The Worst Hotel Experience of My Life — Filthy, Unsafe, and UnacceptableThis is the worst hotel I have ever stayed at in my life.The photos make the hotel look brand new, but in reality, it is unbelievably dirty. It is located in the crowded, narrow, old, dirty and complicated area around Park Street. For a foreign traveler, there is basically nowhere decent nearby to eat or spend time. The local Indian street food did not feel hygienic to me, so unless you go to another area, you might as well prepare to go hungry.The hotel lobby is on the 4th floor. The entrance is through a narrow alley, and you have to carry your luggage up about one and a half flights of stairs before reaching an old-fashioned elevator that looks like it has been there since the colonial era.The walls along the way were filthy, with stains everywhere. The entire place smelled damp and musty, and the walls were covered in black mold and dirt. It looked more like an abandoned building than a hotel.The room was even more shocking.Cockroaches were running everywhere, crawling out from underneath the bed. I was so horrified that I seriously considered leaving immediately and paying for another hotel. Unfortunately, the surrounding area did not seem to have any place that I would consider clean. Avoiding this hotel would probably just mean encountering another dirty place nearby.So I had no choice but to buy a can of cockroach spray and spray almost every corner of the room.The bedsheet was torn, and the pillow cover had holes that looked like cigarette-burn marks. The walls inside the room were covered with disgusting stains in dark red, brown and black, all mixed together.I had to put my own clean sheet on top of the hotel’s bedsheet just to survive the two nights I had already booked and paid for.In short, the room was basically a cockroach nest.When I opened the lid of the trash bin to throw something away, I found a whole swarm of tiny newly hatched cockroaches crawling all over the lid. It was absolutely horrifying.I had to use almost an entire can of insect spray just to make the room temporarily tolerable. I was even afraid to open my suitcase because I was worried that cockroaches would crawl inside and come home with me.I made the mistake of trusting what turned out to be misleading or fake-looking reviews when I booked this place. I later learned that fake reviews are reportedly a common problem in India, so travelers should be extremely careful when choosing accommodation based only on online reviews.I would absolutely NOT recommend staying here, regardless of the price. Even if it were extremely cheap, I would still advise anyone who is not accustomed to extreme dirt and poor hygiene to stay somewhere else.There is another serious problem: the room door has NO inside latch or proper internal lock.There were all kinds of people coming in and out of the hotel, and I felt extremely unsafe. While sleeping, I had to place my suitcase between the bed and the door so that someone outside could not simply push the door open and enter my room.Ironically, the only “positive” thing I can say is that the gap between the bed and the door was just wide enough for my suitcase to fit perfectly and block the door from opening from the outside.And there is more: there was NO hot water and NO internet.When I complained, the hotel staff simply said that both were broken. And apparently, that was supposed to be the end of the matter.After checking out, I went back and asked if I could use the toilet one more time. While I was there, I saw the staff simply rearranging and folding the blanket on the bed. They did NOT change the bedsheet or the pillowcase.Thankfully, I had covered everything with my own clean bedding and personal items. Otherwise, the thought of sleeping directly on those sheets is absolutely horrifying.If you are considering staying here, I strongly recommend bringing your own sheets, pillowcases, and other per
Solo Traveller • Japan • Sep 2026
