We’ve been staying at Marari Beach for two nights and we have two more to go before we hit the road again with Vaishakh. It is a beautiful place, but quite detached from the real India. The place sells itself as an eco-resort. All the rooms are little individual thatched cottages set amongst beautiful lush green grounds.

The gardens here are more like a botanical garden as we’d know it, rather than the actual botanical gardens that we’ve visited so far in India. The trees and shrubs each have little green plates telling the English and local names.

There are near green lawns (well they look like lawns but it’s actually a close growing ground cover). The only reason they are green is because the sprinklers come on in the early morning and late evening each day.

There’s a big beautiful saltwater swimming pool that is not cold, but cooler than it is outside – so it’s very refreshing to swim.

Around the complex is an earth hut with lots of info about the wildlife around the site and where daily talks/tours start from.

The restaurant is housed in a large open sided thatched building, but there are fine wires running down the sides to stop birds flying in. The high exposed roof have low overhang eaves to keep it cool.

Big fans hang from the ceiling and because it’s quite dark, there are small wall lights around the edge. The restaurant is where we go for an extensive buffet breakfast and dinner (dinner can be buffet or a la carte) the staff wear blue in the morning and white in the evening.

There is also a choice of the poolside snack bar, the beach bar with pizzas and other drinks and snacks, or the the fisherman’s grill.

Across the site there’s also a yoga hut, games room, therapy spa, club house (with a tv if you’re desperate – there are deliberately no tvs in the cottages).

There are lots of natural activities including the Owl Parliament walk (which we did on our first morning and it was absolutely fab), a butterfly tour in the butterfly garden (second morning ) archery (gave that a miss), afternoon tea served on the lawn (Matthew did, Mike didn’t), and an organic vegetable farm (more about that later). Then of course there is the palm fringed beach just a short stroll from the cottages.

All this luxury does of course come at a price – but this is the ‘special treat’ for our trip. We certainly have never stayed anywhere quite as luxurious as this before (and are unlikely to again unless I win another cash prize competition!). The luxury is wonderful, but also quite an awkward contrast to the real India we’ve seen elsewhere. I said to Mike the other night when we were having dinner that the whole place has the air of a colonial club house in the mid 1950s. The look of the clientele certain fit that (including us). The guests are mostly white European, mostly older couples (the resort could pass as a retirement community with a small number of younger visitors!). Many of the guests have big boobs and big bellies (and that’s just the men – to be fair, the women tend to a bit more stylish). All the staff (who are without exception lovely) are of course Indian, which just adds to the feel of colonial British rule clinging on here. 

It’s been both odd and nice to experience this slightly surreal piece of gated paradise (I didn’t mention the security guides at every entrance did I?) But I think four nights (three days is enough). We’ll be glad to be travelling again with Vaishakh and seeing a more authentic side of India from tomorrow.