Soulitude By Himalayas- Far From The Best

By "Blog"

After thinking and rethinking, writing and rewriting, I finally decided to write my first serious blog on my travel.

By now you would have guessed I am not someone who starts doing things without serious deliberations.So when the big question of going on our first major vacation with our little one(to be referred as DD hereon) came, I searched many destinations which could fit all my requirements.

My primary requirement was a place suitable for my DD then 18 months old.
She was toothless (believe me at 18 mths she hadn't cut even a single tooth !!!). So she was majorly eating only baby food. She couldn't even eat rotis leave alone parathas. So we were looking for a place that would provide us customized food options.
Second thing was keeping her occupied .
Thirdly to travel as little as possible.
Then my husband(referred as DH henceforth) needed a quiet vacation with not much noise, at the same time rejuvenating .

It was after having searched lots and lots of places and having almost given up on the idea,when I came across soulitude by Himalayas as a suggested post on my FB page.Super excited I started looking for its website and tripadvisor. It had bagged travelers' choice award for consecutive years in trip advisor, Also it turned out to be just the place I was looking for from what they promised.

So we did our bookings in the resort for a three day package which was very simple and easy and neatly organized in their website.

We then booked our train(Anand vihar- Kathgodam SBT), as we thought that would be a better option with DD than to drive. Our train was from Anand vihar station Delhi at 6.15 in the morning to Kathgodam. So we had to leave home by 4.15 in the morning. On the way the manager Mr.Prithvi was kind enough to inquire on our arrival through sms.

Our train journey was majorly smooth and we reached Kathgodam by 12 in the afternoon. For such a big resort they don't have pick up drop service instead they gave us a contact who we hired for the entire trip. He demanded more money from us on the return than on pick up was a different story altogether. From Kathgodam we had to go to Ramgarh where the resort is actually located and we reached there by 1.30.

On reaching the place we noticed it was very quiet, scenic and soulful.We checked into our room The Secret garden. Again, we chose this room as it was in the ground floor and very close to the dining area.The room was neat and good and had a brilliant view.When you read brilliant stress every syllable and read it as B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T because on a bright and clear day it was like seeing heaven directly from your room, nothing less.

But otherwise for the amount we paid the room was very simple and basic(it costed around 7500 per night!!!)There was an electric bed heater, though I am not sure how it will be sufficient on a snowy day. We went from march 9 to march 12 so we dint face big problems. The fire place in the room was charged separately apart from the exuberant charges we were already paying for the room. But the fire place at the living room was complimentary. The room dint have a tv on policy, though there was one in the common living, which we were fine with. After warm up we had a filling lunch and for DD they had prepared a simple kichdi on our request. I had not recorded our each meal because I dint have ideas of a blog then(which I'll ensure to do from now on). But all through we had simple edible meal. Given that there were not other options around and they were charging as much as 600 for lunch and 700 for dinner per person(albeit breakfast and kids' meal(under 5 years)) , also given the fact that the point of the vacation is going to be majorly eating and resting,neither the spread had lots of varieties nor the food was delicious.It was majorly edible nothing more. In fact we remember the amazingly delicious roti with kadhi  we had for lunch the next day by the lake. Infact, the idlis served on one of those days for breakfast was nearly tasteless. I am someone who has a strong feeling for the taste of food and can't compromise on it. It should either be you do it the right way or don't do it at all when it comes to food , that too at a resort as pricey as this.

The next day we left for sight seeing at 10 in the morning.We visited a temple(The name i dont remember-pardon my memory)which had more monkeys than gods or humans or both put together,which the manager hadn't warned us of. Probably it dint matter to him if there are about 100 monkeys at a place. But it did matter to me, one I am not fond of animals particularly monkeys (no offense to anyone just that I am scared of them I don't want to go and disturb them in their dwelling place) second I was travelling with my DD. Unfortunately I dint notice the monkeys' population till I reached the top and had to literally run back to our car with our DD.

Then we went to a lake. Our manager Prithvi asked us to visit a smaller lake which was on the way which was more silent than the commercialized one but our driver advised us against it saying it might not be safe for girls. So we visited the commercialized lake. No complaints here except that it was a regular one. But at least here our DD played and had fun with the ducks. And also this was where we had the delicious kadhi roti for a very minimal price. Then we reached our room at around 4.  After playing in the small lawns for an hour it got too cold for her to play outside and we had to retire back to our rooms. She started becoming cranky as she had nothing to do for major part of the evening. At least it was boring for a 18 month old. I think she would have coped better if we had taken her now. Otherwise for adults there were a good number of board games,cds and books so it must be interesting. Even for kids they had a small kitchen set puzzles and the like, but it wasn't much for DD. 

The next day again after breakfast we went to a tea estate and mukteshwar temple which was nice and we came back at around 4 in the evening. This night for dinner they served us kumaoni food which by far was the best food we had here during our stay. I also heard they arrange BBQ if the weather permits not in our case though. We had our return train on Friday morning around 8 so they packed us free breakfast which was in our package. In the train we saw that our aloo paratha was good but the bread we got packed for DD was all stale. In the rush and tension I dint take pics and so couldn't complain. Anyways on our request they had packed us bananas which was a rarity there. So we managed with cerelac and bananas.

Overall I would say its beautiful place with average service and lots of areas of improvements.

Location -5/5
Food -2/5
Service -2/5 (they are trying hard but they have a long way to go)
Value for money -2/5 highly overpriced for the facilities.

To summarize it was a home stay where I felt everything but at home.

PS: There are a few treks around the place but we couldn't take them.
They also have another property soulitude by riverside nearby which you can plan to visit if time permits.