Corinne76
Google
This was the seventh hotel on our Jules Verne tour of Northern India, and we spent 1 night here. We knew before arriving that it was a 3 star hotel and therefore might not be as comfortable as the other hotels that we had stayed in, but the photos on the hotel’s website made it look like an inviting and quirky place to stay. ||The location is convenient for Jodhpur, being close to the city but away from the main hustle and bustle. The surrounding area is not very pleasant though, and there was a strong and off-putting drainage smell when we arrived. Once we passed through the entry gates, we were immediately struck by how lush the gardens were, and how nicely the hotel was laid out and landscaped. It definitely felt like a green oasis in the desert. Once we had checked in, the porters escorted us to our room (room 2, on the ground floor) and explained how the hot water and air conditioning worked, which was appreciated. The room itself had a lot of character, but was quite a bit smaller and darker than the other hotels that we had stayed in. It was quite hot in there, and there was no fridge, so no chance to have any cold water while we were in the room. The main issue was the bathroom though, it was very old fashioned and absolutely boiling hot, with no way to cool it down, other than to leave the bedroom door open and hope that the cooler air would filter through. We would normally have opened some windows to let the air flow through, but it was already the late afternoon by the time we had arrived, and we didn’t want to risk letting any mosquitos in (plus it had been 38c that day). So we put the fan and the air conditioning on and headed to the swimming pool to see if a swim would cool us down.||The swimming pool was quite a bit warmer than we expected, but in a nice way, as all of the other hotel pools that we had used had been freezing. It was really nice to swim in, as it was quiet and surrounded by greenery – definitely one of the highlights of the hotel. Afterwards, we went back to our room to find that it was barely any cooler than it had been when we arrived. We showered as quickly as possible to try and avoid increasing the temperature any further, before heading to the restaurant for dinner. ||We arrived to find that our group had already set up camp on one of the indoor tables, which was a great mosquito-avoiding strategy. They had also ordered some white wine, but it wasn’t very cold, so they had asked for an ice bucket and a load of ice. Subsequent bottles were no colder, and it was a warm evening, so we kept on having to ask for more and more ice, much to the bemusement of the staff (who were great). The food at dinner was unfortunately not very good – there wasn’t much choice, it had clearly been standing around for a while (with no heat sources to keep it warm) and the individual dishes were topped up very infrequently. On the more positive side, the fresh naan bread was excellent!||After dinner, we headed back to our room, to find that the bathroom was still boiling hot, and the bedroom wasn’t much cooler. We generally dislike sleeping with the air conditioning on, but the fan was not effective enough at cooling the room down on its own. Unfortunately, the air conditioning pointed directly at the bed, which made it too cold to sleep with it on. We eventually managed to get a workable overall temperature by leaving the air conditioning on and huddling under the duvets. Suffice to say, we did not sleep well.||After the disappointing dinner the previous night, we were not expecting much from breakfast, but this turned out to be much nicer – the fresh omelettes were particularly good, and the staff were great again. It was also nice to be able to sit out on the terrace (and we didn’t get bitten).||In summary, the Devi Bhawan is certainly a quirky place to stay, with lovely gardens, a great pool and helpful staff, but these positives were outweighed by our room and the food, neither of which were up to scratch. Because of this, we would not recommend staying at the Devi Bhawan at the current time.
