If we travel by train, our hotels are picked from the Rough Guide and booked in advance. If they're ghastly, then it's our own fault for being lazy and not shopping around. When we travel by car, the hotel arrangements are left to our driver and good friend Negi. Not all hotels provide accommodation for drivers, and as Negi does a lot of driving for us, we think he deserves a comfortable rest in between. This means that if a hotel is ghastly, then we blame Negi. Although he's managed to book us into some pretty peculiar hotels in the past, none of them have been ghastly and some of them have been real gems. The Green Park Resort fits both classifications.
Opened 6 months earlier, this neoclassical, still-incomplete palace of a hotel can be found on the outskirts of Pushkar near the Gurudwara Temple. About half kilometer down a leafy, sandy lane, it stands surrounded by tidy allotments of marigolds and roses in continuous bloom. You really feel as if you're in the heart of the countryside. The hotel itself has a pleasant landscaped front garden, while the grounds at the rear have been partially planted with trees. The owners are planning a swimming pool for the back garden that has great views across the fields towards the Savitri Mandir on the top of a tall hill overlooking the town. One of the eight planned chalets had already been built, and it was the most curious style of Indo-Swiss architecture, but hey, why not? The rooms, all with TV and A/C, were quite luxurious and definitely more up-market than we were used to. The bathrooms were spotless and the fittings unbelievable. Sinks, toilets, tiles, and everything else were obviously all very good quality, but what a bizarre clash of styles and taste. The rooftop restaurant was excellent, and it was a delight to get up and have breakfast while the sun crept over the hills behind.
On either side of the hotel were small farmsteads, and you could sit and watch the people planting, harvesting the flowers, and milking the cows. It was a very tranquil spot. However, the real clincher for this hotel was the service. It was here that two of us went down with what turned out to be dysentery (not caught here). The family that ran the hotel provided a nursing service that was over and above the call of duty. All day they were in and out of the room shared by our sick friends with bottles of water, medicines, bowls of soup, more toilet paper, extra blankets, and heaters at night. They were wonderful. Nothing was too much trouble, and at night, someone sat outside their room in case anything was needed. When we left, it was like leaving good friends behind, and although the decor may not have been to our taste and we don't really care about TVs, we would certainly stay there again when in Pushkar.