Whether you book directly with Indian hotels or use international hotel booking sites, sooner or later you’ll probably come across the concept of ’24 hour check-in’. I believe – though I can’t be sure – that it’s a uniquely Indian idea and it’s one which…Read More

Whether you book directly with Indian hotels or use international hotel booking sites, sooner or later you’ll probably come across the concept of ’24 hour check-in’. I believe – though I can’t be sure – that it’s a uniquely Indian idea and it’s one which can be very useful and may save you a lot of money, or conversely could see you stressed to the max about being thrown out on the streets in the middle of the night.


The idea of 24 hour check in is that you can arrive at a hotel at any time of the day or night, and the room is yours for 24 hours (or 48, or 72 and so on) from the time you arrive. It sounds fairly obvious but it’s an unusual model for hotels to use. In most countries, if you want to arrive before the official earliest check-in time, or leave after the latest check out time, you will find it’s either impossible or you’ll be charged an extra night (or part thereof) for the extra time. Since we like to travel by rail in India and most ‘overnight’ trains roll into town ridiculously early, the standard European idea of killing time until 2 in the afternoon just won’t work. Many Indian cities are completely inactive at 6 or 7 am and your assumption that there’s sure to be somewhere at the railway station to have breakfast and kill time, or you’ll roll into a McDonalds for an egg McMuffin and a read of the newspapers, just isn’t feasible.


In Mangalore we had a 24 hour check in deal. We rolled up to our hotel at about quarter to six in the morning, thinking we could sit in the lobby for a couple of hours and then check in. That really wasn’t an option. Whilst they subsequently didn’t have a problem with us hanging around the lobby in the day time after we’d checked out, the night manager clearly couldn’t conceive of two Brits wanting to sit around when they could be in their lovely room.


Whilst this meant we were showered and in bed by 6.30 am, the nagging fear at the back of my mind was "What the heck are we going to do when they throw us out at 5.45 am in two days time?". Fortunately we’ve been in this position many times so we knew what to do.


First things first, on the day before you leave, go and ask reception if you can have a bit longer. Ask nicely, look a bit pathetic, and hope they take pity on you. It’s not good for any city to have foreign tourists sitting on the street at day break looking sad and dejected. Our last night was a Sunday which is traditionally the quietest night of the week so we had a good chance of an extension but unfortunately it was also a holiday and the hotel was almost full. We were told we could stay until 7.30 am. If you can’t get any extra time for free, try to negotiate to pay for a few hours. We’ve never had to do this – but if charm and looking pitiful won’t work, an offer of a cash payment may persuade a receptionist. If the hotel knows that they won’t have new clients arriving until the afternoon, you may be able to get a bit longer. I would also recommend that you email the hotel before you arrive to let them know you’ll be coming at a ridiculous time. That way you have a better chance of a room being ready, and you’ll have done your best to keep them informed – and made a small deposit in the ‘favour bank’ for when you’re ready to ask for one back.


A few years earlier when we’d stayed in Hampi, we knew that at the time we’d arrived – around 6.30 am – there were no staff to check us in. We’d been shown to an empty hut by a young assistant and told to come back later to do the paperwork. Consequently we knew that at 6.30 am on our departing day, nobody would be available to check us out. They happily gave us a free extension to 10 am. Staying in an upmarket B&B in Bangalore, we appealed to the lady owner for a little longer, and made sure she got something from us by agreeing to book our taxi to the airport through her rather than going elsewhere. In Hyderabad, we got so friendly with the owner of a budget hotel, making sure he knew we’d be writing reviews when we got home, that we were offered a few more hours free of charge.


24 hour check-in is a great bargain and if you know how to use it, it can save you a lot of money. Just take care to keep on good terms with the hotel, be nice to everyone, take time to chat to the front desk staff and don’t just stay in the room and hope they won’t notice. Ask, ask nicely and if you have to, pay a little extra if you can. If you can’t, be sure to ask to leave your bags whilst you go off and kill time somewhere else. Sadly, it’s very rarely found in the biggest cities or in highly touristic places but check when you book to see if it’s available. If you’re arriving really early or very late, it can mean you avoid paying for an additional day’s accommodation.


If you arrived stupidly early and went straight to bed, and if your rate included breakfast, tell them when you check in that you’d like to use your breakfast from the first day on the day that you leave. We happily (and greedily) stretched our breakfast out to two and a half hours by drinking lots of coffee and reading all the papers. Nobody seemed to mind or even to notice that we were taking our time.
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When we told people our holiday plans included a weekend in Mangalore, we got used to their reactions. Most would correct us – thinking that we were obviously a bit stupid or suffering from speech impediments. "Ah yes" they would say "Bangalore, centre of India’s…Read More

When we told people our holiday plans included a weekend in Mangalore, we got used to their reactions. Most would correct us – thinking that we were obviously a bit stupid or suffering from speech impediments. "Ah yes" they would say "Bangalore, centre of India’s IT and call centre industries". We patiently repeated ourselves and insisted that we were indeed going to Mangalore and, having previously been to Bangalore, we were in no rush to go again.


To some degree I can understand their confusion. Bangalore is famous all over the world; Mangalore is barely famous even inside India. OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but not too much. We went for several reasons. Firstly – in the tradition of the great climber George Mallory, we went ‘Because it’s there’. Secondly, we had an open invitation to "Come and see my city – and see how much nicer it is than Bangalore" from an Indian friend and thirdly, it just happened to be conveniently between Kochi and Goa. Faced with an extraordinarily long train journey or two slightly more manageable ones, we decided to change our tickets and chill out by the sea.


Mangalore is a coastal city in Karnataka, just over 200 miles west of Bangalore. Whilst in Europe that would be a three hour drive, you can expect to take the best part of a day by road. Fortunately we approached from the south by rail on an overnight train from Kochi. The city has a population of just short of half a million, making it the 21st largest city in India though it’s a mere minnow compared to the major cities of Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata


It has a long tradition as a port and ranks as India’s 9th largest based on the amount of cargo it handles. It’s also the main port for coffee exporting and handles a lot of agricultural products from the fertile and tropical areas nearby. None of this is going to have you reaching for your credit card and planning a visit. Actually, if you’re looking for world class attractions, you’re unlikely to choose Mangalore but it does have a surprising amount of rather fun things to do if you’re looking to pass a couple of days and aren’t expecting the Louvre or Buckingham Palace. You will probably struggle to find too much information about what to see and do – in fact I think my guidebook allocates no more than a few column inches to the city. However, go with the right attitude and you can find charm in this place. Fortunately we got a good briefing from our friends on what was worth a look.


If you can, do try to find a way to get to the beach. We were lucky to be taken to a stretch of spotless sand near to a club for merchant navy people. In any European city it would have been packed with sunbathers, but late on a Saturday afternoon we had the place to ourselves. We were also privileged to get taken to a ‘club’ – one of the sports and social societies to which our friend and her family belong.


On the Sunday we indulged in masses of Mangalore tourism. One of the most unique things about the city – and do be surprised because it’s never happened in any other city we’ve visited in India – is that auto-rickshaw drivers DO use their meters, even for tourists. I have a greater chance of winning Miss Universe than getting a Delhi taxi or rickshaw driver to use his meter but in Mangalore, all we did was smile, tap the meter and say "Please". Not one driver challenged us. Mind you, they don’t see many tourists.


First stop was the spectacular Kadri Manjunath Temple, a complex of temples along with some astonishing statues, a bathing pool and plenty to see. From there we headed to the Bejai Museum, one of the oddest (and lamest) museums we’ve seen in a country with plenty of competition for that honour. Lunch followed in one of the city’s air conditioned malls and then we flagged down another driver to go to the Sultan Battery, an old (and no longer very original) riverside fort. Our driver refused to leave us there because he knew what we didn’t – that it was a five minute attraction and one from where we’d never be able to find a driver to take us back. I handed him my notebook with the last of our must-see attractions, St Aloysius chapel, and he not only drove us there, but hunted for someone to show us around, sat and listened to the guide and then took us back to the hotel – again recognising we hadn’t a clue where we were and would get lost if we tried to find our own way.


Faced with killing time for a few hours before our train the next day, I’m ashamed to say we did wander off and find another mall, wandered round the shops and drank over-priced cappuccinos. It’s fair to say that you could probably squeeze most of what we did into a 24 hour visit to the city and if you had longer, there were a few more temples on offer but I’m confident we saw the best – and possibly some of the worst – of what the city had to offer. If you have limited time, my recommendation would be to see the Kadri Manjunatha temple and St Aloysius chapel. You won’t miss much if you skip the museum and the Sultan Battery.


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