Aug 17, 2007 12:57 PM For Luxury Travelers, IndiaÂ’s Past IsnÂ’t Past posted by Anirban

AMONG  the  activities  offered  to  guests  at  Wildflower  Hall,  where  once  stood  an  English  soldier's  summer  villa  in  the  lap  of  the  Himalayas,  are  guided  walking  tours  that  invite  a  visitor  to  Â“savour  the  nostalgia  of  the  Raj  Era.”  As  if  to  drive  home  the  point,  horseback  riding,  lawn  croquet  and  archery  are  also  on  offer  Â—  all  without  a  trace  of  irony.

Wildflower  Hall,  in  northern  India,  is  among  a  new  breed  of  luxury  hotels  sprouting  across  the  country,  each  in  its  own  manner  peddling  a  fable  of  the  country.  Devi  Garh,  nestled  in  the  Aravali  hills  in  Rajasthan,  markets  the  nostalgia  of  the  medieval  Indian  countryside;  the  stylishly  restored  palace  literally  sits  atop  the  village  that  its  residents  once  ruled  and  where  bullocks  still  pull  wooden  plows  to  till  the  land.  Ananda  in  the  Himalayas,  a  spa  near  the  Hindu  pilgrimage  town  of  Rishikesh,  is  a  compound  of  such  gorgeous  austerity  that  it  bears  no  resemblance  to  the  rest  of  the  country.  Its  most  inventive  lure  is  a  kitchen  that  embraces  country  grains  and  greens,  from  sprouts  to  buckwheat  to  desserts  made  from  the  raw  sugar  known  as  jaggery.  As  in  both  the  other  properties,  Ananda  offers  an  ayurvedic  doctor  and  a  massage  menu  to  wring  out  modern  stress,  plus  an  up-to-date  gym  in  which  to  work  off  the  buttery  millet  croissants  offered  at  breakfast.

Only  India,  I  suppose,  can  absorb  foreign  occupation,  feudalism  and  a  host  of  other  anachronisms  and  turn  it  into  a  memory  worth  savoring  Â—  and  splurging  on.

Luxury  travel  is  still  a  nascent  industry  in  this  country.  Wealthy  Indians  of  another  era  would  rather  spend  a  luxury  holiday  in  Europe  or  the  United  States.  If  there  were  luxury  properties  in  this  country  at  all,  they  were  once  limited  to  the  five-star  hotel  in  the  major  metropolis  and  filled  mostly  by  foreigners.

No  longer.  Indians  are  traveling  more  than  ever  in  their  own  country,  including  those  who  now  have  considerably  more  money  to  spend  and  much  less  anxiety  about  flaunting  it.  At  Ananda,  for  instance,  Indians  now  comprise  about  a  third  of  all  guests,  and  their  share  is  soon  expected  to  climb  to  half,  increasingly  including  Indians  who  live  abroad.

Fifteen  years  ago,  when  P.  R.  S.  Oberoi,  the  chairman  of  the  Oberoi  Group  of  hotels,  would  travel  to  the  royal  city  of  Jaipur,  one  of  India's  most  legendary  tourist  destinations,  there  was  no  place,  he  recalled,  that  he  could  confidently  call  a  five-star  hotel.  He  would  stay  at  the  choicest  property  in  town,  but  so  lacking  were  its  amenities  that  he  remembered  taking  Â“my  own  cook,  my  own  toilet  paper,  sometimes  my  own  towel.”

From  Indian  hoteliers,  including  the  Oberoi  chain,  have  lately  come  a  new  menu  of  options  for  the  pampered  class,  from  resorts  built  from  the  crumbling  palaces  of  erstwhile  maharajas  to  plush  detoxifying  spas  to  sumptuous  inns  along  the  coast  and  in  forests.

My  husband  suggested  Wildflower  for  a  weekend  getaway  last  fall,  when  Delhi  was  so  hot  and  parched  that  I  had  become  one  unbearable  crank.  From  the  Web  site,  he  gleaned  that  Wildflower  would  offer  outdoor  activities  to  cure  my  restlessness  and  opulence  to  keep  me  from  complaining.  And  yes,  there  was  high-speed  Internet  in  the  rooms  so  I  could  remain  chained  to  my  employer  in  New  York.

As  always  in  a  rush,  we  passed  up  the  leisurely  option  of  a  train  journey  (at  least  eight  hours).  Instead,  we  flew  midway  to  Chandigarh  (45  minutes)  from  where  a  hotel  car  picked  us  up,  snaking  80  miles  uphill  to  the  lodge.  The  drive  took  more  than  three  hours,  including  a  tea  break.

Wildflower  Hall  is  perched  at  around  8,300  feet,  amid  a  forest  of  cedar  and  pine,  roughly  eight  miles  outside  Simla,  which  had  become  by  the  mid-19th  century  the  official  summer  retreat  for  India's  British  rulers.  We  arrived  at  dusk,  and  made  a  beeline  for  the  spa,  only  to  find  a  man  holding  court  inside  the  swimming  pool.  He  was  resting  on  his  elbows  at  the  edge  of  the  pool  and  gabbing  at  full  throaty  volume  on  his  cellphone,  apparently  oblivious  to  a  sign  posted  at  the  door:  Â“Please  maintain  the  serenity  of  the  spa.”

We  got  out  of  the  pool  in  less  than  five  minutes,  at  which  time  our  loud  cohabitant  offered  to  evacuate  his  friends  from  the  hot  tub  outside  in  case  we  wanted  privacy.  Â“I've  brought  them  all  here,”  he  boasted.  We  thanked  him  and  left.  Upstairs,  the  Cavalry  Bar  was  empty.  A  fire  roared  in  the  fireplace.  We  ordered  a  bottle  of  Montepulciano  and  were  happy  for  the  serenity  of  dusk.

The  morning  began  gloriously  gray-blustery  Â—  perfect,  we  figured,  for  a  six-mile  guided  trek  through  the  forest.  The  forest  floor  was  covered  with  star-moss  fern  and  flowers  that  had  clung  on  from  summer.  The  cedars,  also  known  as  Himalayan  deodars,  were  the  beauties  of  the  forest.  They  held  out  their  wide  arms,  and  the  wind,  which  howled  so  ferociously  that  we  could  hardly  hear  each  other  on  the  trail,  made  them  dance  a  spectacular  dance.

We  climbed  down  into  valleys,  and  up  again  into  dark  woods.  The  villages  on  our  path  were  a  sobering  lesson  in  isolated  living:  two  long  houses  here,  four  long  houses  there,  their  slate  roofs  still  glistening  from  a  recent  rain.  We  passed  several  accommodating  cows,  groves  of  famous  Simla  apples  and,  nestled  in  a  grove  of  tall  cedars,  a  pointy-roofed  Tibetan-style  temple  that  our  guide,  John,  said  was  once  Buddhist  and  is  now  Hindu.  All  morning,  cloud  and  mist  came  and  went  as  they  pleased,  revealing  new  faces  of  the  Pir  Panjal  range.

No  sooner  had  we  reached  the  hotel  than  the  sky  burst  with  rain.  And  how  lucky  we  were  for  it.  From  our  room,  we  had  a  spectacular  view  of  the  eastern  Himalayas,  with  layer  upon  layer  of  gray  mountain  spreading  before  us,  all  the  way  to  Tibet.  The  storm  raged,  and  the  cedars,  arms  outstretched,  danced  like  dervishes  in  praise  of  rain.  We  watched  the  storm  from  the  stillness  of  our  room.  A  card  on  the  table  instructed  us  not  to  open  the  windows,  on  account  of  the  monkeys  dawdling  outside.

Food  at  Wildflower  is  pricey  and  mostly  good,  although  not  particularly  memorable.  The  European  food  was  better  than  the  Indian,  although  at  times,  as  in  the  paneer  tikka  marinated  with  basil,  the  distinction  seemed  to  melt.  After  a  six-mile  climb  in  the  hills,  the  warm  chocolate  cookies  that  had  been  placed  in  our  room  were  a  tasty  reward.

The  best  reward,  on  our  last  night  at  Wildflower,  was  evening  in  the  empty  hot  tub  (the  gentleman  of  the  pool  having  departed  with  his  crew).  We  slipped  into  the  water,  our  ears  perfectly  cold,  our  toes  perfectly  warm,  as  night  fell  on  these  ancient  mountains.