RISHIKESH, INDIA
Minted: in the foothills of the Himalayas, near the source of
the Ganges — it’s no wonder that Rishikesh is one of the most spiritual
places on earth. You’d have to be a robot not to feel some inner stirrings
when you’re looking at scenery like this. Ananda makes the most of it: a
maharajah’s hilltop palace with 75 peaceful, minimalist rooms, a long, long
menu of ayurvedic spa treatments, yoga courses, Yantric art (it’s all about
visions of cosmic sensuality, apparently) and extremely tasty organic grub.
Kate Winslet, Melinda Gates and Jerry Hall have all communed with their
inner selves here, and it’s been named the world’s top spa so many times,
it’s starting to sound like a mantra. Pricesm are on a correspondingly
astral plane. If you find yourself meditating on the size of the bill, this
isn’t the place for you.
Doubles from £250; call 00 91 13 7822 7500 or visit www.anandaspa.com
Skinted: for a cheaper way to align your chakras, but with no
compromise on comfort, get your share of yoga lessons and ayurvedic
treatments at the Glasshouse on the Ganges, 15 miles from Rishikesh up a
winding mountain road. It doesn’t have the Ananda’s spiritual (or financial)
intensity, but it’s just as satisfying, albeit in a more low-key way: a
Raj-era bungalow and six cottages housing 13 guest rooms, right by the
clear, fast-flowing High Ganges, with log fires for the winter and
sunbathing on the beach in summer, all surrounded by temples, ashrams,
frangipani trees and stunning mountain scenery.
It’s charming rather than luxurious, so the A list may never beat a path to
the door, but the Glasshouse is starting to make a bit of noise in its own
way — the hotel guru Alastair Sawday is a fan.
Doubles from £35; call 00 911 378 269224 or visit www.neemranahotels.com
AMALFI COAST, ITALY
Minted: Italy’s shoreline reaches its chic peak around
Amalfi, a stretch that combines history, glamour and natural beauty like
nowhere else in Europe. The queen of the coast is the Santa Caterina, the
hotel that broke Jennifer Aniston’s heart. (It’s where Brad and Angelina
were first spotted canoodling during the filming of Mr and Mrs Smith.) The
location is spectacular — perched high above the Gulf of Salerno, with lifts
down to the beach and a gorgeous saltwater pool — and the grand 70-room
pile, in the same family since it was built in the 1880s, is all simple good
taste, hand-painted floor tiles, swathes of bougainvillea, impeccable
service and top-notch food. Considering its status, the price isn’t bad —
but we can do better ...
Doubles from £170; call 00 39 089 871012 or visit www.hotelsantacaterina.it
Skinted: a mile or so away along the spectacular coast road
is the Hotel Villa San Michele — smaller, cosier, less grand, but just as
sumptuous in its own way. It’s also family-run, also perched on cliffs over
the sea (a little lower, maybe, but that just cuts out all that time spent
in lifts), and it gets the basics right: friendly service, balconies to make
the most of the tremendous views, and a great little restaurant serving
fresh, local, home-cooked food. It’s the sort of place where you’ll only get
a couple of choices for your main, but you’ll want both. You’ll need to be
healthy (plenty of steps), and parking’s a nightmare, but while the place
feels pretty isolated, it’s only five minutes’ walk from the bustle of
Amalfi itself. Relax on the stone terrace, sip a limoncello and
ponder: if Brad and Ange had sneaked away here, the paparazzi would never
have caught up with them.
Doubles from £67; call 00 39 089 872237 or visit www.hotel-villasanmichele.it
UDAIPUR, INDIA
Minted: Udaipur is arguably the most attractive city in
India, and certainly the most romantic. Every other lane or alleyway turns
up another fine palace or haveli (ornate merchant’s house) in creamy
white marble, all reflected in the still waters of lovely Lake Pichola. At
the centre of it all is the Lake Palace Hotel, a 250-year-old confection
that seems to float in the middle of the water. The sight is
postcard-perfect, especially by moonlight.
So far, so good — but there are drawbacks. First, by Indian standards,
it’s outrageously expensive. Second, when you’re actually in the Lake
Palace, you don’t get much a view of it. And third, though the hotel itself
has all the five-star trimmings, it’s strangely sterile inside.
Doubles from £240; visit www.tajhotels.com
Skinted: if you want to see the city of Udaipur — and the
Lake Palace hotel — at its best, you’ll do it from the marble rooftop
terrace of the Jagat Niwas Palace. This neatly restored 17th-century haveli
is just as venerable as its grander counterpart in the lake, but a
quarter of the size (only 29 rooms), and a sixth of the price. The rooms are
classically simple and stylish: sure, you might have to cope with the odd
power cut, and the hot water’s a bit sporadic, but that just reminds you
that you’re in the real India, not a theme park. The friendly staff are used
to bemused backpackers stumbling in, shocked that they can afford this level
of character and comfort: get a lake-view room, sprawl on a cushion in the
marble window alcove and wonder if the biggest marvel here is the view or
the price.
Lakeside doubles from £37; call 00 91 294 242 2860 or visit www.jagatniwaspalace.com
BARBADOS
Minted: no hotel in the world polarises opinion like Sandy
Lane. On the one side, you’ve got the massed ranks of Michael Winner,
propounding the theory that this is the crowning glory of the Caribbean, an
oasis of luxury and indulgence unmatched in the western hemisphere. On the
other, you’ve got the widely whispered view that all the acres of marble and
white-gloved flunkeys only amount to so much gaudy ostentation, a class-free
zone for rich chavs and “slebs” such as Wayne Rooney and Simon Cowell.
What’s beyond dispute is that the place reeks of money. Its revamp in 2001
cost a rumoured £200m, and the typical bill looks like a telephone number,
but you get what you pay for: huge rooms, plasma TVs, eye-wateringly pricey
fittings, 18-hole golf course, top-ranking spa, the lot.
Doubles from £500; visit www.sandylane.com
Skinted: if you want Premiership footballers, and chilled
towels handed to you on the beach, there’s no substitute for Sandy Lane. If,
however, you’re after an idyllic tropical holiday, in serious comfort but
with a soupçon more real Bajan culture, it’s waiting just eight
miles away at the Sea-U Guest House, near Bathsheba. On the more beautiful,
less developed east coast, it offers seven rooms in a lovely colonial-style
building high above the Atlantic surf.
Expect hammocks on the veranda, an honesty bar (no white-gloved waiters here)
and tasty local dishes (barbecued lamb, marlin in rum butter sauce) instead
of fancy five-star fusion. In short, the place feels untouched, authentic
and a bit of a find — which you certainly can’t say about Sandy Lane.
Doubles from £41; call 00 1 246 433 9450 or visit www.seaubarbados.com
LANGKAWI, MALAYSIA
Minted: the Datai is one of the most spectacular hotels in Southeast Asia. Set
in a rainforest above a private beach, it’s the ultimate Bond-villain
hideaway, albeit with a couple of hundred other people hiding away too. The
112-room deluxe hotel has the mandatory spa (pricey), and the posh western
restaurant (also pricey) with the fancy French wine list (very pricey), and
it’s a 40-minute taxi ride to anything resembling hoi polloi. Privacy is not
so much guaranteed as enforced.
Doubles from £220; call 00 60 4959 2500 or visit www.ghmhotels.com
Skinted: apart from incredible beaches, wonderful food and
delightful locals, one of the reasons you fly all the way to Malaysia is
that it’s cheap. Paying London prices for a hotel is madness, particularly
when you can stay in (relative) luxury for a quarter of the price. Bon Ton
is a beautiful resort of seven antique stilted fishermen’s houses
overlooking a water-lilied lagoon. The pool isn’t an infinity one ... it has
ledges, but you’ll manage. And the huts themselves are simply spectacular:
individually decorated, with plush fabrics and beautiful wood furnishings.
Several have alfresco bathtubs. Better still, the restaurant serves the best
food on the island, and it’ll cost you a tenner a head.
But what about my ginseng and raspberry body rub, you cry, like the spoilt
diva you are. Just hop on a moped to the beach a few minutes away; one-hour
massages start at £5, sea breeze included.
Doubles from £46; call 00 60 4955 3643 or visit www.bontonresort.com
ST LUCIA
Minted: Anse Chastenet was already the swishest resort on St
Lucia, but that wasn’t enough for its architect owner, Nick Troubetzkoy. He
had to go one better with Jade Mountain, a resort within a resort that
opened in October. The 24 infinity-pool suites (it’s all suites, darling)
are vast, and made to feel even bigger by the simple expedient of doing away
with the fourth wall, so you look straight out onto a grandstand view of the
island’s trademark Piton mountains. The roll call of designers includes
David Knox (tiles), Philippe Starck (bathrooms) and Janus et Cie
(furniture). All this above the best beach around Soufrière, itself the
prettiest part of the island. Hard to beat ... even harder to afford.
Suites from £455; call 00 1 758 459 7000 or visit www.jademountainstlucia.com
Skinted: the team of designers that worked on Crystals was a
little smaller than the legion at Jade Mountain. In fact, it goes by the
name of Monica Charles, the owner: along with her husband, Martin, she
conceived and built the resort’s five cottages from scratch, opening them in
2004. She’s clearly got an eye for it. They’re fabulous, in a rather quirky
way, full of dark local woods and splashes of bright Caribbean colour, with
comfy sofas, balconies, plunge pools (one of them in the branches of a mango
tree), some four-poster beds, and — yes — cracking views of the Pitons.
You’re tucked right back in the jungle-clad hills, a bumpy five-minute,
four-wheel drive from Soufrière — you’ll want to hire a car. All in all,
it’s the antithesis of Jade Mountain: rootsy, homemade and not a little
eccentric. Less “wow” factor, sure, but kick back with a sundowner at the
treetop bar and you’ll find it has the “aah” factor in abundance.
Cottages from £79; call 00 1 758 285 1984 or visit www.stluciacrystals.com
BALI
Minted: misty tranquility, terraces of green rice paddies
eddying down the hillsides, the distant sound of a gamelan orchestra
drifting across the waters of your private pool ... Amandari is a magical
place. It’s the best hotel in Ubud, and Ubud is Bali at its best, a hill
town packed with fabulous art and the island’s tastiest cuisine, surrounded
by breathtaking tropical countryside.
Amandari is outside town (a good thing: the centre can get busy), overlooking
the verdant Ayung valley. It’s as stylish as you’d expect, with thatched
suites, a swish spa, a fabulous infinity pool on the lip of the gorge — but
blimey, you pay for those designer trimmings.
Doubles from £430; visit www.amanresorts.com
Skinted: if you’d find it hard to appreciate the tranquillity
of Bali’s hills when you know the bank manager is leaving irate messages on
the answerphone back home, go for Melati Cottages, a mile or so from
Amandari in the village of Penestanan. You won’t be roughing it — the rooms,
in a cluster of six thatched cottages, are big, airy and neat — but it’s
their position, overlooking a succession of deep, deep green paddies on the
edge of the village, that makes this place special. The local gamelan
orchestra uses one of the hotel’s buildings, a short walk over the fields,
for practice, and you’re welcome to wander over for a listen: they’re
terrific, and when you know they’re playing for themselves rather than
tourists, the whole thing’s somehow more moving. Add in a pool, good food
and a warm welcome, and you’ve got a more intimate and authentic experience
of the island for a 20th of the price.
Doubles from £20; call 00 62 361 974650
