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After I heard the
novelist Ian MacEwan was making the journey to 360˚ Leti, I started
thinking about visiting the eccentric Himalayan lodge myself. "A
distinguished and unforgettable blend of beauty and adventure," he
wrote me in an e-mail after his trip this past February. "To find
simple luxury and world-class food and service in a place of such
pristine beauty seemed improbable, a fantastic joke," added his
wife, Annalena MacAfee.
:Located high on a vertiginous plateau in India's little visited
Kumaon Himalayas, on the border with Nepal, 360˚ Leti is almost
extravagantly remote. Although the region, which belongs to the
northern state of Uttarakhand, has a rich tradition in exploratory
mountaineering, there has never been any significant tourism north
of Almora, the British Hill station about 130 miles south of the
lodge.
Needless to say, getting to 360˚ Leti presents acute logistical
hurdles. From Delhi it requires an eight-hour trip on a sleeper
train to the small railway terminus at Kathgodam, then an eight-hour
drive to Leti village, and finally, from the end of the last road,
an hour's walk to the lodge. Alternatively, you can charter a
five-eater plane to Pithoragarh, a town in the Kumaon Himalayas and
a four-hour drive from the camp. But it's the last part of the
journey that proves hardest: sharing weaving roads and precipices
with hurtling Indian buses and following a path that's been obscured
in places by dramatic rock falls.
For those who endure the humps, bumps, and stomach lurching
switchbacks of the final climb, Leti promises noble reward. Unlike a
luxury resort that's merely consumed, this is a place to be savored
an intelligent model of eco architecture designed by one of Mumbai's
most in demand names, Bijoy Jain. "The views alone merit a
visit to the site regardless of any architectural intervention,"
says Jain. He's not wrong. I'd challenge anyone to fine a room with
more profound view.
When we arrive at 360˚ Leti, it's almost night. My blood's rushing
perhaps from the 8,000 foot altitude, perhaps from the strenuous
hike but I'm truly thrilled to discover a lodge so alluringly
comfortable this far from the many Oberois and Amanresorts that
populate the Indian plains. Leti is on the northern flank of a spiky
fin that resembles a sleeping dinosaur, the rocks dripping in old
black moss and tears of iron. From my vantage point, I can see the
highest peaks beginning to separate the clouds from recent storm,. I
spot a glacier on the skyline how far I'm unsure because her
distance are skewed. There is a smell of wet lichen and above me, an
early-spring showing of new snow. There is nothing else around, only
hamlets and cliff-hugging trails, oak, and rhododendron forests.
Even though
I've made seven trips to the Indian Himalayas, arriving here
at 360˚ Leti is like seeing these mountains for the first time. In
this grand landscape the valleys are much more densely packed than
in the Himalayas I know, the mountains more spec. When I wake to the
view, I'm faced with walls of rock where perspective is lost, where
the sounds of voices from the valley floor bounce up toward the
higher ground as if coming from the next room. Narrow rivers snake
below like veins on my hand, and in the distance, a ridge of
20,000-plus foot peaks speaks of other impenetrable hollows and the
summits of Nepal. Ledges have been turned into terraced wheat
fields, glinting gold in the sun, traversed by tracks just wide
enough for a string of overloaded mules. Eagles float below me,
rarely above.
Leti's owner,
Jamshyd Sethna, acknowledges that his project is challenging. A
Parsi psychoanalyst from Mumbai, he is familiar with complex Indian
travel arrangements,; Sethna also owns Banyan Tours, which is
among the country's leading tour agencies. But nothing as trite as
Limited access was going to stop him from building this fantastic
aerie. "Four year ago I was walking through the glaciers in
thigh-deep snow and I saw snow leopard tracks. Blue antelope were
beyond, and the peak of Nanda Devi. The place totally gripped me,"
he says. "I felt energized-a felling of exhilaration and peace and
peace and it was then that I felt I had to do it. In the mountains
everything drops away. It's like three months of therapy in three
days."
To find the perfect location, Sethna says, he sent out scouts armed
with cameras, adding, "I told them to look for some place as far
away as possible within the shadow of the peals of Nanda Kot or
Nanda Devi."
Sethna ended up on a ledge above a tiny hamlet named Capri
overlooking the Ramganga Valley. In 2005 he leased the narrow
plateau from six farmers (members of their families are employed as
staff). His initial operation consisted of two reinforced
Rajasthani-style tents. In late 2006 he committed to a more
ambitious project, working with the California-trained Jain, who
also designed Sethna's beach house in Nandgaon, outside Mumbai.
Jain's plan for Leti included four guest cottages as well as a main
house with a lounge and dinning area. But just when the buildings
were nearly completed, in spring 2007, they were severely damaged by
heavy monsoons. After massive renovations the property is now fully
watertight and a tour de force in ecosensitive lodge design.
It is boldly modern and, aside from some traditional building
techniques, decidedly un Indian: 352 panes of glass, ten tons of
teak, and abundant layered slate speckled with silver mica. (some
35to 50 porters each carried 40 stones a day up the mountain during
the five months of construction.)
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HIMALAYAN LUXE
The freestanding cottages, all
with private infinity grass terraces and sunken outdoor
bukhari firepits, are cut into the plateau 150 to 300 feet apart
from one another. Despite their sharp, contemporary edges, the
structures maintain a non intrusive presence in the landscape. This
is largely because of sensitive placement that maximizes privacy
while grounding the buildings in the land's contours.
 The
interiors are equally pared down the focus is on what lies outside
with twin or double beds, slate floors, woodstoves, white sheepskin
rugs, crisp sheets, brass sinks, and creamy, soft pashmina blankets.
The wood-and-leather campaign furniture is an attractive hangover
from Leti's tented days. Lighting is provided by solar Ian terns,
which you use to navigate the plateau as you wander up the 50-yard
path to dinner. In the main house you can expect damask tablecloths.
elegant white crockery, silver and a crackling open fire.
And you do eat well: afternoon tea of strawberry jam and fresh-baked
scones, delectable akuri scrambled eggs for breakfast, chilled
gazpacho for lunch, mouthwatering curry feasts at dinner, good
Scottish whiskeys, and imported wines. The chef, a former Tibetan
monk, puts together picnics for day walks to the snow line, a
temple, a waterfall made up of excellent bread and sophisticated
salads, many of the vegetables grown in the lodge's organic garden.
Leti's team of well-trained locals is memorable. The Indian guides
are all university educated with deep knowledge of these mountains,
their people, and their politics, while the lodge staff is amusing,
willing, and attentive. They strive to get it right and most of the
time do. If you order a cold beer for 4 P>M the first day, they will
bring you the same the next day without being prompted. If, for
example, you like a certain spicy prawn chutney, it will appear in a
little porcelain dish beside you at every meal thereafter.
Which is not to say Leti doesn't have its shortcomings. The brass
rose head showers are solar heated so not 100 percent reliable
(though buckets of hot water are always on reserve), and you can't
dial "1" for room service, Instead you have to swing by the kitchen
and ask. |
