We promised more about The Sarai. It’s a really beautiful place with eight glorious cottages, carefully built of mud and sand so that they retain the cool in summer and warmth in winter. The details of everything – the bathroom design, the fabrics, the floors in each cottage which have been made by Keralan craftsmen (ours was green!), the seating – all is immaculate.
The Sarai is as green as it is possible to be in India, generating its own electricity which it contributes to the grid. I particularly liked the solar lights which lined the path to the cottages:
There is a beautiful vegetable garden where some of our delicious food came from:
And the food! Raghu is responsible for the cooking and menus with many of the recipes coming from his family – he told me that he learnt to cook when he was young and used it as a stress-reducer when he was a student. I was too busy eating the food to take pictures, but believe me – it was wonderful. Here’s the start and end of one meal: a puri and a lemon tart:
The Sarai is very close (VERY close) to Panna – where we saw the tigers, and leopard prints had been spotted a few days before we arrived. Some of the paths had sand spread across them to catch prints – I saw this one and was convinced it was some kind of cat (probably the jungle cat we saw on the river):
We were so sad to say goodbye to everyone at the Sarai – and we’ll definitely be back when it’s a little warmer!
I hope you are planning to stay a few days, at least!!
Oh yes! We were there for 4 nights and very glad we’d had a proper amount of time to enjoy the place and its calm ( quite unlike our usual Indian experiences).
I’m so glad you liked Sarai after all this time! Raghu’s food is a delight and I love the room interiors. I have some doubts about the ‘keeping warm in winter’ theory on the mud walls but hope you got your hot water bottle at the bottom of the bed.
We did indeed get hot water bottles in the bed – such a lovely surprise. Johanna told us one guest – American? – had phoned in a panic fearing there was a small animal in the bed! A tiny jungle cat perhaps?
Looks wonderfully relaxing.
It really was – some people did two safaris a day for 2-3 days – a bit mad in my view when the pleasures of the Sarai are so seductive. I mean, how many times do you need to see tigers?