Private Forest Cottage with Freestanding Bathtub, Almora

Across the road from the main house, set into the rhododendron and oak forest, there is a cottage that does not announce itself. You find it rather than arrive at it. The forest closes behind you. Kumaon Vann is the only accommodation at Kot Kailash that sits entirely within the forest. A private courtyard. A king bedroom. A wood-burning stove. A coffee machine for the hour before the world begins. And a freestanding bathtub positioned with a deliberateness that becomes apparent the first time you lie back in it: what you see, looking up, is snow on the Nanda Devi range. There is no comparable view from a bathtub in the Kumaon Hills. There may not be one anywhere. The cottage is designed for two people who want the forest entirely to themselves. No shared walls. No common corridors. The only schedule is the one the trees set; which is to say, the light, the birds, and the particular quality of silence at 7,800 feet that takes a day to recognise as the absence of everything you did not realise you were carrying. Everyone who has stayed at Kumaon Vann says the same thing, in different words. It is worth the journey on its own.