Neeralaya

The homey, warm and full-of-love cottages will make you want to believe that life is best lived in the lap of nature. The ever-flowing water of the river Beas and the chirping of the birds serve as music to the ears. There’s a lot to experience at Neeralaya even if you do nothing: afternoon naps under a tree, meditating in the fresh air, enjoying the rustling sound of the leaves and listening to the bees. This is a lovely place to enjoy the beautiful Kullu Valley and open your heart to people who will be etched in your memories forever.

Touching the walls of the cottages that are built using the age-old technique of timber-bonded architecture of the Western Himalayas will take you back in time. The fresh home-cooked food, simple natural attractions, local vernacular architecture and mesmerising views will make you feel at home. Many people come here for long stays, while some stop over on their journey to Spiti and Ladakh. Once you’re here, there’s a lot to soak in — the adventure of river rafting, trout fishing, mountain biking and some refreshing treks.

Simple visits to the nearby local villages and walking in the apple orchard, especially during the harvest season (August-September), add to the authentic experiences. Of course, the locals never mind it if you lend a helping hand picking and sorting the apples with them. Happiness multiplies when our furry friends enjoy playing in the green grass all around. Imagine your favourite song playing in your ears, and the breeze flowing on your face — this is a feeling that will caress the soul forever. When city life becomes chaotic, remember that heaven is not far from the Earth.

The Beas takes its name from Vyasa, the sage Hindu tradition credits with arranging the Vedas and composing the Mahabharata. Legend says he drew the river from Beas Kund, the lake below the Rohtang Pass where it rises, and Beas is the anglicised form of his name. This morning you sit beside it. The session is held on Neeralaya's riverside lawns as the valley wakes: gentle yoga pitched for all levels, then a guided meditation set to the sound of the river moving past and the birdsong from the orchards. It suits beginners as well as regular practitioners. Breakfast follows, unhurried, once you are done.

Kullu's apples began down the road at Bandrol. In 1870 Captain R.C. Lee, retired from the Royal Sussex Regiment, bought land there, judged the valley's weather close to Devon's, and had saplings sent from his family's estate in England. This morning's walk starts at the foot of a hill, through a village and past a small shrine, into a stand of oak and pine the village holds sacred; local belief says the yoginis gather there most evenings. At the orchard your guide names the varieties and what sets each apart. Lunch is laid out among the trees, facing the Bara Bhangal and Pir Panjal ranges, with tea and a local dessert to finish.

Manali is usually read as Manu-alaya, the abode of Manu, the first man of Hindu tradition, who is said to have stepped off his ark here after the great flood to begin human life again. The town sits at 2,050 metres, and some of the earliest orchards in the upper valley were planted here by British settlers such as Captain A. Banon. After a slow breakfast by the river and time with Neeralaya's dogs, you leave around noon. Your guide talks you through the town on the way, then stops at Martin's, a family-run café among the orchards with a European menu, for a lunch that tends to run long.

Twenty minutes by car from Neeralaya, then a short, easy walk, brings you to a waterfall in a small hamlet that most visitors to the valley never reach. A guide comes with you and talks through the hamlet, the trail and what grows along it. At the falls the stream gathers into green pools, cold even in summer, and the idea is to get in. The Neeralaya team sets up lunch at the water's edge, and you eat sitting half in the pool with a plate on your knees. Bring a change of clothes and shoes that can get wet. The afternoon ends back at the villas.

Until the early 1940s, the shawls of Kullu were plain. The patterns arrived with weavers from Bushahr, the old hill state to the south-east, and the valley adopted their geometric borders and made them its own. A Kullu shawl now carries bands of geometric design at both ends, sometimes in as many as eight colours, woven from sheep's wool, pashmina or yak wool. This afternoon you visit a weavers' village to watch the work from the wool to the loom, with the pattern built up row by row. The shawls are the weavers' living. If you want one, buying it from the person who wove it is the surest way the money reaches them.

The Rig Veda calls this river Vipas, the unfettered, and the Greeks knew it as the Hyphasis. Far downstream on the plains, the Beas was where Alexander's army refused to go any further in 326 BC, and he raised twelve altars on its bank to mark how far he had come. Here, near its source below the Rohtang Pass, it runs fast and loud past Neeralaya's lawns. On your last evening you come back in the late afternoon to rest or book a spa treatment. As dusk settles, everyone gathers at the river for a barbecue and music, with a host from Neeralaya bringing the evening together.