Imagine a resort where less is really more. No air-conditioning or television or nightclubs. Just a mirror, held up to an age old culture and a living harmony. This is the tribal village, reborn for the modern traveller.

Wait for a clear, clear day.
Then, wherever you might be in God's own country, just look high to the east, above and beyond the paddy fields and the palm tops. Pitched and standing like pavilions against the horizon will be rows of faint blue smudges, fading into the sky.

Curling around a misty ridge 2,000 ft high in the Periyar fastness, we found an arborarium, one man's personal forest, with fruit trees, rare herbs and a profusion of flowering plants.

And here, we set out to build a resort. A village, produced whole, using mountain spirit and tribal wisdom as building material.

Your cottage is brick and log, the roof thatched with the same elephant grass used in tribal huts, woven in the same traditional techniques.

Of course, the comforts of a modern hotel exist, but they never intrude. Modern plumbing, comfortable beds and hot showers find their place, but in a setting stripped down to its natural essence.

Pack a picnic lunch at the hotel, take one of our naturalists in tow, and you're ready for an adventurous and instructive day at the Periyar reserve.

We've got treks, ranging from a leisurely half-day stroll, to an overnight jungle halt where you can experience the rain forest up close and personal.

You can visit a tribal village, for a first-hand experience of a way of life that's fast vanishing from the modern world. Today, these indigenous peoples still carry on their age old practices of herding and bee-keeping in perfect harmony with the environment.

A Spice,Tea plantation is a pleasant days outing from the hotel, to learn how spices cultivated and Tea bushes picked. Depending on the season, there are other adventures activities like fishing and river rafting too.

As with all the cgh properties, Spice offers a holiday for the inner you as well. With healing and rejuvenation therapies combining ayurvedic massage and yoga.

We've got qualified ayurvedic doctors who'll guide you through a regimen of massages and herbal baths guaranteed to give you new verve and vigour.

Mealtimes at Spice Village are an unhurried affair. In fact, we urge you to dawdle. Eat too quickly, and you miss the subtle nuances that spices take on when they're absolutely fresh. Rush through your meal and you give yourself no chance to enjoy the amiable atmosphere that's common to all our dining areas.

There are three of these. Choose from the rustic wooden tables in the dining hall proper, or take a heaped plate out to the long verandah and enjoy your meal al fresco, watching the kingfishers flit around the swimming pool.