Jim's Jungle Retreat, Corbett

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Overall Score:
4.5 out of 5

Travellers Review

Submitted by Rama

Friendly staff, good food, and helpful forest guides.

User Rating

Submitted by Ashwin

The hotel is situated in an excellent location. Mr.Khan, who runs the place is an extremely knowledgeable person. Services of the staff/waiters was excellent and impeccable. Overall, a fantastic place.

User Rating

Submitted by Rajesh

I have endeavoured to make the review exhaustive and touching on all parameters. When we planned our trip to Corbett, we had plenty of options. We had studied the various resorts and their websites before shortlisting half a dozen of the best. Our requirement was pretty simple – we wanted to spend our time staying at a real jungle camp, not a hotel. The focus would have to be on the ambience and on the resort’s ability to give an authentic wildlife holiday to us wildlife enthusiasts, and of course, come up with the right mix of standard comforts and value for money. In the end, we settled on Jim’s Jungle Retreat. To begin with, how can one not overlook the name itself Anyone who loves the jungle loves Corbett – both the park and the gentleman hunter turned conservationist who is nothing short of a legend today. We were also quite impressed with their website which, delightfully, was a fair reflection of the reality. The fact that one of the leading naturalists, Mr. Imran Khan, was in charge there easily helped clinch the decision. Of course, the deal we got for this resort (thanks to Makemytrip) was also quite good. We are documenting below a detailed review of Jim’s Jungle Retreat as we experienced during those 3 nights and 4 days. Location : Situated 11 km from Ramnagar on the southern periphery, the retreat is located far from the crowd of Ramnagar and the Ranikhet Road which is chockfull with resorts lined up all the way from the town to the Dhangarhi gate, and beyond. Located on the fringe of the Jhirna forest, the resort has all the wild charms of a jungle with a 5-star touch to it! Ambience : The cottages are all tastefully appointed and strike just the right balance between comfort-aesthetics and naturality-earthiness. Spacious and homely, the well spread out thatched cottages are in a 10 acre “mini-jungle” with enough flora and fauna to keep one occupied when inside the premises. Maintenance : Extremely well-maintained, the fact that the whole retreat was built on near-barren land and is now a jungle within a jungle shows that this is not just another hotel, but an outstanding example of a retreat built to be one with the nature and to give visitors a glimpse of the beauty of Corbett’s forests. In short, a labour of love from a bunch of seasoned, nature loving wildlife professionals! Service levels : Extremely personal, yet suitably unobtrusive, the entire team here sets standards of friendliness and concern while ensuring that you are left to yourself. The service is a pleasant change from the laboured and make-believe school and is reflective of the good work done to teach the art of great service to simple, warm locals who take pride in their inheritance. The management is crystal clear in their philosophy – responsible eco-tourism and offering the best of Corbett to visitors while making them feel at home even while they have worked hard to bring the jungle into the retreat. The manager, Mr.Bose, is the right mix of friendliness and competence. Always around, he was invaluable in coordinating our safaris, nature walks and ensuring overall comfort of our stay there. The restaurant in-charge, Raju Bhandari, is a born service professional. We never caught him without a smile and he always made it a point to enquire about our satisfaction levels and, often, went out of the way to sense our requirements and fulfill them. The rest of the staff also was so friendly and courteous that a friendly nod, a smile and a greeting were trademarks of all the staff. We were particularly impressed with Dabboo, the driver. Besides being a delightful companion and able hand behind the wheel, the surprise package unfolded right from the first time he drove us into the forest. His knowledge of the various birds and animals, their behaviour and characteristics were spot on. We found him to be a self-taught naturalist with a keen eye for spotting wildlife and a ready disposition to identify and educate his guests. Exactly what any wildlife lover wants. Food : The food was excellent without being the typically rich hotel variety. Just being in the roomy gol ghar and getting a near 360 degree view of the greenery outside gives a fine dining experience. A good amount of the vegetables, we learnt, was home-grown through organic farming right there in the resort’s well maintained garden. The menu was always diverse, and elaborate and simply delicious - reasons enough to end up overeating! Quality of naturalists : Without doubt, one of the best reasons for making Jim’s Jungle Retreat your place of stay in Corbett is the fact that it has Mr. Imran Khan’s stamp on it. Mr. Khan, with his wealth of experience in the field is a leading wildlife expert with a decade and a half spent in India’s forests. Delightfully (for the guest), he is extremely gregarious and a fine speaker who is not just passionate himself, but also kindles a spark of the love of the wild in his guests. His enthusiasm must be infectious for we found in the staff too, a similar zest for flora and fauna. The slide-show presentation he gave was a preview of the vast collection of photos of the countless brushes with wildlife he has had. Whether it is listening to his fund of knowledge on the jungle and its inhabitants, or getting such a great opportunity to clear your doubts on wildlife, it is reason enough to be at Jim’s Jungle Retreat. Miscellaneous facilities : In spite of the fact that the real wildlife enthusiast looks more for the feel and ambience of the retreat, easy access to the jungle and the local flora and fauna, and the quality of the naturalists on demand, it would be apt to review the other standard features of any hotel. We found the swimming pool to be fairly well-sized and well maintained, the conference hall was sufficient to seat a fully occupied retreat, there is even a massage room that has trained Ayurvedic masseurs, a well-stocked library that contains several wildlife related magazines, manuals, coffee table books. The retreat also had its own garbage disposal mechanism, passionate as they are about their environment and ecology. Interestingly, the retreat also has some Bollywood memorabilia – from the movie Kaal, that was based in and shot partly in Corbett Tiger Reserve. A sofa kept in the reception was supposed to have seated the movie’s stars and a few rabbits whose forefathers starred in the flick now are residents of the retreat. Incidentally, Mr. Khan, happened to contribute to identifying suitable locations for the movie’s shoot. Value for money : For what is on offer, and for the sheer jungle experience without compromising on comforts, leaves one with a high degree of satisfaction with regard to value for the money spent. And the icing on the cake (at least in our case) was the rock bottom rates that we got from Make My Trip (incidentally, we found the rates at Make My Trip the lowest among all the leading travel portals). So, was it a perfect trip And was it the perfect place to stay Well, we did face one small glitch. Due to an unfortunate lapse in communication between their Delhi office and the retreat itself, the pickup from Ramnagar Railway station did not happen as requested by us. Given the remoteness of the retreat and the early morning arrival, we had requested for a pickup and drop (a paid facility). So, we were a little surprised when we found no one at the station upon our arrival at 5.30am. After an hour’s wait and after our efforts at contacting the retreat both on the landline (it was raining heavily and we later learnt that the lines were down) and their mobile numbers failed (there are little or no signals in that area), we had to contact their Delhi office who then coordinated the pickup. We did wonder then if that average start to our holiday might cloud our opinion about the retreat. But, over the next 4 days, we were to realize that that was, indeed, a freak and isolated incident in an otherwise perfect stay. Suffice it to say that Jim would sure have been proud of this Jungle Retreat!!! I conclude this review by strongly recommending this retreat to one and all. Well, we for sure, definitely are headed for Jim’s Jungle Retreat the next time we are off to Corbett. And, it goes without saying, we look to Make My Trip to make that trip also happen!

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