Ciao must despair of some of us members and the near-geological timescale we seem to work on. I requested this hotel over three years ago and have finally got around to writing about it. Proof at last that if I'm given long enough I'll eventually get round to almost anything.

When and Why?

We visited Delhi at the beginning and end of a tour to Ladakh, high up in the Himalaya range. Ladakh is at such high altitude that you really can only sensibly go in the summer months and since there's no option other than to go through Delhi to get there, that's an absolutely dreadful time to be in the city in terms of the heat, but a fantastic time to get a bargain on a hotel deal. The Metropolitan was one of our summer bargains.

My love for Delhi

I love Delhi and nothing gives me more pleasure than to stay a few days in this fabulous city where I never run out of things to do. The only problem is that finding affordable hotels can be a complete nightmare. A few years ago I discovered the secret to getting a bargain on a good hotel in Delhi. It's very simple; you have to go at the peak of the summer when nobody else wants to be there. Suddenly when the temperature shoots up and the monsoon is about to arrive and nobody with half a brain would choose to be in Delhi, THEN you really can get a bargain.

On this particular trip we'd started out by spoiling ourselves with a night at the Imperial, a truly beautiful and very memorable hotel but an indulgence we couldn't afford to repeat at the end of the visit. For our final night I scouted around the hotel booking sites and hit upon the Nikko Metropolitan as it was then called. Knowing that it was a Japanese hotel chain I could be sure that - despite the rather reasonable price of around £65 for the night - it would be of a good standard. Japanese tourists don't DO 'slumming it'. I believe it's now no longer part of the Nikko group but I can't entirely confirm that and the new website shows no discernable changes to the hotel where we stayed.

Arrival and Check-in

The night before we'd been with our tour group at the horrible Jaypee Siddarth in the north west of the city. We booked a taxi to take us to the Metropolitan which took about 15 to 20 minutes. I wasn't expecting anything too marvellous but when we arrived we were quite impressed. To put it into context it's nowhere close to the sublime gorgeousness of the Imperial but it beat the pants off the Siddarth. The blast of air conditioned air as we entered the lobby was more than welcome since the temperature outside was well over 40C. The check in was friendly and polite and we were given chairs to sit in whilst two members of staff took our details, checked our passports etc. We were asked when our flights would be and they offered to book a car to the airport for us, told us about the various restaurants in the hotel and then issued us with our room keys.

The lobby is a large open space with light marble flooring, lots of pink armchairs and coffee tables and a few rather nice large bronzes. The floor is scattered with attractive patterned rugs and there are floor to ceiling windows looking out at the back onto the swimming pool. To one side of the lobby is a restaurant and the other is a rather fun bar with an African safari theme. We headed out to look at the pool - a rather stunning and good-sized pool with sun beds and umbrellas but in the heat of the day the only ones taking a dip were the pigeons. I don't know about other women but for me the idea of taking my clothes off to swim in such a conservative country just doesn't seem right and when combined with a fear or all manner of weird lurgies that could be in the water, I'm not likely to take a dip. Across from the pool and down some steps we found a very nice gift shop that offered a very wide range of products at high but not ridiculous prices. I can imagine that the Japanese habit of gifting makes it very important to have a hotel shop with lots of options.

The Room

Our room was small but pretty in light colours with a large bed and an armchair with an ottoman. There was a small desk/dressing table and all the necessary storage furniture. I didn't take detailed notes at the time but got a sense of a 'nice' but not extraordinary room. We had a window that overlooked a small local shanty town and strange as it might sound, it was fascinating to sit and watch the inhabitants wandering back and forth about their daily business. The bathroom was small but well equipped.

My worst travel nightmare

As we settled down to find our guidebook and plan our final assault on the city, I came across our flight confirmation and I experienced the cliched but eerily accurate sense of my blood turning to ice. I'd got the dates wrong and we were supposed to be on the lunchtime Virgin flight back to the UK that day and not the day after. Suddenly I could understand why I'd not been able to check in on line when we'd gone to the business centre earlier. I'd already missed the deadline. To say that I panicked would be an understatement. I'm generally a very unflappable person and I spend weeks in hotels every year without making stupid mistakes like that but the realisation of what I'd done stopped me in my tracks. We were on flights booked with airmiles and surely that would make us the lowest of the low when it came to changing our tickets. I'd just been made redundant and could see my miniscule redundancy money evaporating before my eyes.

When I'd started to breathe properly again we headed downstairs to the hotel's travel desk where two very calm and smartly dressed assistants called the Virgin office, explained the problem and put me through to their office. We were told there was no problem, it would cost £25 each to change the flights and we could pick up the confirmation at the airport. No worries! Of course I did worry and insisted that we'd go to the Virgin office and get the new tickets straight away.

Dinner, beer and a bit of mooching around

Returning to the hotel in the evening we ate in the ground floor restaurant called 'Patio' which serves a wide range of international cuisine. The prices were predictably a lot higher than elsewhere in the city but that was to be expected and still a lot cheaper than a 4 star hotel restaurant in Europe. We were just looking for a quiet stress-free dinner and not after a gourmet delight. Outside at the pool families of Indian guests were splashing around, scaring off the pigeons and having a great time. We popped to the bar for a beer and headed off for an early night.

In addition to Patio they have a Japanese restaurant that has won awards for its food as well as an Indian restaurant.

Check out - and they're off

The next morning we did get a bit of a shock at just how much tax the hotel had managed to add on to the bill due to the bizarre Delhi law that base luxury tax not on how much you paid for the room but on what the Rack-rate was. As we'd booked through Expedia whose confirmation unhelpfully said 'Rate may or may not include taxes' we were rather more annoyed with them than with the hotel - the taxes amounted to about 25% extra on the bill.

The hotel had arranged an air conditioned car to take us to the airport at a reasonable price of around £15. I certainly recommend to anyone who has an option to avoid the early morning or late night flights out of Delhi and go for the much more civilised lunch time departures

The Metropolitan has a lot going for it - it's exceptionally quiet in a city where peace is definitely at a premium. The bar and restaurants are not outrageously expensive, the pool is attractive and the shop would be handy for anyone passing through who doesn't have time to get out and hit the city for a bit of retail therapy. I wouldn't pay full price and would really only go for the hotel if I could get it at a bargain, but we did enjoy our stay, found the place very comfortable and the staff extremely calm and courteous.

We've thought of returning to the Metropolitan but the prices have never come close to being as low as we got that summer - typically they've been in the £150 to £200 range and I'm just not willing to pay that sort of money especially since I've found the Hotel Madonna and her sister the Megha Sheraton.

If you are interested, most of the hotels mentioned in the review are also reviewed here on ciao - with the exception of the last one. More over-due homework!