Do do Vilamendhoo!
If the notion of white-sand barefoot luxury with unparalleled crystal-clear snorkelling turns you on – then Vilamendhoo in the South Ari Atoll of the Maldives is the place for you. Gently lapping water around the stilts of our Jacuzzi Water Villa is the only sound we can hear as we lounge on our deck overlooking the crystal-clear waters of the coral lagoon – a soporific sound broken only by the occasional buzz of a seaplane carrying...
The true Zest of Zanzibar
This ancient spice route island now holds a much more fragrant appeal to travellers with its exceptional accommodation for sun seekers. We take a look at the Zanzibar Collection. Getting to Zanzibar had been fraught. Precision Air, our airline, had failed at every turn – we’d seen more precision in a game of ‘Pin the tail on the donkey’. Shambolic check-in, numerous unannounced hours of delays, offloaded in Dar es Salaam, routed...
Five quirky, quaint, quality, luxury hotels, worldwide
If you eschew glitz for the sake of it and seek instead something with real character, then take a look at our top five choices of accommodation in five different countries To avoid favouritism and so that we don’t have to make a choice, we’ve listed these wonderful places alphabetically Al Maha, Dubai ‘Based on a Bedouin tent’ is a statement as far from reality as saying the Orient Express is based on a freight...
Jehan Numa – Gateway to the ‘Tiger State’
We’ve long been fortunate enough to know the Rashid family, owners of the Jehan Numa collection of lodges and hotels – from the days when theirs was our only haven of respite from the jungles we lived in within India. In those days they were in the formative years of turning their ancestral home – formerly the palace of the Begum of Bhopal (the first female ruler of a principality) – into a charming and impressive heritage...
Samode Safari Lodge – a fine heritage
If ever there is an argument for visiting a wildlife park and never leaving your hotel then Samode Safari Lodge has to be it! It’s not often that we’re taken aback on entering an hotel room but at Samode Safari Lodge on the edge of Bandhavgarh National Park in India we experience a definite double-take! We should have expected a treat as Samode’s other hotels (beautiful heritage properties in Rajasthan) had, on previously visits to...
