hotels | On My Canvas

Best Hotels in Udaipur Near Pichola Lake

Udaipur, and Rajasthan in general, have hotels that used to be traditional homes, or havelis: big houses for influential or large families. Those havelis have been converted into heritage hotels, their multicolored glass panes, heavy fort-like wooden doors, arched windows, and thick pillars a testament to time. So many haveli hotels have pools, bars, and airport drop-off and pickup. These guesthouses are fully equipped for the high-end domestic and foreign travelers who come in millions to see the best places to visit in Udaipur. (Even in Pushkar in Rajasthan, I saw beautiful artistic big houses.)

Three-star, four-star, and five-star hotels in Udaipur are abundant. But Udaipur also has more than enough accommodations for the economic or budget traveler. There are lake-view hotels in Udaipur, and there are hotels near Udaipur Railway Station. My list has both budget hotels in Udaipur city and the best heritage hotels in Udaipur.

homestays in mangalore a home with brick tiled roof a dog outside

My Most Recommended Homestays in Mangalore, The Coastal Karnataka

Mangalore, a coastal city in Karnataka, drew me in completely. I was there for two weeks and, in those two weeks, lived a lifetime. Mangalore is that kind of a place.

Perpetually rainy, filled with mangoes, coconuts, and bananas, and cradled by the Indian Ocean. Every street and room is fragrant of coconut oil, which is used for cooking. The fishmonger comes early in the morning, and fish is part of at least one meal daily. Fries and curries are made in a delicious spice paste. Probably you will eat your hand. I was about to.

We stayed on the first floor of an old couple’s independent house. It was monsoon. Their mango tree didn’t bear fruit, but birds chirped on it all day. The tree overshadowed some part of the terrace outside our rooms. The terrace was a green carpet of moss and algae. Mangalore is friends with the monsoon, which comes every year and flows unabashedly, proudly.

Some of the Best Bangalore Hotels – From Personal Experience

As my partner and I left our rooftop terrace in Bangalore to start our indefinite road trip, we started searching for budget hotels in Bangalore. Our car was still not delivered (more on the chaos in a separate piece), and we had to stick around the city a bit longer.

The most challenging thing about finding a good guest house in Bangalore is that in big cities hotels are expensive, even if poorly maintained. I have run into a lot of guesthouse owners who overestimate their property’s worth and charge exorbitantly. They calculate their property’s per day rent in terms of how much the building values but not on the services they provide and the current state of the hotel or homestay.

I stayed at a homestay in Bangalore where we almost went crazy fixing the place and handling the hosts. You can read more about this Bangalore Airbnb experience in my family-run guesthouses of India guide. At times, some of the stays at Bangalore were so dirty we checked out from the place the same day.

This Indian accommodations guide has extensive write-ups on my hotel experience in India.

And I understand the hosts’ apprehensions about Indian guests. A lot of us are notorious for making the place dirty, breaking others’ stuff, being rude and noisy, and not caring at all. But if we look beyond, the Bangalore hotel industry is run by staff most of whom aren’t trained in the hospitality industry. Well, that’s a problem in all of India I guess.

In a big city like Bangalore, I have realized it makes more sense to stay at a known or reputed hotel. Smaller and cheaper hotels in Bangalore offer poor services (maybe because their costs are high but can’t be recovered in budget pricing? or they just don’t know any better). And star-rated hotels in Bengaluru have to function well because they cater to a wide audience. Homestays in Bangalore are a gamble.

In the above two guides, you will read me discussing more on such Indian hospitality problems. Today I want to write about these three guesthouses-cum-best-hotels in Bangalore I loved staying at. I booked them on different occasions and here sharing my honest reviews.

Please note: This is not a sponsored post by any of these accommodations in Bangalore. They don’t even know I’m writing about them.