When a hotel burns its plastic down the alley way next to the hotel, you might be a little concerned. When the flames and acrid smoke lick their way up the side of the hotel into your open window you'd be justified in being concerned. When you make a complaint to the acting manager you'd expect him to do something about it. When nothing is done about it and then are LIED to by the acting manager that the fire has nothing to do with the hotel, only to find out that it is the hotel staff responsible for the fire, you've got a right to give this hotel one out of five on Trip Advisor. And that's just the beginning...

The saga of the dirty bed linen has probably been documented already by my wife. The incident was a joke as time and again room service brought in dirty sheet after dirty sheet to replace the dirty sheets we were complaining about. The pillows were beyond disgusting, covered in nasty yellow stains. Unacceptable.

The location is good and the breakfast was great. The restaurant manager, Dennis, should really be managing the hotel as he was spot on. Energetic and fun, he seemed genuinely interested in our concerns. Not so the acting manager who just lied his way through our stay. Not once did he act upon our concerns. In fact he ignored us upon our arrival as we sat around in reception waiting for 10 minutes for something to happen. No one met us as there was no one behind the desk! The assistant manager, meanwhile, just played music on her phone and laughed with work colleagues, ignoring guests. She was sweet enough but one just gets the impression that there is no staff training at the Regency. It wouldn't take much to make this a decent hotel, yet it was far from it.

The hotel has potential. The rooms are large and the roof-top views are fantastic. The breakfast, as already mentioned, was great. But when a hotel is guilty of burning all its rubbish up the side of the building in "Green Sikkim", one has to question the authenticity of its environmental concerns.

Oh, forgot to mention that when we booked this hotel we were told we would get free wi-fi access. This was printed on our confirmation slip. Not only was there no wi-fi, we were told by the assistant manager that Pelling is a non-wi-fi zone! Any fool knows there is no such thing as a non-wi-fi zone. This was simply another lie made up on the spot. Pathetic.

Finally, after asking the acting manager to fax my complaints to the real manager, a man we never once heard from in our five days at the hotel, I received a telephone call. Now that's a good sign, yes? No, he pleaded with me to write to him first before writing up my review in Trip Advisor, proving the point that it doesn't matter how much you complain to the management about your concerns, the only thing they care about are their ratings.

If I had been paying $20 a night for this hotel these issues wouldn't have bothered me (except the burning plastic, which no hotel should be doing). I wasn't, though. This hotel is quite expensive, so I would recommend heading for somewhere like the Kabur Hotel instead.

Poor.

This is a bad hotel. The room doesn't have any view. We reached the Hotel at 4:00 PM and still the room was not ready. The restaurant didn't offer lunch. In the Dinner, it only offers buffet which is quite expensive. The staff are not very helpful. Overall not a recommended hotel.

Another disappointment. Such a shame. We started off so well during our journeys around India over the last year, with friendly and well-run homestays and hotels, but this last trip spewed out two rubbish places. This is one of them. (The other one was Saikripa in Gangtok, see my separate review).

These are some examples of what happened, which may explain why I disliked this place:
* Upon arrival we were left to wait in reception for 20 minutes. There were no other guests there. The front of house man rushed up and down stairs, telling us he would be back soon, but not explaining the delay. He ordered us tea and perfunctorily flung welcome scarves round our necks. He was distracted, disinterested and avoided eye contact.
* The sheets and towels on the bed were dirty. We asked them to be changed when we were out. They were exchanged with even dirtier versions. I turned back the top sheet and discovered blood on both sheets. We called the duty manager to the room who apologised and had housekeeping bring new linen: they were filthy too. It took FOUR changes before we got clean sheets, each time I had to check them and found them stained. I took the pillowcases off in front of the manager and house-keeping to discover brown stained obnoxious pillows underneath. Outrageous.
* The hotel states it has wifi, but it does not. A feeble excuse was given about the mountainous area not being suitable for wifi. Nonsense, my Docomo dongle worked there. In any case, the website promises a facility which the hotel does not have. It misrepresents itself.
* When the electricity went down (a common occurrence in Pelling, for which I don't blame the hotel and actually don't mind) the same front of house manager sat on a bench opposite the hotel, smoking and ignoring the phone.
* The same front of house man only spoke to me about three days in, when he told me about a homestay operation he is running privately in Darjeeling. He tried to sell me a holiday there.
* The hotel burnt plastic every day at the side of the hotel, so that the smoke permeated all the rooms. When my partner complained he was told it was local people, not the hotel. We could clearly see the hotel-uniformed staff building and burning the bonfire. "Clean Sikkim"?
* The bottled water which was supposed to be placed in our room every day, never materialised. Each day I had to ask for it. I gave up after a while.
* The hallway was piled high with bed linen, towels and dirty trays throughout the day. It was a mess.
* The list price for this place is between 3500 to 4500 Rs, which is ludicrous considering the service here. We got a deal through Tripadvisor, so weren't as angry as we would have been had we paid full price.
* The restaurant woke us up by phone at 8am on the first morning telling us breakfast was ready. Why? We asked them not to ring us again. Although the restaurant staff were better than the rest of the hotel, showing some spirit and attention to detail, they changed breakfast times each day without notifying the guests. We never knew when it would commence, anything between 7 and 8.15

Some of these points may sound trivial, but when you add together all the things that were relentlessly wrong with the hotel, I hope you will realise why we disliked our stay so much. Most of the faults could be easily solved with good management and some attention to detail. Unfortunately no-one seems to care. The owner/manager was nowhere to be seen during our stay. It was only when we filled in the comments form at the end of our visit, and told them we would be writing up our visit on Tripadvisor, that he rang my partner to beg him not to post anything negative.

Having paid up front we were unable to cancel the rest of our 5 night stay, but we spent one night away at Kechoperi Lake in a 300 Rs per night room. It was far cleaner and better value.

Lonely Planet describes Newa Residency as a “stylish choice” and a “triangular slice of modern architecture”. It may well have been lovely when the representative was there, but, like so many of the hotels listed in LP, they have rested on their success and let standards slide.

Pelling as a resort is a pretty horrific concrete strip of characterless hotels, which was built by the tourist industry, with no heritage of its own. Talking to the locals we discovered the hotels are owned by absent Indian landlords who are not from the area. The only place with any character is Hotel Kanbur. The only attraction it has to offer is the morning view of the Kanchenjunga massif at dawn.