IF you are going to visit Ratnagiri, then make sure you stay at the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort there, it is the best hotel in the district. And an astonishing property, strategically located on a hill off the Ratnagiri-Pawas Coastal Highway, with a commanding and grandstand view of the sweeping coastline with its palm-fringed virgin beaches and the sea on which fishing trawlers bob. It is owned by an entrepreneur from Bombay, Madhav Kokane, who realising the monopoly his property commands, is busy extending it further. The drive to the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort is by a long and twisting road (the coastal highway, actually) that rises up among the trees on the hill to suddenly produce the hotel at the top. The property is made up of bungalows, suites and rooms. All luxurious, well-furnished, and with modern and fairly new amenities. There are four bungalows that have

three bedrooms each, a spacious hall, and verandah; and eight exotic royal suites with two deluxe bedrooms and a hall with sitouts and a terrace. Happily, most of the accommodation here offers a panaromic view of the sea, including the 27 deluxe rooms. Outside of the rooms, the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort takes some getting used to. It is a huge and sprawling place, with a children�s mini train that chugs across it from one end to another, and other facilities like a play park with games that bigger hotels would not dream of installing yet. One of the big attractions at this place is the Titanic Deck, a concrete boat-shaped platform that edges off the hill on which the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort is located and hangs over the valley. It offers the best view of Ratnagiri that you can ever get. Leonadro DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic could not have hoped for better. The Titanic Deck also serves as a mini party area.

There is a patio level multi-cuisine restaurant and bar that both look onto the sea and which attract the late-night crowd from Ratnagiri. Food, however, is not one of the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort�s strong points, but General Manager Ramnik Sandhu promises that the place will do better in the coming days. He is a young hotelier from Bombay who has taken up the challenge of moving to this lazy coastal town just to see what he might do with a property like this. �The hotel has several attractions,� he says, pointing out to the great swimming pool and banquet facilities out in the open. Indeed, it does big business in this direction with conferences being held there by Bombay and Pune corporate houses often.

It also has a health club and offers outdoor activities like water games, motor boats, pedal and rowing boats, beach volleyball. If you are not staying at the Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort for business only, then Ratnagiri has much to offer the pleasure-seeking traveller. Like day-time visits to the Datta Mandir in the Bhatye-Ratnagiri backwaters or the lighthouse in the distant hill; the Thibaw Palace where the King of Burma was exiled (and do not miss the beautiful Thibaw Point) and Tilak Janmabhumi where Lokmanya Tilak was born. Ganapatipule is an excursion, as is Pawas. And there are lots of other little places nearby like Dapoli, Guhagar, Karde, Murud and Ladghar from which the drive back to relaxing settings of Kohinoor Samudra Beach Resort would be very inviting. It is, like Ramnik Sandhu says, a place that offers a panaromic view of the beauties of what might be Kerala�s backwaters and Goa�s Arabian Sea. �A land like no other,� the hotel�s brochure declares.