Hotel Shivay

I booked Hotel Shivay while visiting Kausani last October. Initially, after reading reviews from TripAdvisor, I was a little confused as there were both positive and negative feedbacks; still, as the hotel fit in my budget and the location was good, I wanted to give it a try. The best part of this hotel is its excellent location. The photograph you are seeing is from the lower road and you have ample parking spaces in front of the hotel. This road, towards the right side of the photograph, is going up and taking a bend, and you can access a higher stretch of the same road from the 3rd floor (as common with hill houses). The upper entrance at 3rd floor is located right in the middle of the marketplace, just where buses stop and shared jeeps line up. True, you cannot get a glance of the majestic Himalayan ranges from the hotel itself. Properties located on the higher roads are better to have a view from room, but at the same time they are costlier. What is the point of paying a lot extra, me and my wife thought, when we can stay at a budget accommodation and just walk a few paces to watch the mountains in the dawn and the dusk? And by a few paces, I really mean a few paces: you can just come out of the hotel, walk through the crossroads diagonally, and take the alley left to have a great view of the snow-capped peaks. However, if you want a better view uninterrupted by messy electric poles and wires (and take great photographs) you might need to walk up all the way to the Gandhi Ashram.