Sleepy hollow

Dire. My one word for the last hour&rsquos worth of what the driver politely calls a &lsquoroad&rsquo to Amanbagh. It starts getting bumpy after Alwar. Then, past Sariska, it just breaks up into rubble.

Pink. That&rsquos my first impression of the haveli-esque lobby and expansive suites we walk into on arrival. Pink, with lashings of green and peach. Not an ensemble I would be caught dead in, for preference, by the sound of it.

Oh no The partner&rsquos heartfelt exclamation as a troupe of bandarlog&nbspcome knocking on our French doors, causing him to run indoors &mdash in the opposite direction from the leader of the unruly crew that proceed to drink from our temptingly laid out, cool, green pool.

But this much I promise you if you don&rsquot follow in our footsteps you will regret it when you die.

As for us, we&rsquore raring to get away from Amanbagh soon. To trek up to Somsagar Lake, dug out in honour of the Emperor Akbar when he came calling on the local maharaja. The guide is waiting, sharp at 7.30 &mdash a little late in the day as morning walks go because we refused an invitation to yogasanas by the lake in favour of stretching in bed with morning tea, because the Oolong was excellent and the poached eggs perfect.

It is resident naturalist Sita Ram who awaits us after we line our bellies with breakfast, waiting to escort us through the quartz ravine with the marble steps &mdash polished by villagers&rsquo mojris and cattle hooves &mdash leading up to the CE 1598 watering hole now favoured by birds and animals. Bee-eaters abound, numbering almost as many as the nettles and thistles in the rocks. It&rsquos a short hike (40 minutes) that does call for businesslike boots and not slippers, but is also a beautiful breakfast spot if you can brave the climb on an empty tummy. (We thought breakfast at Bhangarh sounded better. Of which more anon.) But even sans a picnic basket, it is very, very beautiful to watch the day break and brighten on the water. An animist shrine to &lsquoSagar ki Bahu&rsquo seems perfectly in place, not far from the Meena village of Kala Para.

Coming home to the &rsquobagh, we feel like hobbits &mdash who cannot refuse a second breakfast of fat cauliflower paratha with an excellent set of homemade relishes. Some shredded raw papaya surprises but the star is a date chutney made with the windfalls from the property&rsquos own palms people are hired to come in each year to tap and top the trees, lest leaving them too fecund results in too much monkey business for genteel guests to stomach. Speaking of stomachs, ours are as stuffed as the flatbreads currently in residence there. So we amble on &lsquohome&rsquo past the central jewel of a green marble-cradled swimming pool beyond the lentil tiger poured on the courtyard by one of the resident geniuses, artist by day and flautist by night.

&lsquoHome&rsquo, which looked so pink at dusk, has taken on peachier hues in bright sunlight and gets romantically rosy by dramatic evening lamplight. We have one of the Pool Pavilions that march around the edges of the property, each with a garden courtyard leading up to the bifurcated, cupola-topped building guarding a 3m x 9m pool that is stone-chilled in summer, artificially heated in winter. Facing it is a boundary wall clearly of far more ancient vintage than these modern interpretations of Mughal-meets-Rajasthani architecture. It doubles up as monkey patrol path for the rhesus macaques and langurs that go foraging out and back each day. After dusk, though, it is hard to see the jungles as separate, with the low light highlighting the stars.

Hard to believe that just on the other side of the courtyard is a regimented geometric Mughal-style set of lawns and hedges, crossing over to the reflection of a very starry, starry night in the pools subtending the spa. Hard to believe, in fact, how sun-washed those treatment rooms were this afternoon when I got scrubbed with rose-tinctured salt and anointed in fragrant almond oil. Again, an unusual little experience, where spas by definition are dark dens in this country, fronted by huge and vaguely Southeast Asian receptions &mdash here, a small office with a desk and two chairs encourages you to quickly sign your medical waivers and get on with business sans pretence of exotica. None is needed. Where you are is not merely good enough but that&nbspgood.

The two domed rooms on either side of our &lsquopavilion&rsquo/haveli are living/sleeping space and bath respectively, the one with excellent acoustics complete with echo and the other with a skylight over the semi-sunken tub carved from a single piece of dark green marble, set like a jewel in the centre of the octagon of wash closet, his vanity, shower room, her vanity, her dressing room/closet, door to the poolside, his dressing room/closet and the door back to the foyer leading to the suite proper. The signature Aman daybed supplements the king mattress, both on orange marble platforms. The desk is raised on and carved from more stone (as indeed are the basins and flanking tables in the bathroom). French windows lead to the poolside patio, with loungers, a small smoking perch with chair and table and an anachronistically modern-Japanese style of low sunken dining arrangement.

&nbspIt is this that is draped in sequinned red silk and lanterns for our private dining experience, with a sitarist at the other end of the pool. A pathway of flower petals leads up to our table, with rangoli and urli. If you want to get even further away from it all, you could ask for your table to be set up on the library terrace or up on one of the chhatris topping the main building out front. It&rsquos closer to the stars and rather romantic, far above the patio where the main dining space spills out onto steps beyond the pool, fronted by an Indian quartet on the lawns. The yoga hall between the spa and gym, flanked by the main pool and the spa pool on either side, is another option, especially if there&rsquos a good bunch of you. Amanbagh&rsquos new general manager is planning even more venues &mdash a hut in the &lsquojungle&rsquo, for one, which will double up as cookery school by day. We, however, are charmed by the ease of everything coming right over to us, and the total privacy, and the convenience of being able to drop into bed or a hot bath once we&rsquore stuffed and sozzled like a Christmas turkey.

You&rsquoll notice I hardly mention the food, there. It&rsquos because we are charmed by the atmosphere, the music especially. However, the food alone is a pretty good reason to visit if you&rsquore coming as far as Alwar anyway. For one thing, it tastes refreshingly healthy &mdash oh, there&rsquos fat pats of butter and artistically swirled oils, bombastic meaty samosas and oodles of sweets but no matter how silly we stuff ourselves, the delicacies rest lightly in our tummies. For a second thing, the trip to the neighbouring vegetable garden (more small organic farm, really) convinces us of the freshness of and respect for produce. But most importantly, it is just darn good cooking, and we are hard put to identify their &lsquostrength&rsquo &mdash the fish curry is as good as the caramelized onion and Brie tart, the croissant could compete anywhere in Pondicherry, all eight soups we tried (from curried pumpkin to roast pepper gazpacho) are superlative, the pickled beetroot salad with peppery rocket leaves plus creamy cheese plus candied walnuts is a revelation of innovation, and the green coconut ice-cream is worth waiting for (they had run out the first day we asked). Speciality dining is expensive here though, and not just for the distance the food (sea fish, for instance) travels. 

Daybreak brings another early rising to savour that great cup of tea on the terrace before breakfast at Bhangarh. Built by Diwan Madho Singh, brother to the Maharaja Man Singh, this relatively unknown 17th-century archaeological site is the prize and the point of coming so far. It is India&rsquos own ghost town in the wild, wild west of our country, neighbouring the genteel rusticity that the much-vaunted cowdust tour makes much of. Supernatural stories are all very well, but the fort-town is marvellous &mdash serene, soothing, dramatic all at once &mdash in its own right. Four gates, clusters of temples, beautiful buildings, a jewellers&rsquo market, a dancers&rsquo haveli and priest&rsquos hall...and stories of those who dared the powers of darkness here disappearing before daybreak. Langurs en batallion swing their tufted tails off the ruined ramparts, supposedly abandoned overnight for fear of a curse, and clearly agree this makes a great picnic spot &mdash by day at least.

More than anything else, the unpeopledness of Bhangarh underlines how much the Amanbagh experience is about building a &lsquodestination&rsquo out of almost thin air. What is special here is that it is nothing special, so every day and yet so alien &mdash the &lsquosame old&rsquo experiences of maize and tobacco farmers, goatherds and traders highlight a familiarity with community that many of us have lost from our urban existence. There is thus something fresh, and refreshing, about the enforced closeness of the small-town rhythms and rituals. Something endearing about the ubiquity of the neon orange and yellow odhnis in the fields and the pigtailed and be-satchelled flocks of schoolgirls bicycling home in the afternoon with starched dupattas and collared kameez. Something awe-inspiring about the way the tolling of the temple bells and the cacophony of evening-aarti cymbals fading into the silence and the starry skies only the middle of nowhereness can produce in this day and age. There is a timeless quality that is strangely embattled in our own times, And the slightly showy welcome of Gayatri mantra and rooli-tying seem microcosmically apt for such environs. This is the Indian heartland, unlimited.

And yet, like so much of modern India, the invisible backdrop of history looms just beyond and beneath the surface. Not just Bhangarh, for Ajabgarh itself was once the hunting campsite of kings. And look at it now. The fort is closed to visitors. The monkeys patrol the happy hunting grounds, preying &mdash we noted with sorrow &mdash on stray plastic bags. The dam-top dining experience has been withdrawn lest it incite local envy and unrest.

As for the effort to make a peachy keen set of pleasure domes here in no man&rsquos land The stone-cut pools and octagonal single-piece marble basins, the locals trained for massage and dining table, the debates about whom to get and from which Continent for an astronomy guide, the excitement over coming-soon Indian speciality menus from north (Punjabi as well as Rajasthani) and south (Hyderabadi) with the arrival of a new executive chef, the care and pride occasioned by the resident crook-eared Marwari horses and pedigree-innocent dogs, the upkeep of the green lawns and old Ficus not only on the premises but even at Bhangarh&hellipare all shocking as well as reassuring. Somebody here &mdash everybody here in fact &mdash cares about giving you a good time, complete with a more spacious and respectful definition of the term.

And that&rsquos the motto you will bring home with you with a little bit of warmth and thoughtfulness, it is hospitality &mdash and not sights or sites &mdash that makes the destination. And days of nothing to do make the most rejuvenating holiday &mdash just like in the days of yore, when leisure was a luxury.

The information
Getting there
Nestled in Rajasthan&rsquos Ajabgarh valley, it&rsquos a good 4.5hr drive from the southern edge of Delhi, with the highway up to Alwar in great condition. Beyond that, it gets a little rocky until Sariska and then turns into patches of newly repaired rubble until the last turn into Amanbagh&rsquos very discreetly signposted gateway. If you&rsquore driving yourself, keep your eyes peeled for a small board and trackback lane on the left. Aman is happy to arrange transfers, complete with toasted nuts and Indian cookies secreted under the cushions.

The resort
Amanresorts&rsquo luxury resort in neo-Mughal style, Amanbagh&nbspis a low-slung set of stone edifices in an old royal camping ground. Theaccommodation is extremely spacious, with large suites and big bathrooms. Eight Courtyard Haveli Suites ($800) with small dining courtyard, eight Garden Haveli Suites ($850) with a small private garden as well as courtyard, and eight Terrace Haveli Suites ($1,100) with terrace seating reside in the two buildings flanking the main pool sixteen Pool Pavilions ($1,400) march around the boundary walls. The Indian residents&rsquo offer though makes it rather more affordable, starting at Rs 24,000 (Courtyard Haveli Suite) per night for a minimum 2N stay. See&nbspamanresorts.com.

What to see & do
The ASI-protected ruins of Bhangarh&nbspare just 15km from Amanbagh. On the edge of the Sariska National Park is the CE 1058 Narayani Mata Temple, where a Meena tribal priest conducts the evening aarti. Inside the park, the temple town of Neelkanth&nbspis 45min from Amanbagh, with over 80 beautiful little temples from the 6th century. The nearest entrance to the Park is just 35min away, and its tiger stripes are back after an inoculation from Ranthambhore in 2008. The hikes to Somsagar and the cowdust tour both make excellent excursions if you will take&nbspSita Ram&nbspfor a guide, and he can escort you on morning walks as well. Closer to home, there is of course the spa with a signature Maharani and Maharaja massage. Further afield, Jaipur is a day trip, 2hrs by car.