We had booked to stay here direct with the owner in the UK because the reviews on this site were very good and the hotel website is excellent. However this was the only accommodation, and we stayed at a diverse range of hotels, in our three week trip that we paid in advance for and I wish we hadn't. For a start we were charged the high season rate, at beginning of November, when every other hotel in Kovalam/Varkala don't start charging high season rates until 1st December. We paid £28 for a twin room when we had a similar one in Kovalam for £7 and Varkala for £8, and that hotel had a fantastic pool, (I have reviewed both Preeth in Varkala and Coco Land in Kovalam).
The room was ok but the electricity supply was terrible with the consequence that anything left in the fridge was warm and we never ever got hot water. We stayed for 3 nights and our towels were only changed once and our room cleaned only once - not something you expect at £28 per night! .Beware of getting any laundry done - I had to throw away a very nice bra/knicker set that had started off a lovely shade of pink but came back a horrid grey colour and the rest of the clothes were too damp to wear - had to dry them out at next hotel. The place is fairly isolated and the sea is not safe to swim in as it is very rough and there are no lifeguards, and no one else swimming there. The restaurant is very overpriced when compared to similar and much busier restaurants elsewhere, although Babu is a good cook and he's obviously trying his best. Ambi the co-owner is reasonably helpful but his English isn't so good that he understands all your requirements. We wanted some ayuverdic treatments and were taken to a backstreet place in Kovalam after a lot of effort, where there's a male 'doctor' to do female massages - a complete no no ayuverdic wise. The English owner's mum, Jackie, was staying and watched over us whilst using the internet - like we were going to access porn or something! she tried to be helpful but really wasn't!. When my travelling companion fell over and sprained her ankle, we were greeted with Jackie saying 'I fall over all the time' and yet every subsequent hotel we stayed at offered us medical assistance. This might be the place to stay if you're on your honeymoon and don't want any interaction with anyone else other than the pineapple sellers on the beach, but even if this is what you want you can probably get much better value elsewhere and I certainly wouldn't be paying up front. Maybe things are better when English owner Philip is in situ, he's certainly friendly enough on the phone, although prior to leaving for India he did tell me that I had to make a decision quickly about booking the room as other people were interested in our room - yeah right! We only saw one other couple resident during our stay. This is the first negative review that I've ever left and it doesn't make me feel good but then neither does being made to pay more for something than its worth.
