Amenities of The Orchid Retreat
The Orchid Retreat offers lodgings in six cottages and a four roomed duplex building. These cottages are spread out in the garden and each cottage hosts two adults in double bed or twin bed format. Total accommodation available is for 20 adults in ten rooms on a twin sharing/double bed basis. Each room has an attached bathroom, shower with running hot and cold water and western style toilet facilities. The rooms are spacious and comfortable without being ostentatious. All the cottages face due south with a panoramic view of mountains across the Relli Valley.
Meals are served in the dining hall in the basement of the main house. We do not have room service, except in cases where the guest is not feeling well. Only early morning "wake-up" tea/coffee is served in the cottages. There is no restaurant. Meals are fixed menu and mostly of ethnic cuisine and in consultation with food preferences of guests. Water supply to the cottages comes from our own natural spring. Drinking water served during meals and available in the cottages is processed through an Aquaguard Filtration System. Bottled water is available on request.
While we do not have a strict dress code for mealtimes it is expected that guests will be decently attired when they come in to have their meals. Breakfast is served between 7am to 8am; lunch between 12 to 1.30pm and dinner between 7 to 8 pm. We urge our guests to respect these timing because the workers who help is the kitchen and dining hall have to trudge a long way down the hillside after their duty is over. 
For those late diners we have arrangements to have their dinner packed in hot-cases and delivered to their room at 8.00pm.
There are no television sets, telephones or inter-com in the cottages to distract the guest. Our office is in the main house and offers e-mail and telephone facilities. A small but growing library with volumes on flora, fauna and natural history pertaining to our region are also available in a corner of the dining hall with comfortable seating. Guests have left behind many books so there titles in French, German, Dutch and some other languages. There are also magazines on Travel, Photography, Automobiles and many more to browse.
We are not licensed to serve alcoholic drinks and beverages. However, we have no objection to guests who bring in their own supply of alcoholic drinks and beverages for consumption in the privacy of the rooms.
Lodgings are offered by prior booking only and we do not, at present, entertain walk-in guests. This so because hospitality at The Orchid Retreat is still looked after by the family and we need a full day to have rooms and other requisites spruced up for guests. Lodgings can be booked either directly or through Travel Agents/Tour operators. On the rare occasion, visitors who walk in with recommendations from guests who have previously lodged at The Orchid Retreat are offered hospitality if cottages are available.
What we do not have, at the moment, are facilities for accepting payment through Credit Cards. Money Changing Services are also not available with us. We do, however, accept Travelers Cheques and those crisp pieces of paper popularly known as Currency Notes. Of course, there are ATM's in town which process Master & Visa Credit/Debit Cards.
