Why Travellers Are Choosing This Village-Run Forest Lodge in Kanha Over Luxury Resorts |
Driving through the dusty roads of Kanha, with sal trees lining the tracks on either side, I found myself wondering — would this be yet another jungle lodge that claims to be conscious, or would I experience something truly different?
The answer came before I even stepped inside.
No grand entrance, no manicured lawns, no signage shouting for attention. Just a mud wall that seemed to rise out of the earth, a canopy of trees that had clearly been here long before anyone thought to build beside them, and the faint smell of something composting nearby — which, I would soon learn, was entirely intentional.
Kanha Earth Lodge didn't announce itself. It revealed itself slowly, in parts, just the way the forest does. And the more I explored, the more I realised that what this lodge has built over time — for the forest, for the village, and for its guests — is something worth making the journey for. Read on to find out why.
Built from the land, for the land
Most lodges are built in the forest. Kanha Earth Lodge was built because of it.
I noticed it first in the walls — thick mud, the colour of the earth just after rain. Then the stone, rough and untextured, the kind you find piled on the edges of farm fields. And then the wood — dark, knotted railway sleepers and reclaimed timber that had clearly lived a life before this one.
Nothing here looked like it had been ordered from a catalogue or shipped from a city. It looked like it belonged here.
I asked about it, half expecting the standard sustainability spiel, but what Harpreet Singh, the Lodge Manager, told me was anything but standard.
“Before we started our work, we researched the local area and created a material palette from what was available,” he said. “Accordingly, the lodge was designed and created.”
“The stone in the walls came from unused farm deposits,” added Rohit Kumar, Assistant Manager, who has been with the founding team.
“The wood used for the furniture was timber villagers would otherwise have burned as firewood. The baked tiles on the roof came from local kilns,” he told me.
Every material had a postcode. Every choice put money into local hands.
“Using local material also helped blend the architecture with the local aesthetics,” says Harpreet. Walking through the property, you see exactly what he means — nothing here looks out of place, because nothing here is.
And through it all, one rule held firm: no trees would be felled. Every cottage was built around the trees that already stood on the land, while many more were planted to create a green cover.........