast, offers a large choice of both Indian and Western foods, and for a special occasion do visit the Italian restaurant where the food is outstanding. All in all you will not go wrong, as I consider it to be one of the best hotels in Delhi. Go on spoil yourself. Read the complete review |
Asia Hotel International |
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Address: Khasara No. 48M / Hotel International /50M, Opp. Dudhadhari Temple / Bopatwala Kalan / Dudhadhari Chowk / Haridwar-249 410 / Haridwar / Uttarakhand 249410 / India / Tel: 01334 663333 |
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1 review Hotel in central Rishikesh in the Himalayan foothills / Hotel International / Email: sales@divineresort.com |
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1 review Location: Patel Nagar, Niranjanpur, Saharanpur road, Dehradun Uttarakhand, India / Hotel International / Hotel in the Himalayan city of Dehra Dun. |
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1 review A small B&B in South Delhi / Hotel International / Email: saketbedandbreakfast@gmail.com / Phone: +919582872580. |
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Address: 49 Moo 8 / Hotel International / T. Aonang / A. Muang Krabi / Ko Phi Phi Don / 81000 / Thailand |
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1 review Address: 33 Hai Ba Trung Street / Hotel International / Hue City / Vietnam / Tel: +84(054) 382 5973 /5974 |
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1 review Address: Cam Nam Village / Hotel International / Hoi An Town / Quang Nam Province / Vietnam / Tel: +84 510 936 205 |
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Address: 20 Bui Thi Xuan St / Hotel International / Ben Thanh Ward / Dist.1 / Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam |
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1 review Address: 89 Cao Thang / Hotel International / Dist. 3 / Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam / Tel:(08) 39291440 - 3929 1441 |
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Address: 31 / Hotel International /1 Tran Cao Van St. / Hoi An / Vietnam |
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