Spending just a few euros more for a room can make a huge difference. Literally. For another €10 or €20, you can land yourself in opulence and luxury, which I found out by accident: I wanted to stay an extra night, but the low-budget rooms were fully booked, so I had to book a more expensive room.
The difference was two thousand rupees, which works out to €22 ($24). For that little bit extra, I got a room that was three times the size with beautiful, seemingly clean curtains, a fireplace with two clean, fairly new lounge chairs in front of it, and a desk with a chair (dry, fortunately). The shiny, black, marble floor with gold flecks and even the bathroom radiated five-star quality. And I got a hot shower.
The same happened in the Arya Niwas hotel in Jaipur. My daughter and I both booked the “cheaper” room (around €28 [$30]), but due to an error on the hotel’s part, she was lucky enough to be upgraded to a €15-more expensive room where she enjoyed a good mattress, a clean, spacious bathroom and air conditioning. I, on the other hand, got what I booked, and I slept in a third-storey room at the back of the building with a ceiling fan blackened by dust, lights that didn’t work and a shower room no bigger than a square metre, including the toilet. Thank God we both had access to warm water.
But, the hotel staff was the friendliest, the food was cheap (not outstanding — just good enough) and the garden, where you could spend all day and evening, was amazingly cosy. The staff did their best to give the guest a true Rajasthani experience through their all colourful and highly stylised hand-painted furniture; during dinner, there was a one-man show on a Sarangi, a typical Rajasthani instrument reminiscent of a homemade guitar; and the gift shop didn’t sell just cheap tourist trinkets but good and proper souvenirs: local hand-painted tableware, handmade jewellery, hand-woven scarves, etc.
In Europe, paying €20 more or less might not make much of a difference — seeing more bang for your buck probably starts somewhere between €60-€100, but in India, a little bit extra makes such a difference that is almost comparable to the difference between a cheap European hostel with bunkbeds and a 5-star hotel.
Beauty in the eye of the traveller
Of course, there are 5-star hotels to be found in India: The Leela, The Hyatt, The Westin, to name just a few. But these hotels seem to go out of their way to erase local colour and flavour, or at least avoid it: the interiors are in a neutral and consistent style seen all over the world; menus are designed not to celebrate local cuisine but to appeal to basic, international taste. Staying in these hotels, one often feels like one could be anywhere in the world. But taking shelter in one of these luxury oasis, one misses out on the “essence of life” in India.
Budget-friendly hotels, although you better not go for the cheapest for all the reasons described above, because it could always be worse and we don’t need to overdo it, give you the feeling of living the life of a local, many of whom do not have access to hot water every day. In hotels, the menu in their restaurant often offers only their local dishes, and it’s worth trying! The staff appreciate that you are visiting their town, so the service is exceptional and even heartwarming: they do their very best to make your stay as pleasant as it can be, not because it’s their duty, but because they really want to. And if you spend in that same hotel just a little bit more, most of the time you’ll have access to hot water :).
