The Park

The Park opened its glass-and-shiny-metal doors in February, and the punters have been rolling in with some regularity since then. Not surprising: it is the first five-star hotel in the city, and with its focus on the business traveller, it fills a much-needed niche for the very many software and BPO companies in a city that is beginning to feel its oats a bit.
It is unpromising at first sight: a large white brick of a building plonked next to the highway at Belapur; though, compared to some of the other truly ghastly edifices that have been inflicted on that particular node of New Bombay, it is, at least, inoffensive. The hotel’s literature seeks to lay the blame on inspiration from Modernism and Le Corbusier. Being a philistine, all I can say that if I was paying several thousand rupees a night for the privilege of staying in a five star, I’d like the place to look and feel like one. White walls, hard lines, lots of glass and metal? Nada. Sure, coloured lighting does soften and soothe the contours post-dusk, but even then the atrium and corridors look like a gussied-up barracks. In the rooms, a little more attention to the placement of the furniture would improve things no end. For example, in my deluxe room, the fancy flat-screen TV is off in one corner, at an angle from the bed and miles away from the couch—which faces the wardrobe—with an awfully uncomfortable chair placed at an angle to the screen. And the bathrooms: well, I’ve seen larger in suburban apartments. And in my biased book, no bathtub equals place that should have some of its five stars taken away. For me, one of the perks of this reviewing gig is getting to swim a bit. But, alas, the pool’s a wee little thing. If more than three people tried to swim laps, you’d need traffic signals. But hey, maybe it’s Modernism’s substitute for a bathtub.
What redeems the place for me is the level of service, which is superb, with well-trained staff who know when to be chatty and when to leave you alone. And the food rocks. As of my visit, Bamboo, their Chinese restaurant, hadn’t opened, but Zest, the 24-hour multi-cuisine restaurant, Aqua, at the poolside, and Dusk, the bar, were in business. I spent long hours eating, indulging in long breakfasts from the buffet (after all the busy firangs had gone off to kick outsourced butt), lazy late lunches and contemplative dinners. The menus are inviting and varied, the wait-staff know their stuff, the portions are ginormous, and junior chefs are usually around at the buffet, monitoring patron enjoyment levels. I swear I moved up a belt-notch for each day I was there.
The restaurants will get the locals flocking in, because if there’s an even bigger hole in the New Bombay leisure market than a luxury hotel, it’s in the area of fine dining. Poolside weekend buffet brunch packages and the like will bring in the yuppies in droves. And Zest? A place that stays open all night legally, that isn’t filled with smoke, rickshaw drivers and call centre kids; that’s something New Bombay desperately needed.
Overall, the place will do well, since it has a monopoly on the high end of the market. Once a few other majors move in (many are, I hear), it won’t be quite so much a walk in the Park.

Published in Outlook Traveller, April 2007.

Tags: Outlook Traveller

Blessed Beach Resort [Hotel review]

The cantankerous bits first. The name flirts with the truth; Om Beach is five winding, up-hill-down-dale kilometres away. The kitchen closes at 10 p.m., with nary a coffee available after that. There’s nothing to do on the premises but eat and watch TV (or get some Ayurvedic massage treatments, of which more anon). And yes, like the brochure says, there is internet access; a solitary computer, which connects at a creaking 7.2 kbps. Gah!
Now that I have that off my chest.
It is beautiful: a cluster of villas perched on a breezy hilltop, undulating lawns, plenty of trees, birds and butterflies and flower beds.. very idyllic. If you want to hit the beach, they drive you there and pick you up when you’re done, gratis. Permission for a swimming pool has just been sanctioned by the government. And Management says that when the Season gets underway, they take guests on boat rides to isolated neighbouring beaches, and run water sports.
Interiors: comfortable, large rooms, though the layout of mine felt cramped. They call ’em suites, but the sitting room is sparsely furnished, and not ACed, and the bedroom hasn’t a comfy chair. Big gripe: large, inviting bathtub. And no drain plug. Even if one had materialised, the water heater was one of those miniature jobs that yield half a bucket of hot water at a time. Tchah. But. A private porch looking on to the garden! Great place to watch them birds and butterflies.
Food? Oily (the veggies) to pretty good (the seafood); a limited menu, fair enough in a place with just 12 rooms; large servings, priced decently. They’re happy to go against their better instincts to satisfy weirdos like this reviewer, who prefer prawns not smothered in pungent batter.
The place is managed by the Kairali group, which has built a rep for its Ayurveda health tourism. And the Ayurvedic Centre was the highlight of my stay. (Unlike Kairali’s other establishments, where you follow a strict regimen, treatment here is optional—build it into your package, make instant appointments, whatever—so the place serves meat and alcohol, and permits smoking.) I indulged myself with two treatments in two days, the first while still stiff from the bone-jarring four-hour drive in from Goa. (Dabolim is the nearest airport, but until the monsoon damage is fixed, take the train, amigo.) After a two-hour session, I was so relaxed that my post-lunch meditative lie-down dissolved into another eight hours of oblivion. Bliss. I guess I’ll grant them the “Om” after all.

The Information
Location: Gokarna, Karnataka; 65km from Karwar, 135km from Dabolim, Goa.
Accomodation: 12 suite rooms
Tariff: From Rs 3500 for double occupancy. Ayurveda packages also available.
Contact: +91 11 51749800 (Delhi), +91 80 51122815, +91 8386 257718 (Gokarna), info@ombeachresort.com
Web: http://www.ombeachresort.com/

Published in the "Hotels" section of Outlook Traveller, November 2006.

Tags: Outlook Traveller, Hotels

By the Lake of the Lotus-eaters [Hotel review]

Our limo doesn’t whisk us to the hotel’s driveway; instead, we glide to a stop on the opposite bank of Lake Pichola, leave our bags in the vehicle, descend to a private floating jetty, and are ushered into a canopied motorboat.

A smiling, liveried helmsman takes the long way across the lake, pointing out the sprawling City Palace, and, mid-lake, the palaces where a Bollywood actress had her wedding reception, and where Octopussy was shot, and the city in general. He tells us that the drive around the lake that our bags are taking is a long one, through crowded streets. The soothing putputput of the motor conspires with the gentle breeze over the calm waters lapping against the hull to soothe nerves that are still a-jangle from a hideously early flight and the drive through the bustle of the city. By the time our boat bumps gently into the landing stage at the other end, we’re mellow and ready to be pampered.

A wee vehicle – sort of like a golf-cart with a trailer – waits to ferry us up the driveway to the hotel. We, being perverse, wave it away and stroll up instead. Worried driver speaks softly into a walkie-talkie. Evidently, we’re disrupting the choreography a bit, because as we amble up, admiring the flowers in our best minor-potentate-returning-to-the-beloved-manse style, we see that our vehicle is rounding the bend, having made it around the long way in just about the same time as we have. We realise that the boat-ride is a little psychological game, and we grin as we admit to ourself that we fell for it.

And we remember we’re here to review the place, and, reluctantly, we abandon the ’tude and the Royal Pronoun, and get down to work.

From the outside, Udaivilas sure looks like a palace. Vast arrays of fat, pink onion-shaped domes and cupolas crown the rambling building, chhatris and arches abound, a large version of the bronze, mustachioed sun god symbol of the princes of this neck of the desert adorns the driveway. But it is a modern building a few years old, merely styled to look like a palace of the Mewari persuasion. Great care has been taken to further the illusion in the interiors, but not at the cost of function. Room ceilings, for instance, are high, but not so absurdly so that it takes hours for the airconditioning to cool the room down; the room refrigerator is hidden in a dark wood cabinet, as are TV and electronic safe. Unique little touches abound, but alas, space dictates that I not list all of them. (But you’ll find most of that on their site, oberoiudaivilas.com)




For Them That Must Stay Connected, the lobby is a wi-fi hotspot, and each room has a LAN connection. (Connectivity, though, is ridiculously over-priced for a day and age where free wi-fi in public spaces is common and broadband access costs less than dial-up did not too long ago.)

Standard (or Deluxe, in hotelspeak) rooms feature a small private sit-out, the Superior Deluxe have access to a semi-private infinity pool, and the suites have their own pools. In addition there are two other pools, the larger one’s black-and-white-tiled walls are an acquired taste, the smaller Spa pool is a kid-free zone.

The spa, run by Banyan Tree, is a house of delight. A wide range of massages and treatments are enough to keep any sybarite supple and relaxed.



Food: Excellent. Aside from a range of local specialities like the fiery Laal Maas (toned down on request), the range covers a nice assortment of Indian and international cuisine. Special note for the bakery: they gave me the best croissant I’ve ever wolfed down.

Complaints? A few. The service is a tad too attentive for my taste: I don’t want my pillows rearranged and bed cover put back on when I’ve taken great trouble to arrange them the way I like it; and if I put my toothbrush in a glass next to the washbasin, that’s where I want to find it when I reach for it blearily the next morning, dammit. And I hope there’s a special corner of hell for hotels in India that think toilet paper is the only necessary ablutionary aid in the loo.

I’m a bathtub addict, but the “Victorian-style” claw-foot bathtub pissed me off. It’s just a hip-bath, really, and if I want a good soak, I want to be immersed, not have half of me sticking out shivering. On the plus side, it’s kinda nice to soak next to a picture window.

Standard tariffs (valid up to 30 September 2006): 63 Deluxe rooms Rs 22,500; 19 Superior Deluxe rooms, Rs 26,750; 4 Luxury Suites Rs 105,000; Kohinoor Suite Rs 127,000. (Rates are for India nationals and foreign nationals with a Certificate of Registration. Rates for foreign nationals and NRIs are a little higher.)
The Oberoi Unforgettable Experiences Summer 2006 package, valid until September 20, 2006: for 2 persons in a Deluxe room, includes breakfast, round transfers from the nearest airport or railway station, a 20% rebate on spa treatments, food and non-alcoholic beverages and local transport (via Avis). 2 nights Rs 27,000; 3 nights Rs 38,000.
All rates are subject to 5% State Tax.

Note: These were the pictures used in the article. More, also by me, here.

Tags: Outlook Traveller, Hotels