Amanbagh

The Maharaja of Alwar once pitched his hunting camp in a walled garden in the Ajabgarh valley, where the Aravalli hills close in on three sides. Amanbagh, the Aman resort outside Alwar in Rajasthan, was built inside those walls, and its name means peaceful garden.

History

Aman opened the resort in 2005, its second in India after Aman-i-Khás at Ranthambore. The site was an old royal shikar ground, with the eucalyptus and date palms of the Maharaja's garden still standing. Aman's founder Adrian Zecha wanted a property that read as a Rajput palace rather than a hotel, and he gave the commission to Ed Tuttle, the American architect behind Amanpuri in Phuket and Amanjiwo in Java. The valley had no tourism before the resort arrived, and Amanbagh's staff come largely from the surrounding villages.

Architecture and design

Tuttle designed a building of pink sandstone and marble around a central courtyard pool, with domes, cusped arches and chhatris in the Mughal manner. The stone came from quarries in the region and the craftsmanship from Rajasthani masons. The 40 rooms divide into 24 Haveli Suites, arranged on two floors around the courtyards, and 16 Pool Pavilions, single-storey houses with their own gardens and private pools. Floors are marble, ceilings high, bathrooms large enough for a tub set in a window alcove. The main pool, long and still, sits at the centre of the complex, and the whole is enclosed by the garden's old walls.

Dining

The dining room and its terraces look onto the pool and the hills. The kitchen's Rajasthani dishes use vegetables from the resort's organic garden, and Western cooking is available at every meal. Dinners are also set out in the garden and on the rooftop terraces, and picnic lunches go out with the excursions.

Wellness

The spa has treatment rooms, a yoga pavilion and a gym, and its programmes draw on Ayurveda, with an Ayurvedic doctor in residence for consultations. Yoga is taught at dawn. The pool is the daytime centre of the resort, and the hills provide walks in the cooler hours.

Weddings and events

Amanbagh takes whole-resort bookings for weddings and private gatherings, with ceremonies held in the gardens and dinners by the pool or on the terraces. There are no conference rooms of the conventional kind; a library and lounge serve small meetings, and the resort suits a family celebration more than a conference.

Location

The resort lies in Alwar district, about two hours by road from Jaipur and its airport, and four to five hours from Delhi. Sariska Tiger Reserve is around an hour away. The abandoned seventeenth-century town of Bhangarh, with its ruined bazaars and temples, is close by, as are the Ajabgarh fort and the Somsagar lake. Guests go out at dusk on the cow dust tour through the villages, when the herds come home, and Aman runs camel rides, hikes into the hills, and visits to the step-wells and temples of the region. The road in is slow, which is part of why the valley is quiet; a luxury hotel in Alwar district was not an obvious idea in 2005, and the place still feels remote.