Lack of hostels in India?

reneeautumn

My Lonely Planet says there aren't too many hostels in India b/c hotel rooms are generally so cheap, and also that many hostels contain a number of drunk men sleeping it off instead of driving home. Is this true? As cheap as hotel rooms are, this would be my first vacation not mainly using hostels. I was wondering about the Salvation Army hostel in Mumbai, which is in LP--is it safe? I'm a woman who usually travels alone, and I've never had a problem staying in coed hostels across Europe, but I'm wondering if India would be different b/c of anecdotes like women being groped in sleeper cars on trains, etc.

Also: I see that this particular hostel segregates the genders. Is this common in hostels in India?

Thanks!

machadinha

You won't be using hostels like you might in Europe no. Indeed, because guesthouses are cheap anyway.

Many of the low-end places offer dormitories, if you're going rock-bottom this is often and naturally the cheapest deal yes.

The sex segregation would just be because they're, well, dormitories. I've found this fairly common in Europe even, although you may sometimes have a choice. In India, it's just a natural state of affairs I guess. Instead of interpreting it as being oppressive, I'd think of it as attempting to offer the ladies some peace and quiet.

The Mumbai Salvation Army is perfectly safe as far as I know yes (well, I suppose stuff can happen anywhere. I've stayed there, was OK just for what it is.) I think the "hostel" designation here is more-or-less accidental, or to do with their hospice function of yore. These are dorms btw, but they offer some rooms as far as I know, which again as far as I know wouldn't be segregated no, of course not.

Anyway bottom line: Don't think "(youth) hostels" like you might in many other places around the world. They just don't exist, or not many of them (there are some YMCA's dotted around the country for instance, and some independent "hostels" indeed. To confound the matter further, I suppose there may be guesthouses calling themselves the "Such-and-such hostel," simply because they think it sounds good). Guesthouses are (or can be) very cheap, and it's nice to have your own room for a change, with your own bathroom with a bit of luck and/or for a bit of an extra fee! (I must admit to having gotten thoroughly fed up with European youth hostels over the past years, but I'm hardly eligible for any financially attractive aspects of using them anymore either. So what you tend to end up with is a not-so attractive deal with the curfew and the smoking outside and the breakfast at 6AM to boot, I mean come on, I'm on a holiday you know.)

ps What LP would mean by drunk men in hostels I don't know. Maybe motels that you're unlikely to end up in anyway; there exists a cheap (or perhaps not even necessarily cheap) bracket of hotels that are not allowed to take in foreigners anyway, so again you'd have a hard time getting in there. If you're looking for something hardcore and authentic, you might try just that though But seriously, hotels need a permit to accommodate foreigners. I guess what they might mean is the kind of places that truck drivers and so on know how to scout out, again, if you can find them at all you wouldn't technically be allowed in anyway. Don't worry about it.

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freenote

Stick to your small business hotels ,much better . There ain't a big hostel scene in India ,i have heard of a youth hostel scheme sometime back and i should imagine that any dorms would be segregated !!

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reneeautumn

All right, sweet. Thanks, y'all!

wonderwomanusa

If you're going to Kolkata, you will find the dormitories at Salvation Army to be segregated by sex ... but a few blocks away at the Modern Lodge, they are mixed men and women, but all foreigners.

I've had some great discussions in those dorms, and have met people I never would have met.

The best assortment of people was in the old Tourist Bungalow Dormitory in Bodh Gaya -- where almost everybody was on a religious trip. There were people who had lived with the Sufis in France, former nums and priests, someone who had danced with the dervish ... there was no nightlife in Bodh Gaya (hell, there hardly was a restaurant there in those days) so we'd sit up on our beds and talk all night!

Khandoma

If you're going to large cities, this web link may perhaps be helpful : http://www.hostelbookers.com/
It lists the places that have registered under "hostels". Quite a lot of them in Mumbai and Kolkata. Many of those places offer both dorms and private rooms.
It's sometimes as cheap as a cheap Indian hotel. Something like 500 Rs for a night (in a dorm), which in Mumbai is cheap enough, if the place is clean, which I cannot vouch for. And you can book those rooms from home, meaning you don't have to trust a rickshaw driver to find a place for you when you arrive at 11 PM. (Meaning you can't bargain for the price of the room either. But you'll catch the taste for this particular kind of entertainment somewhere down the road, I'm sure.)
Anyway, hope this helps.

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