Meghauli Serai

Ten thousand locally made Nepali beads hang in the lounge chandelier at Meghauli Serai, and the lobby door is a Newari piece worked by Tharu villagers from the surrounding plains. That sets the tone for Taj's safari lodge in Nepal: a 29-room retreat on the banks of the Rapti River, looking straight across the water into Chitwan National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site where greater one-horned rhinos graze the grasslands.

Villas with the river outside

The Rapti Villas are the ones to book, in our view. Each runs to 103 square metres with a netted four-poster bed, a private plunge pool and a five-fixture bathroom fitted with Nepalese stone spouts, so the river soundtrack follows you from deck to bath. The Meghauli Rooms take a different angle, literally: timber and stucco, rhino motifs on the walls, and balconies facing the Himalayas over the Terai grasslands. At the top sits a 193-square-metre two-bedroom villa with a personal butler and its own large plunge pool; the hotel's own pages call it the Rapti Mahal Suite in one place and the Presidential Two Bedroom Villa in another. There is also an outdoor infinity pool for everyone else, plus a spa with three massage rooms.

Spot Mugger crocodiles, Gharials, storks, ducks, and even a fishing cat.

Into the park

That line is from the lodge's own brief for its signature canoe safari on the Rapti, and it is a fair sample of what Chitwan offers: over 700 animal species and more than 600 kinds of bird, from the Paradise Flycatcher to the endangered Bengal Florican. 4WD safaris head into the jungle with naturalists, children get their own budding naturalist programme, and village walks visit Meghauli itself to try Tharu dishes such as dhikri, a steamed rice cake. Evenings are the reward: the Bada Ghar dinner draws on the Tharu tradition of eating as one household, while the barbecue on the Rapti Kinara puts the river and forest in front of you as the light goes. A safari lodge that treats the culture of the plains as seriously as the wildlife is rarer than it should be.