All the rooms in the hotel have an attached bathroom, with a shower, basin, and supplied small bottles of toiletries. The air-con was quiet, adjustable, and worked well. The room itself contained a desk, chair, wardrobe, TV with BBC World and CNN, two armchairs, 2 bedside tables, a coffee table and double bed. The room was painted white, with a dark green carpet, curtains, and matching bed cover and soft furnishings. The room was a little dingy, and looked as if it had not been painted for a while. My room contained two ashtrays, and smelt rather strongly of old smoke, but my mother’s room did not. If the smell might bother you, ask the hotel to give you another room.

The price of the room included breakfast, which was served in the Coffee Shop downstairs from 7am to 10am. The meal was a rather basic buffet affair, if you don’t like Indian food for breakfast. Apart from spicy foods, only toast and jam was available. The coffee shop is open 24 hours a day, which means that when you arrive you can buy bottled water here for 35 Rs (about £0.50) per bottle.

Outside the hotel, there were taxis and rickshaws always handy, so there’s no need to book transport when you intend to go out. The exterior of the hotel was very scruffy, and looked in need of urgent redecoration, but the inside was in much better shape. Hotels are much more expensive in Delhi than in most of the country, and this one, though not amazing, is fine and reasonable value for money; we paid 2,600 Rs per night per single room including breakfast. It is centrally located, on Connaught Place, which while very convenient is also pretty noisy at night, bearing in mind Indian drivers’ constant use of the horn!