Cover Aramness, a luxury safari lodge in Gir, India, offers sightings of the majestic Asiatic lion amid book-worthy indulgences (Photo: courtesy of Aramness)
Aramness, a luxury safari lodge in Gir, India, offers sightings of the majestic Asiatic lion amid book-worthy indulgences (Photo: courtesy of Aramness)
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Gir in India is the last refuge of the Asiatic lion in the wild. But at Aramness, where personal butlers shadow your every step and an Ayurvedic doctor reads your entire life from a single pulse, the real wildness might be how completely this place rewrites what a luxury safari lodge can be
We arrived in the dead of the night. The flight from Mumbai to Diu had been cancelled, so we’d taken the Rajkot route instead. By the time we landed and found our driver, it was past 11:00pm, with a four-hour drive still ahead of us. The road from Rajkot to Aramness Gir stretched through darkness, empty except for the occasional lorry rumbling past. No villages, no landmarks—just headlights cutting through the night and the knowledge that somewhere beyond the beam, the forest was waiting.
We reached the lodge around 3:00am as the sky was just beginning to pale. The property sits at the edge of Gir National Park, tucked inside a teak forest that feels both wild and carefully tended. There are 18 kothis here—private cottages that house guests in a level of comfort that feels almost excessive until you understand the thought behind it. Each kothi is built with marble and brass throughout, and a private swimming pool. The verandah on the first floor looked out onto the forest, where langurs would later pass through like commuters on their daily route.
Inside, every piece seemed to have a story. The art wasn’t imported or mass-produced—it was local work, sourced from craftspeople in Gujarat. Textiles, pottery, metalwork. Things that belonged here. What made the kothi work, though, was the presence of a personal butler. Not in the way luxury hotels use the term, but someone who genuinely stayed close. He explained it simply: we were in the middle of wildlife territory. Leopards moved through these grounds. One didn’t wander alone, not because the lodge wanted to be precious about service, but because vigilance mattered out here.
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The game drive
A lioness with her cubs at Gir National Park (Photo: courtesy of Aramness Gir safari lodge)
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After sleeping through most of the day, we left for our first game drive in the late afternoon. The late night arrival meant the schedule had flipped—no dawn expedition, but an evening one as the day’s heat began to ease. Our guide was matter-of-fact about our chances of seeing lions. Gir is the only place in the world where Asiatic lions live in the wild, but they don’t perform on schedule.
The park opens up in layers. First, the teak forest, dense and golden in the slanting light. Then clearings where spotted deer grazed, lifting their heads at the sound of our jeep. We saw nilgai, a strange horse-like antelope, and a family of wild boar moving single file along a dried riverbed. The guide stopped often, not just for animals but to point out bird calls or the drag marks where a leopard had pulled its kill into the undergrowth the night before.
Then we found them. A pride resting in the shade of a cluster of acacia trees—three lionesses and five cubs. Our guide cut the engine. We sat maybe forty metres away, close enough to see the cubs wrestling, tumbling over each other while their mothers watched with half-closed eyes. One lioness stood, stretched the way cats do, long and deliberate, then padded a few metres to a different patch of shade. The cubs followed, tripping over their own feet.
We stayed until the light began to fail. Cameras eventually forgotten in laps, just watching. The guide told us later that this was rare—not seeing lions, but seeing them like this, a whole pride together, completely unconcerned with our presence.
The food
A gujarati thali (Photo: courtesy of Aramness Gir safari lodge)
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Gujarati food has a reputation for being sweet, but the kitchen at Aramness balances that sweetness with layers of spice and texture. We ate most meals in the Haveli or mansion—dal that had been slow-cooked for hours, vegetables from the garden still warm from the pan, fresh parathas made to order.
One evening they set up dinner in a different spot each night—once on a rooftop terrace where we could see the stars without any competing light. The staff served the food; with interesting explanations for the produce on the plate. Where the lentils came from. Why this particular combination of spices. The stories made the meals slower, more deliberate.
The signature Aramness dinner on our last night included a traditional kathiawadi village style dinner with a live singing performance—dhoklas; Gujarati curries, undhiyu, a winter vegetable medley cooked underground.
The wellness consultation
Gym at Aramness Gir safari lodge (Photo: courtesy of Aramness Gir safari lodge)
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The spa at Aramness overlooks a meadow where deer sometimes graze. I’d booked a treatment, expecting the standard luxury hotel routine—an hour of massage, some Ayurvedic oils, pleasant but forgettable. Instead, the wellness consultation turned into something else entirely.
The doctor asked about my lifestyle, my emotional wellness, and what kind of weather suited me. Then he took my pulse. One thumb pressed against my wrist, and he went quiet for what felt like a full minute. That single point of contact seemed to tell him everything—my sleep patterns, stress levels, how my body held tension. After he released my wrist, he made a suggestion: skip the spa treatment. Do yoga instead.
His reasoning was practical. A massage would feel good for a few hours, maybe a day. But the yoga asanas he could teach me—those I could take home, practise in my own space, use long after I left Aramness. It wasn’t the upsell I expected, and maybe that’s why I agreed.
The first yoga session happened by the pool, early enough that the water was still glassy and undisturbed. The instructor focused on specific poses based on what the doctor had noted—where my body held tension, how my breathing worked, what needed attention. Nothing fancy or Instagram-worthy. Just functional movements that my body could actually do, adjusted and modified until they worked for me rather than against me.
The second session, after the consultation, took place in the sound healing room by the herb garden. The space was quieter, more enclosed, with the scent of herbs drifting through the windows. Same focused approach, same attention to what my body needed rather than what it should theoretically achieve. The instructor asked me to record the whole sequence to repeat at home. He made me promise I wouldn’t try to do more than this, that consistency with a short practice mattered more than ambition with a long one.
The in-between hours
A private villa or kothi at Aramness (Photo: courtesy of Aramness Gir safari lodge)
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Safari lodges can feel like they're built around the game drives, with everything else just marking time. Aramness works differently. The hours between drives held as much weight as the drives themselves.
One afternoon, we walked through the edible garden with one of the gardeners, learning which plants the kitchen used and which were left for the birds. Another day involved sound healing.
The property never lets you forget where you are. Your butler doesn’t hover out of some outdated notion of service—he stays close because you’re in the middle of wildlife territory. Leopards move through these grounds. The forest doesn’t stop at the property line. The butler had a flashlight and kept scanning the ground ahead of us between our dinner spot and kothi. Not to scare us, just to be realistic about what sharing space with wild animals actually means.
We left mid-afternoon on the fourth day, after one final breakfast in the Haveli. The drive back to Rajkot retraced the same roads we’d taken on arrival, but they looked different now—familiar landmarks, a rhythm we recognised.
Aramness’s luxury is in the details—staff who remember how you take your tea, guides who know when to talk and when to stay silent, a property that fits into the landscape rather than fighting it. You come for the lions, yes. But you leave thinking about the mornings in the garden, the way sound travels differently through a teak forest at dawn, and the calling of the spotted deer when it senses danger.
The flight back to Mumbai took off right as the sun started to set. Through the window, I could see Gir spreading out below—patches of forest, dry riverbeds, villages scattered across the landscape. Somewhere down there, those lionesses were probably settling in for the evening, their cubs curled against them in the fading light.
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As the Regional Editor for Watches and Jewellery and Editorial Content Lead for Tatler GMT, Amrita Katara specialises in luxury watch and jewellery coverage across Asia, with expertise in editorial strategy, feature writing and interviews with industry leaders. Her past roles span luxury lifestyle media and client partnerships. Based in Mumbai, Amrita’s work bridges global trends and Asian market insights.
