If anyone asks me if he/she should stay @ the Clark’s in Varanasi, my answer would be a ’’BIG No-No’’. I have not seen such poor quality cost so much before. Poor quality both in terms of cleanliness and service.
The hotel is supposedly a 5 , but honestly, the unstar-ed Hotel Surya down the street is much cleaner and classier. A double room costs Rs4500/night(USD ~100). I wanted a very clean hotel because I have a very naughty toddler who has a knack of finding dirt even in the cleanest places. When I contacted the hotel on the phone, I was told that it is a 5 property and hence clean. Only after checking in, I realized that star-rating and cleanliness have no correlation.
First, we were given a room that had a dirty carpet, rickety furniture and a stained comforter. We went down to the restaurant and the carpet there was dirtier - perhaps it has never been vacuumed after being installed! The maitre’d just pointed towards a table when we walked in. No ’’hello, good afternoon’’ etc. My daughter was thrilled to see the restaurant. She didn’t have to hunt much for dirt, it was everywhere, the carpet, tablecloth, window sill, name it...Yuck! The waiters were busy catering only to the white tourists. Perhaps they thought we didn’t deserve to be treated well because we had brown skin similar to theirs.
We checked out the next day. I was relieved and my daughter was unhappy. After all, so much muck would not be available so easily to her anywhere else. For the rest of the trip, we stayed for a part in Hindusthan International and a part in Surya.
Hindustan International’s service was very good, management tried its best to make our stay comfortable. The restaurant was very good. But I wouldn’t say the room was worth 3500INR(~USD90).
Hotel Surya was best value for money. It is a no frills place. The super deluxe room was 900INR+taxes(~25USD), the room was much cleaner than Clarks. The service was also much better. The only drawback was the mosquitoes. I would suggest you carry mosquitoe repellent and also request that your room be sprayed.