Amanbagh

Exuding understated luxury, at once grand and intimate, Amanbagh is a glowing Mogul-style palace, set among rugged hills and surrounded by groves of palm, eucalyptus and mango trees. And it’s one of the most peaceful places we had the privilege to check-in to.

By the time our car rolled to a stop in front of the shaded entrance of Amanbagh, we had some 1700 km of dusty India roads behind us. We both felt tired and frankly a little bit ill. The tranquility of Amanbagh was exactly what we craved at the end of our Rajasthan trip.

The Aman experience

Just what does it mean to stay at one of the Aman resorts? Travelers who know the brand (hello, fellow Aman Junkies!) would recognize the Aman attributes and principles at Amanbagh.

The luxury here is discreet, with exceptional attention to detail and unobtrusive service. The personnel is very well trained, but the genuine sincerity and commitment from each member of staff is the ingredient of hotel experience that particularly stands out.

As with other Aman properties, there is a strong drive at Amanbagh to blend with the local culture. This is evident in the hotel’s design, atmosphere, activities and other elements of the guest experience. Take a welcome ceremony. Other than the usual (shaking hands with the managers, a welcome drink…), there were also three girls dressed in bright orange saris. With closed eyes, one of them sung a Sankrit song of peace and goodwill. Her voice soaring in the beautiful, high-ceiling lobby gave us goosebumps.

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Destination unto itself

Had we planned to be busy these last few days in India we could have easily filled them with activities, for this rural retreat offers them aplenty. There are nearby sites hardly ever visited by tourists, and the countryside can be explored driving the Wyllis jeep-style Mahindra or riding the resort’s colorfully dressed up camels.

But at that point in our journey lounging in the shade of our riverside villa, dipping into the private pool from time to time and popping to the restaurant for lunch or dinner was all we really wanted. And for that, Amanbagh is set up perfectly.

We stayed in a pool pavilion, a top-range accommodation with plenty of grandeur and space. The centerpiece of the unusually-shaped bathroom is a bathtub, cut from a single piece of green marble. It exudes sheer luxury.

We loved to just chill at the pavilion, but the life of the resort revolves around the main swimming pool, with the hotel’s restaurant nearby in the main building, its pinkish reflection permanently shimmering on the flat surface of the water.

The yellow-pink sandstone at Amanbagh is shaped into grand domes, courtyards, porticos, and havelis. It’s an intrinsic attribute of architecture that looks back to the grandeur of India’s golden age while being infused with contemporary luxury. It is an architecture that embodies Aman’s extraordinary formula of minimalist luxury.

An amalgam of Sanskrit and Hindu words for peace and garden makes for an apt name of the hotel synonymous with relaxation in soothing surroundings. For us, it was a great way of ending the Rajasthan journey—on a high note.

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in our opinion

This rural retreat seduces with a fabulous design and a quietly glamorous atmosphere, and even for the region famed for the level of luxury, it stands out as an exemplary resort.

It's a fantastic place to both relax in sumptuous surroundings and taste the colorful traditions and culture of rural India. We don't hesitate in awarding Amanbagh the Editor's Pick.

What we love

• A quiet location off the beaten track, combined with a small number of rooms ensures exclusivity and privacy.
• The hotel's architecture. It's a beautiful job by Ed Tuttle, an American architect based in Paris. Never kitschy, never too serious, the design gracefully blends with local traditions but feels modern and fresh.
• We absolutely adored our riverside Pool Pavilion. It's the pinnacle of luxury: beautifully designed, spacious, with sizeable pool—and very private. We hardly ever wanted to leave it.
• What makes this place is Aman's fabulous service. Everything about the experience is seamless, but it shows especially when staff anticipates the guest's needs. This extends from housekeeping and guides to the restaurant staff, always eminently gracious—and never failing to remember our preferences.
• The Indian and Western menu at the hotel’s restaurant is well balanced and the food is superb. Amanbagh makes a lot of effort to grow and expand its own organic vegetable garden, and it has a single supplier to provide all its meat. It shows.
• Private dining in remote spots, often with scenic scenery—and always with dozens of candles surrounding the guest table.
• The hotel offers a plethora of other activities in the area: the most popular is the Cow & Dust tour, in which guests visit some villages near the resort, but there is also mountain biking, sightseeing and walking tours with picnic lunches, the resort can also arrange a longer journeys, e.g. to visit Agra or Jaipur.

What you should know

• As often with Aman resorts, Amanbagh's location is deliberately remote and getting there means a bad road over the last 60 km or so. Jaipur airport (JAI) is some 95km away (less than 2 hours by car) and it takes some 5hrs drive to reach Delhi (230 km away). If you want to splash out, a private helipad is ready for you at Amanbagh.
• The monkeys living near the resort are sneaky (lock the doors!) and good at putting up a show of strength, which may include hissing and flashing teeth. They aren't dangerous, but their antics can be a little disconcerting. Just shake at them the anti-monkey stick, with which the guest rooms are equipped.
• We were initially afraid that the “Cow and Dust” tour was going to be a kind of poverty tourism, but the villages aren't impoverished slums and the locals did not mind us at all. We were even invited for tea (twice!).
• There is no TV set in the guest rooms, which we didn't even realize initially… a testament to how disconnected we felt at Amanbagh. (For the addicts, a TV can be provided on request…).
• A stay at Amanbagh can be combined with a booking at Aman-i-Khás (read our review here), which is very different, but also a fantastic place: it's a safari camp, located by the Ranthambore National Park. It's some 3hrs 30 minutes away by car. By the way, we did our Rajasthan/Utter Pradesh journey with India by Car and Driver, and they were great.
• Getting there: The flight-comparison sites such as Skyscanner (www.skyscanner.com) or Kayak (www.kayak.com) will help you find the best flights and deals.