Ananda in the Himalayas

Myself and Tarun made a trip to Ananda early October for 2 nights and 3 days. It was for his birthday and I had made the bookings before leaving for Japan. We decided to take the Shatabdi from Delhi to Haridwar and had Ananda arrange a pick up for us from the train station. The journey was comfortable. When we reached Haridwar and got out of the train station there was our cab driver waiting for us with a placard. We were so disappointed when we reached the car, we had expected a clean well kept car to come pick us up, but that one was, I guess a car used for bringing supplies to the resort from the nearby town, it had some metal bars inside to safeguard stuff. Anyway, we were disappointed and our expectation of Ananda hit its bottom right there.

We reached the resort after a 1.5 hour car ride and were greeted with an aarti by the staff. We were made comfortable in the living area of the palace where we were served a welcome drink made of lemon and ginger (quite refreshing!). Our room keys were handed to us in a short while and a golf cart was arranged to show us the property and take us to our room.

As our driver showed us the property I admired how well it was kept and how lush green it was. Upon reaching our room, we were told that the resort provides white Kurta Pajamas for the guests in their size for the them to wear during their stay. I thought, that was pretty cool and we both ordered our sizes (well they didn't have mine, so I took the smallest they had).

Our room was quite nice and had a nice view of the greens and the valley; only if the sky was clear we would have seen the valley but we still enjoyed the greens!

We relaxed in the resort all 3 days, pampered ourselves with some great massages and caught up on our reading. I highly recommend the Abhyanga massage which is done by two therapist. I believe that is the best massage i've had!

We enjoyed all our meals, the food was simple but tastefully cooked.

The property is well kept and serene and the sight of the guests walking around the property, clad in white Kurta Pajamas makes everything look so pure and simple, which I loved.

The staff is genuinely nice and helpful. On our checkout, we were asked to fill the feedback form and we gave an honest feedback, which means we told them we didn't like our pick up car and guess what, they were extra nice while dropping us to the train station in Haridwar, not only did the driver do all he could to make us reach the train station on time (we started late from the resort, some last minute ticket drama), he also waited to see we board the train. (We didn't know he was waiting till he came to us when the train arrived). We thought that was very nice and then a day or two later we received an email from the resort manager, apologizing for the car at our pickup. This surely impressed us and it showed he cared.

A short quiet trip was exactly what we needed after our vacation in Japan. I had a very relaxing time and Tarun said he quite liked it too, so I was happy he enjoyed his b'day weekend that I had planned for him!