DETAILS

Massage Tours in India

GETTING THERE: Numerous carriers, including American, British Airways, Continental and United, fly from the Washington area to New Delhi, Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and Bangalore, India. Fares start at about $1,070 round trip on American from any of the three D.C. area airports via Chicago, or on Continental from BWI via Newark, and rise as high as $1,500. For the southern states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, Mumbai and Bangalore have the easiest connections. American has the cheapest flight to Mumbai, for $1,226, flying from Reagan National via Chicago to London with a change to Air India. From Dulles, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Air France, British Airways and United fly to Mumbai with a connection in Europe; fares start at about $1,270. Flights to Bangalore (from Dulles) are pricier, running $1,600 to $1,850.

The Arya Vaidya Chikitsalayam and Research Institute is in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The Coimbatore airport is served by several domestic airlines, including Spice Air, Jet Airways and Sahara Airlines. The fare from Bangalore to Coimbatore is $181 on Jet Airways, for instance; from Mumbai, $383.

Kochi (formerly known as Cochin) is served by domestic airlines or express train from Mumbai. Round-trip air fares between Kochi and Mumbai run about $350 on Jet Airways or Air India.

The resort Ananda in the Himalayas is near the tiny village of Narendra Nagar, in the state of Uttaranchal. This is a 6 1/2-hour drive north of New Delhi. A driver will take you to the resort, wait there during your stay and drive you back. This is cheap -- about $30 per day -- but the drive can be uncomfortable and terrifying, on enormously crowded and uneven two-lane roads. A better route is to take the five-hour express train from Delhi to the city of Dehra Dun and hire a car there for the one-hour drive to Ananda. First-class fare on the Delhi-Dehra Dun Express train is about $11 one way.

WHERE TO STAY: Patients at the Arya Vaidya Chikitsalayam ( http://www.avpayurveda.com/ ) can stay in a room, cottage or deluxe suite on the hospital campus. Fees vary depending on the patient and the ailment. The basic fee for room, board and medical care is about $310 per week. But there's an extra charge for medications, including the oils and lotions used in massages, so a rough estimate would be $400 per week.

For more upscale accommodations, the best four-star hotel in Coimbatore is the Residency (1076 Avinashi Rd., 011- 91-422-220-1234, http://www.theresidency.com/ ), where rooms start at $70 a night double, including mini-refrigerator and Internet access.

Ananda in the Himalayas (Palace Estate, 011-91-1378-227-500, http://www.anandaspa.com/ ) is a five-star resort with 70 luxurious rooms starting at $425 per night double and five suites from $800. Accommodations generally are booked as packages; the Ananda Wellness Bliss package, for instance, runs $2,100 for four days, including a deluxe double room with a palace view, morning tea, fresh fruit daily, three meals a day, a half-hour consultation and seven different treatments totaling 6 1/2 hours.

At the Taj Malabar in Kochi (Willingdon Island, 011-91-484- 266-6811, http://www.tajhotels.com/ ) rooms start at $185 per night double. The Bruton Boatyard boutique hotel (Calvetty Road, 011-91-484-221-5461, http://www.cghearth.com/ ) has rooms for $300 per night double, including breakfast.

INFORMATION: India Ministry of Tourism , http://www.tourisminindia.com/ . The National Institutes of Heath has a good explanation of ayurveda titled "Backgrounder: What Is Ayurvedic Medicine?" at http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ayurveda . For guides to ayurveda spas at resorts, check India's state tourism boards: in the south, the Kerala Department of Tourism , http://www.keralatourism.org/ ; and the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corp. , http://www.tamilnadutourism.org/ .

-- T.R. Reid