For those of you who want to run away from the daily stint to the land of the beaches- Goa, the accomodation wouldn’t matter much since you’l be spending more time outside your hotel checking out beaches, temples, beaches, churches, beaches.. haha . A very recent visit to Goa taught me that though the hotel you stay in does matter if its location adds to your convenience. I stayed at Hotel Sunflower (though the travel guy booked it in Hotel Sunshine, Baga and moved us here in the last minute) which was 2 mins from the most revered Calangute beach.
we arrived at the hotel in the early hours of dawn and had to wait till 9 a.m , cause thats when the ’next day’ starts. The ambience was decent , not the best for just decent. The guy at the reception whom I later started calling as ’ randeep hooda’ of D- the movie, was laconic in his talks, and till the end I couldn’t figure out from his rugged looks if he was friendly or just didnt know how to show it.. The rooms are small yet well maintained to suit the economic class. I went a day after the season-time(reportedly the season should end first week of Jan).
The rates were as follows- Ac deluxe - Rs 2000 Non ac - Rs 1500. which I thought was pretty nominal considering the hotel. The staff is helpful since we had to shift rooms twice and they transferred everything including the ’forgotten’ walet which I left in the previous room. The ’Triveni’ restaurant to the hotel however was all that savouring. The south-indian cuisine didn’t appeal to our tongues due to over use of coconut in almost every dish known. The ’pav’ used in the pav-bhaji was rock hard and heavily charged at Rs 10 per extra pav which I thought was totally not worth above 3 bucks with the tax.
Also be sure to order only what’s in the menu cause otherwise you could be paying through your nose without even realising. You could rent out bikes form the hotel which again depends on your bargaining skills. We rented out Honda Activas at Rs300 per day which we later realised was overpriced by atleast 100 bucks. However there are no hassles about submitting your licences or deposit since they have your luggage in the rooms.. ha!! One more thing for the ’bol-bacchans’ out there. In goa be prepared for two things:-
1) The overused cliche -’ yeh Goa hai’ by almost any Tom, Dick n Harry who takes pride in using it and marching to bash down anyone who doesn’t appear a native.
2)Never commit on anything just for the heck of it. We committed that we would return the bikes at 10 in the night and arrived at 11:30 thinking thta a hour and half isn’t much. But what ’isn’t much’ for tourists lazing around is ’serious business’ for the goans and we were fined for another day after long speech by the Manager and about how the bike-renter was furious at us and would kick our **s literally if we didn’t pay up. So folks!! Be wary about your words. More things to note.
Apart from the beach being at stone’s throw the hotel is located at the heart of the market, so you never feel left out , though the dog-barks keep you up at nights. Also the public bars in the vicinity keeps makes you wonder if you should ever drink water again or would just prefer a vodka instead. So a overall rating to this hotel would be Good , if all your looking for is a room to spend your nights.