For some reason the VGrand books under the name OYO Premium, which completely baffled the auto rickshaw driver who headed off in the wrong direction, according to my iPhone and Google Maps. Some yelling and a phone call finally put that straight, but we arrived tired and frustrated after a long bus ride with a broken backpack.
We’d been fleeing the monsoon and flood ravaged East Coast, barely getting out before everything was shut down. With a computer crashing in Puducherry and taking a week to fix in Tritchy, and a driver from there to Thanjavur who seemed to drop us off where we did not want to go, and then a long local bus ride, we were a bit fried.
Manager Sundar Raman quickly put about putting things to rights and ushered into a very nice, large, quiet room looking out over palm trees and busy palm squirrels. He eventually got the backpack fixed, all our laundry sent out, done and back while we explored The Big Temple as the Meenakshi Aman temple is known — about 100 to 150 rupees away by auto.
And don’t miss the palace and look in the art gallery for one of the best displays of ancient bronzes in the world and a quiet caretaker who will walk you through in detail the history of the gods in amazing detail.
Restaurant manager T. Murugan set about finding things on the menu or had them specially cooked that someone who is chilli averse could enjoy. In the morning we dived into the pongal and something like pongal but sweet as our eggs and toast were being prepared
The floor staff were always right there with towels and water and offering to clean the room.
As we are both writers and photographers we went spent much of the day out exploring the temple and surrounds. The vGrand is really a business class hotel with huge meeting rooms, a theater and even a swimming pool that just does not seem to have quite caught on yet, but I think it has huge potential.
It was a great place to come back to, to chill out for the afternoon before another forage and explore. With a lovely room, good wifi and amazing room service we ended up having most of our meals in the room rather than hazarding downtown restaurants.
Despite the detours our first auto rickshaw took, we found the hotel is only a short walk up to the Mattuthavani bus stand where, because we were of long wait lists for the train, we booked an AC sleeper bus for what turned out to be a very comfortable to Ernakulum. The bus stand actually has a pharmacy, loads of snacks and drinks as well as the ubiquitous cel phone shops.
I’ve travelled in India for about a dozen winters now and stayed in hundreds of places, from bare 100 rupee rooms on up but the VGrand pretty much tops the list without breaking the budget. And I have never seen management and staff try so hard to please.