Need help locating/identifying a hotel in New Delhi
 

To make a long story short, a customer of mine that I'm visiting in New Delhi has me staying in a place called:

"Maya Cottages" on Akarshan Road, has anybody ever hear of it?

I cannot find anything with such a name on the web so I'm slighly worried about the quality of accomodations. The only thing I can find with a similar name is called "Maya's Nest" and seems to be a bed n breakfast type of place.

Anyways, this is my first trip to India so I'm not quite sure what to expect as far as hotels go. I'm assuming my customer picked a hotel close by New Delhi's trade center has as be attending a tradeshow with them in 2 weeks.

Anyways, any comments is welcome

Thx!

Max

My guess would be that you've been put up in a semi-legal, semi-corporate "guesthouse", which are basically serviced apartments Indian style: anonymous apartment or house somewhere with no hotel facilities as such, but resident staff who can whip up meals (you'd better like curry...), arrange taxis, etc. Since hotel rates in Delhi are so insane, these are very common, but they keep a low profile to avoid the taxman.

They're legal enough for some surprisingly large / international corporations to have deals with them, so that all their staff traveling to a particular location get to stay at the guesthouse.

I see VAT / GST etc numbers on the invoice that I get when I stay at one such place (if I like curry - it is about what I would expect for a budget three star hotel, but far cleaner, nice apartment etc) so I guess it is legal enough for the tax man not to object and shut them down. I also see fire extinguishers and such at appropriate locations ..

Think of a three or four bedroom apartment in a nice area of town - in fact multiple apartments in the same condo - where each pax gets a bedroom to himself, and the hall is used for meals (cooked and served by the attendant) and has another part of it set up with a TV, lounge sofas etc .. oh, and wifi that's basically a DSL line with a linksys router.

I'd stay at such a place - and no issues - at a fraction of the cost of a hotel.

That guest house was INR 1200 a night, broadband at INR 70, breakfast + lunch + dinner a total of INR 150..200 - so less than INR 1500 a night ($30)

You wouldnt even get a roach motel for $30 in HYD, if you tried - not that part of hyderabad at least (just up the road from the Taj Krishna - on the road that runs between the Taj and the "Hitech City" IT park).

Yup, the ones I stayed at were also arranged through a multinational three-letter acronym. My (vague) understanding is that they are registered as businesses of some kind, they're just not licensed as hotels, which is why they have no signboards etc. :confused:

Yup, same ballpark. The caveats, though, are that you will probably share the apartment with others; the staff may not speak any English; blackouts and power surges are a fact of life (a colleague had his laptop zapped); and since your door probably won't lock, security can be questionable (I had some money stolen once). YMMV.

I know people who work for the unnamed MNC who prefer to stay at these guest houses instead of staying at the luxury hotels. I've got nothing against them, but I'll continue to stay in the luxury hotels so long as I'm traveling to the subcontinent on business. I know what to expect and don't have to worry about whether the staff will speak English or who my housemates will be. If I were in the position of Max I'd likely no be staying at the Maya Cottages and insist on staying at a multinational chain hotel for my first visit.

Chances are they'll speak enough english as long as you speak slowly and clearly. The one I stay in for personal trips to HYD is also used by employees of a big 5 auditing firm .. including foreigners. The attendants dont really speak english but do understand it and can reply in slow / halting english (or there's usually someone else nearby to translate).

As for power surges .. jeez, I could tell you stories about laptops being fried in three to four star joints in India (and near escapes from fried laptops, power outlets that spark when you plug your laptop in, etc, in five star places).

Dodgy power is a fact of life all over india not just at these apartment hotels. Which is why my home has a UPS wired to a spike suppressor fitted datacenter grade power strip where I plug my laptop / PC etc into.

The chain of places I was staying in used Nepali migrants (most probably illegal) who barely even spoke Hindi... but yeah, the good thing about sharing an apt with others is that there's usually someone on hand to translate.

Most offices and 5-stars have pretty heavy-duty surge protection and backup generators etc, but yes, it definitely pays to immediately disconnect any devices after the power goes out...!

Nepalese citizens dont need work visas to work in India - there's a treaty dating back to the 50s which provides for this. So, nepalese - yes but not illegals.

Nepalese, as well as "pahadis" - hill folk from himachal pradesh or kashmir are preferred as attendants for various reasons ..good work ethic, great cooks, speak the local language - which is very similar to hindi really though a weird accent ..

Even with "stable" BOM power supply, protected by a surge supressor/voltage stabilizer/UPS w/surge protection, one of my switches got zapped! :mad: (nothing you try to do with help, in my experience!)

Well that went well....

First room was renovated but within 2 minutes of being inside I saw a rat run out of the bathroom and under the balcony door.

Second room was better but the staff talked loudly in the hall all night long.

Just switched over to the Ajanta hotel (apparently they owned the Maya place as well) and I gotta say the rooms are pretty average.

And now there's somekind of political rally right in front of the hotel; great....

I gotta say this will most likely be my first and only trip to India!

Max

Sorry to hear of your poor experience. Not surprised. But sorry.

Don't make it your last trip. I've been to India 30 times in the past 4 years. But next time insist on staying at a multinational 5 star.

Yeah.

I'll be having a discussion with my boss when I come back on this very subject.

Max

In delhi - well, let's put it this way. A multinational 4 or 5 star is about $50..80 costlier than the same hotel in say San Francisco. $300++ easily.

Lots of nice boutique hotels and such though ..

In Delhi, money well spent. In San Francisco, perhaps, perhaps not.

Even so, you can get the Hyatt, Le Meridien, Sheraton New Delhi for under $200 if you plan ahead.

At these hotels I can have a good idea of what to expect. At the 'nice boutique hotels' I can't.

Agreed. I actually looked it and 2-3 days from now there are still rooms available at the Crowne Plaza for about 200$.

Last week I was in Bangalore and I got put up in what you could probably call a boutique hotel and it was quite fine. But it was arguably a gamble...

I mean the hotel I've got now is "ok" but by no means great; I'm definatly far more confortable at home and in the end IMHO that's what matter for a hotel when you're a business traveller: do the accomodations reasonnably match the confort you would have at home.

Fortunatly I've got pictures to document my case and I'll hopefully be able to beat some sense into those people when I come back.

Max

edit: I do have a side question though. I've been thinking for a while now about buying a smartphone; any chance I could get one of those dirt cheap here? All the cellphone store I've seen so far don't exactly look like the kind of establishments that would carry electronic equipment in the 100s $ range...