B&B Review: Mrs. Bandhari's Guest House in Amritsar, India

If you don't want to be shivering in your sheets, don't stay at Mrs. Bandhari's Guest House during winter in Amritsar. During our first trip to India in December 2007/January 2008, we decided to enter India via the Wagha/Attari border with Pakistan and spend one day in Amritsar before heading on to Delhi.

We booked Mrs. Bandhari's after reading the glowing reviews on some travel sites online, but we were quite disappointed. We were looking for a quiet place that wasn't in central Amritsar, and a place that we could relax and start our vacation well. Since Mrs. Banhari's was in the Cantonment section, we knew we wouldn't really be a in a central area, and we were expecting an old colonial house.

When we arrived we found out that the current rates were much higher than quoted online on different travel sites. A double room was about 2000 rupees ($40) per night.

The grounds were nice, and the rooms were spacious. Ours certainly had some quirky colonial décor, and there was a pool that can be used in summer. Our main problem was that the rooms were bone cold and our heater did not work. We arrived in the early afternoon, and when we saw our heater was not working we asked maintenance to fix it. They were unable to and had no spares. We could not even sleep it was so cold, and taking a shower in the morning was unbearable. The bathroom was quite large, so the steam from the hot water wasn't able to heat it up.

Aside from the cold, the owner has more than one large dog that made us feel very uncomfortable walking around. The dogs would come right up and nose into you, barking ferociously the entire time. It was impossible to sit outside in the gardens or walk around. I'm not a dog person, and I'm 5'2", so the dogs could have easily overpowered me and knocked me over. I did not feel comfortable sitting outside in the sun, but sitting inside in the rooms was freezing.

We were able to easily catch a bicycle rickshaw to the Golden Temple and Old Amritsar, but the guest house did not offer much help in finding transport. For our early morning station drop off, we got quoted a very high price for a taxi by the hotel taxi driver. Then when we got to the station, he didn't have any change and we were running late so we had to give him extra. He said we could get the change when we came through Amritsar again the next week, but we'd had such a bad experience we'd never go back even for the change.

Otherwise, the gardens were nice and the rooms had an interesting colonial decor. In the spring or autumn, it would certainly be much nicer, but the rooms are overpriced no matter what season you stay there. The food offered at the hotel was okay, but again it was overpriced compared to other places in Amritsar. This B&B is popular was overlanders, and can be found at 10 Cantonment, Amritsar 143001, India.