Villa Varkala

If you enjoy paying for things that don’t exist—like a bed for a third person—this is the place for you! We booked a room for three, only to find one bed. No problem, they said, “We’ll bring another!” But after dinner, surprise! No bed. After some detective work (aka calling them), they finally delivered… a mattress so thin it could double as a paper napkin. Bonus: it was decorated with a charming layer of black mold! The room also smelt of mold. When we politely pointed out that sleeping on a biohazard wasn’t ideal, things got weird. They insisted someone sleep on it. We insisted we wouldn’t. They got aggressive. We got uncomfortable. They demanded full payment. We demanded an escape route. Spoiler: we lost. Save yourself the trouble—unless you love bad service, disappearing beds, and a side of intimidation.

We were a group of 8 people traveling from Bangalore and booked "The Villa" 1 month before the date. On the day we reached Varkala, the lady who handled our booking said that she "forgot" our booking and arranged another subpar hotel for our stay. We had to wait for hours for the booking and registration to complete. We later borrowed 4 scooters (1 Dio, 1 Activa, 2 Navi) from "The Villa" and 8 helmets were given to us. We had to clean the helmets (One of the vehicles did not have enough fuel to even reach the petrol bunk). After 3 days of traveling and using the vehicles, we returned the scooters and the helmets with absolutely no damage and with half tanks of petrol in them. On reaching the premises of "The Villa" the vehicles and helmets were inspected by the staff there and no damages were found. But we were accused of switching one "premium" helmet for a helmet of lower quality. We denied the accusation since that was the helmet given to us. All of us are working IT professionals from Bangalore and doing such a hideous act would be of no profit to us whatsoever. We even showed a photograph of one of us wearing the same helmet they gave us the very same day and yet they were not in a position to listen and demanded we pay 500 rupees as compensation. When we refused to do this as there was no fault on our side, the staff started shouting and hurling abuses at us. It even got to a point where a staff member threatened us by saying "Lock these people inside till they pay the amount" (which constitutes extortion and blackmail) in Malayalam. Fearing for our safety we were forced to pay the amount. I advise all tourists to avoid this place.