Ginger House Museum Hotel: a luxurious taste of old Kerala, where (nearly) all the antiques are for sale

What’s so unusual about it? When was the last time you checked in for a stay at a museum? The hotel is inside a building that, 200 years ago, was a warehouse used for the drying of fresh ginger, hence the name. What’s now the hotel was a dilapi­dated structure inside what had become one of the most astonishing antique shops in Kerala. Heritage Arts displays an incredible collection of items, the piece de resistance being a 30-metre-long traditional “snake” boat – the kind used in sacred ceremonies and Kerala’s famous races. A wall had to be dismantled for the boat to be lifted inside from the harbour.

What’s the folly? The owner, Majnu Bothy, decided to turn the unused building into an eight-room luxury boutique hotel. He picked out his most distinctive antiques – four-poster beds, armoires, colonial furniture, paintings and sculptures – and furnished the rooms with them. His family joke that he created the hotel just so he could accommodate his burgeoning antiques collection but if a guest takes a fancy to a piece, they can buy it.

“I don’t like the collection to be static. I want it to keep evolving,” Bothy says. A small, slender, bespectacled man with thinning hair, you would not think he was the obsessive type, but creating this hotel has clearly been a magnificent obsession.

Really; what are the rooms like, then? Rather special, and not just because of the opulence and antiques; plenty of creativity has gone into each of them. Bothy took gleaming rosewood and teak panels from old mansions and temples in Kerala and Tamil Nadu and attached some to the ceiling and used others as the tops of four-poster beds. The rooms may be rich and ornate but they are also modern and comfortable. The bathrooms are beautifully appointed, with rain showers and Japanese toilets; a pleasant surprise.

What’s around the hotel? The complex is a destination in itself. The antique shop (warehouse, really) is labyrinthine, one room leading to another and then another. There is an indoor restaurant done up in “mock Versailles” style. The waterfront cafe is more contem­porary and overlooks Kochi’s busy harbour, Indian Navy frigates, ocean liners and all manner of other shipping steaming by as guests sip on their morning coffees.

From the guest rooms, the views are of gardens and patios – which are dotted by huge old wooden doors, stone temple columns and sculptures – and the harbour. The breeze coming off the Arabian Sea is a blessing in hot, sultry Kerala.

How’s the food? The menu at the cafe – both European and Indian fare – is limited but adequate. I had the classic Kerala dish, fish molly with appams (light rice pancakes that look like doilies), followed by the in-house speciality, ginger ice cream. Prawns cooked in coconut milk are a guest favourite.

Tell us more about that snake boat. Bothy bought it on a whim when he found out it was for sale and more than a century old. Not having seen it, he had no idea just how big it was. “I was sitting in the cafe having a coffee when I saw it appear on the horizon. As they rowed closer, my heart sank. ‘How on Earth will we have it inside,’ was my first thought. It took 100 men to pull it in. Customers have offered me a fortune for it but I can’t sell it. It’s special,” he says. Tourists to Kochi visit Heritage Arts just to see the boat.

And the location? Ginger House Museum Hotel is in the old Kochi quarter of Mattancherry. For centuries, traders from all over the world came to Kerala, and specifically Kochi, in search of spices. There is quite a bit of tourist tat, too, but around Mattancherry are many shops selling spices you have probably never heard of.

Who is this hotel aimed at? The well-heeled traveller who wants luxury but not the impersonal, standardised kind found at brand name five-star hotels. Every item in every room and on every veranda of this hotel is unique, valuable and has a history.

The bottom line? Rooms start at US$150 a night in the low season (now) and US$300 a night in the high season, which runs from September to March.