Tourist Rest House

We arrived around 10 p.m. with our child and spouse, and the attendant first said he couldn’t find our booking, or seemed to be pretending he couldn’t. After some back and forth, he said the rooms were all taken and he needed to arrange the two we had booked. Five minutes later, he said one was ready and the second would be available in 15 minutes, so we checked into them one at a time. The washroom basin had no water, the room wasn’t properly cleaned, and there was hardly any room to sit on the toilet. The whole stay was awful and completely unhygienic. I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone. Think very carefully before booking, and don’t trust the property photos. The real place was a shock compared with them.

I kept extending my stay because, compared with other places in Rishikesh, this one felt comfortable enough, despite the downsides. The hotel itself was quiet and in a nice location, but note that the bridge across the river is closed. You’ll need to walk around or take a boat, which starts running around 9 or 10 a.m. Room quality varies a lot. The cheapest ones are very basic and may be dirty, moldy, and windowless. The pricier rooms are much better and have their own bathroom, though the price difference can be substantial. It’s still among the better options around. Staff can help book rafting, although arranging it yourself is easy too. Free water is available, and the Wi-Fi is very poor, only working sometimes and in certain spots.

When I arrived at midnight, they told me to find somewhere else on my own because my room had been given to another person. They hadn’t updated this on the booking site or checked whether I was still coming. The staff blamed me for not paying in advance, but they could at least have called to confirm before giving the room away. They were disrespectful and arrogant. The whole experience was awful.

The rooms felt cramped and stuffy, with no balcony or view. There’s nowhere nearby to park, and the parking is about a kilometre away and costs Rs 200 per day. The area around the hotel is dirty, with nowhere to walk nearby, and it’s far from Swarg Ashram. I wouldn’t recommend it for senior citizens. The staff weren’t cooperative either. A waste of money.