Immaculately designed with a great deal of emphasis on detailing, the ever so plush cottages at Norwood Green lend an incredible amount of luxury to your stay here. Top that with the uninterrupted majesty of snow-tipped Dhauladhars across hillsides carpeted with tea plantation. Right from the word go, young Karan Grewal, your enthusiastic and delightfully-mannered host–he lives in the adjoining cottage–sets the tone as he personally walks you through your temporary home.
Soothing furnishings, dark-wood flooring, dim lighting, and soft music complement the all-pervasive lush outdoors. En suite bathrooms with state-of-the-art amenities, a laundry room, and private balconies are par for the course. The meals here are hearty, wholesome and come with a generous dose of Punjabiyat (read calories)! Guests are welcome to request a toning down of this ‘creamy’ generosity; the chef will readily agree.
Were you to launch yourself at any of the day-long activities Karan suggests you will be pleasantly surprised at a well-stocked picnic basket magically appearing in the boot of your car; which, by the way, has its own private parking space outside each cottage. Were you to set a more leisurely pace to your vacation, the spacious sit-outs overhanging (almost) the Bundla Tea Estate, is a great option to enjoy nature’s spectacle. Grab your choice of beverage or/and one of countless books scattered around the place, and you’re on a roll.
Norwood Green Bundla Tea Estate,Village Lohna, Palampur.
+91-97360-31300
+91-94188-86950
www.norwoodgreen.in
Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu, travel enthusiast and the author of Adrift: A junket junkie in Europe is the youngest of four siblings born into an aristocratic family of Punjab. Dogged in her resistance to conform, and with parental pressure easing sufficiently over the years, she had plenty of freedom of choice. And she chose travel.
She was born in Shimla, and spent her formative years at their home, Windsor Terrace, in Kasumpti while schooling at Convent of Jesus & Mary, Chelsea. The irrepressible wanderlust in her found her changing vocations midstream and she joined Singapore International Airlines to give wing to her passion. She has travelled extensively in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and SE Asia; simultaneously exploring the charms within India.
When she is not travelling, she is writing about it. Over the past decade or so, she has created an impressive writing repertoire for herself: as a columnist with Hindustan Times, as a book reviewer for The Tribune and as a contributor to travel magazines in India and overseas. Her work-in-progress, the documenting of colonial heritage along the Old Hindustan-Tibet Road, is an outcome of her long-standing romance with the Himalayas.