Where is all the cheap accom?

andygoodyear

Ok

Am I just being unrealistic here? I have read many posts about how the average cost of a night in India is 150-200 rupees. However when looking into hotels in delhi, varanasi and darjeeling they are all well over 1000 rupees? I am starting to think I will not be able to afford india. What do all the backpackers here do? Do you just turn up and find something or book in advance?

ploink

We booked in advance for Delhi because we arrived around midnight.
We stayed in Smyle Inn, Paharganj. According to their web pages, e.g. Standard Single 220 INR per night. I stayed with two friends. Standard Triple 110 INR per person per night (330 INR total). I think we found it via hostelworld.com or something. Nothing posh, but perfectly adequate. In Jaipur, stayed in a much nicer double room, 350 INR per night. Did not book in advance. So cheap accommodation does exist. Depends on what you want from a ho(s)tel (room), though.

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Paula

Where are you looking?? Grab a copy of Lonely Planet and you will find heaps of budget accommodation in each city you listed. Dehli is more expensive though and you will find good accommodation for about rs. 350. Definately heaps of places out there for much less than rs. 1000.

You will find it very difficult (read impossible) to reserve room/s at budget places. Everyone just turns up and takes pot luck. Varanasi and Delhi have lots of cheap guest houses available.

Don't look at "hotels" try "guest houses"

good luck.

iyou

the one exception to the advice given above is of course in bombay, where the great majority of places available really do cost Rs 1000 (more or less).

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xealot

Perhaps we could turn this into a budget reccomendations thread???

Any guesthouses under Rs 200? Or particularly good dorm accomodation available?

What can people reccomend ....

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xealot

Does anybody have an opinion on using www.yhaindia.org for finding accomodation? It has listings of reasonabled priced rooms, and dorm accomodation for Rs60/night. Anybody know what these dorms are like? Thanks

shpatel

This is a pretty cool site. I'm also interested in knowing how these accomodations are. Let us know

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cyberhippie

Guys as a general rule of thumb you won't find the cheapest Hotels, flights or tours of India on the net!!

iyou

there are always cheap places near bus and train stations. The kinds of places you'll never find on the net. The kinds of places where the bedbugs are as big as rats, and the rats are as big as.....well, you get the idea. But they're cheap, and sometimes that's the ideal thing, right?

xealot

Yeah just having a website is the sort of extra expense that places with rooms available for Rs100 a night can't afford to indulge in i suppose ... hence why it would be great to get some reccomendations from people who have checked them out in person (wishful and almost cheating thinking i know ) . From my point of view the info I would be most interested in is info about guest houses in smaller villages and such ... places where it's not so safe to just assume you'll be able to stop and hunt around for somewhere to stay ... because who knows if there will be anywhere to stay at all let alone a cheap comfortable option.
Not for everybody but for someone like me YES YES YES YES YES!! I want to stretch my money as far as possible while I am in India. Its not about pinching pennies and only giving locals what they would expect from other locals or whatever ... it's just that I know I will have limited funds and where i sleep isn't as important to me as how much of the country I can see. So if I can curl up inside my mosquito net in a dry but infested hole that only cost me $1.50AU I'll be happy as Larry.

jarman_ah

Xealot, if you're prepared to rough it, then maybe your best bet is just to head on over there with only your first night booked and then ask around... as somebody above said, the cheapest places are not the ones you're going to find on the net, because even having a website takes you up into the "next" hotel category, and the cheapest places may not really be well-known by tourists (even the indiamike ones!) because they are usually patronised only by locals.

But, yes, they do exist, in their hundreds, and whereas they are probably ratholes (or worse) in the cities (I really don't think you should even waste your time trying to find accommodation for $AUD1.50 in a place like Delhi.... set a limit at, say, $AUD20 and you can probably find something both your mind and your budget will be happy with), in the smaller towns you might find something rather nice in the under $AUD5 range. In Hampi we paid 100 rupees for a double freestanding hut, with private bath, patio (with a hammock) and a river view. The people in the hut next door didn't have a private bath, so they were paying 40 rupees a night... three sharing, that's 13 rupees each, less than you've paid for the electricity you've used up reading this. Bundi was another cheap place: the room there was 130 rupees for the double. In places like Varanasi you should be prepared to go up to at least 250 rupees, I think, and for a really nice place, maybe 450 rupees (which is what we paid for a view to dream about -- our photos are amazing!).

So, just go! Get off the train and walk past all the hotels (this is what we did, for instance, in Hyderabad, and we found a nice place for about 350 rupees within half an hour). If the prices are too high for you, go in anyway and tell them what you have to spend (but be realistic); they can either laugh at you, recommend a likely place, or find a room for you in their own establishment which will suit your budget.

If you're starting from Delhi, give my mate Sanjay an email and tell him you want the cheapest room in town. He likes Aussies, and he found a double for us -- TV, air-con, private bath -- for $US15, which, I know, is on the high side for you, but isn't too outrageous, is it? Sanjay works for a travel agency, so if you contact them, ask for him by name. His email is info@access-india.com.

If you're starting from Mumbai, then heaven help you. It's the most expensive city we saw in India, and the only real bargain I have heard of there is the one found by one of the posters on this site named Lyndie or Lyndy -- and I have forgotten the name of the hotel! Anyway, she paid about 500 rupees and was very happy; so a search through her posts may turn up something beneficial to you.

Good luck!

iwanttogoback

where are you going?

jarman_ah

Xealot:

That hotel in Mumbai I mentioned a couple of posts above was the Lawrence.... Lyndy paid 500 rupees and thought it was terrific. I didn't see it myself, so this is only hearsay, but I trust Lyndy's judgement -- in fact, she's a little harder to pease than I am, as I recommended to her one of our "best finds" in all of India (Aphonso's Guest House, Panjim), and she couldn't take more than a single night there (I could have happily stayed there for a week).

I really don't think you're going to do much better than 500 rupees in Mumbai... but, never mind, you'll "recoup" when you get to the smaller cities.

xealot

I'll be mainly concentrating on South India (Starting in Chennai) and once I'm done with Tamil Nadu/Kerala/Goa/Karnataka, heading to West Bengal or up to HP (or whereever else happens to take my fancy) if time/money allows. Luckily (from a budget point of view) I'm not interested in cities, although of course I'll have to at least stop off in Mumbai (it featured in a book I just read so now I'm intrigued!) seeing as I'll be in the area nonetheless. when I am in Mumbai I'll see if I can confirm that reccomendation for you jarman_ah

I understand that isn't going to be cheap accomodation everywhere I go and that if I have to pay $10 or $20 for a room sometimes then it's still a comparitive bargain by Australian standards. Overall I would like to keep to a budget of $20AU/day but I understand that this is less than 700rs so sometimes I will have to splurge a bit

Thanks for all the suggestions ... I think it'll be fun going around to hotels and hunting out the deals, hopefully I'll end up with some useful info of my own to add to this thread once I go.

iwanttogoback

indeed xealot, when you think about the price of hotel rooms here in oz, paying $15-$30 a night for what should be a very decent room is not to be sneezed at.
didn't go to any of those places, so i can't help and i paid $30 a night in mumbai, but it was very good, and i like to travel in reasonable comfort where possible.
cheers