At Hotel Shambala you will find a 24-hour front desk, a garden and a terrace. Featuring a shower, private bathrooms also come with a bath and a hairdryer. Air-conditioned rooms here will provide you with a flat-screen satellite TV, seating area and a mini-bar.
Just imagine-marigold twilight floats on the air, you spot a bathing hippo winking at you from the distance, and a server onboard asks if they can refill your rosé. One of the holiest Buddhist sites of Kathmandu, Bodnath is 3.1 mi from the property. The whole place feels like an adult eco-playground of sorts, and it’s difficult to resist its charms, especially on one of those aforementioned sundowner cruises. Owned by South African billionaire Douw Steyn, the property is designed as a luxurious take on the African bush: carefully controlled populations of Big Five animals roam the reserve comfortable and spacious guest bandas sit nestled alongside a bubbling natural stream and long days of game drives are capped off with sundowner cruises on the largest man-made lake in southern Africa. Design aspects such as that grandiose entrance signal that this is a safari experience unlike most others. Upon turning off the road, all cars drive up to the park’s front gates through a meticulously flooded driveway-a metaphor to do with purity, rebirth, and connecting with nature. After two hours of driving north from Johannesburg into the dusty, spare expanse of Limpopo province, the entrance to Shambala Private Game Reserve feels like nothing short of an oasis (fitting, seeing as shambala is a Sanskrit word for peace).
