PICTURE SPEAK

SURREAL STAY: The Ice Hotel

If you fancy sleeping with aquatic creatures, just check into Jules' Undersea Lodge, the world's only underwater hotel. Originally built as a research laboratory, the lodge is located off the coast of Key Largo, Florida. And in case you haven't guessed it yet, it is named after Jules Verne, the author of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. To get to it, visitors must dive 21 ft below the surface of the sea. The main focus of the lodge's two bedrooms are the huge 42-inch round windows. Imagine waking up to see marine life ogling at you. The price for the pleasure can be anything from $ 295 to $1,195 a night depending on the package. For details visit www.jul.com.

Now how about a hotel where the temperature varies between -4 and -9 degrees centigrade? Staying at the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, is in fact quite like living in an igloo, albeit a more luxurious one. Each room is unique, but the beds are all the same-all guests sleep in thermal sleeping bags on a bed of snow and ice, covered with reindeer skin. And if the cold gets to you, there is the Absolut Ice Bar which offers brandy and more. For details on tariff contact info@icehotel.com.

Sometimes enterprising individuals don't even need to stretch their imagination-nature hands them everything on a platter. Like it has in Cappadocia, Turkey. This is a surreal, dreamlike land dotted with weird phallic rock spires. Cappadocia's earliest tribes tunnelled out the "fairy chimneys" to create elaborate homes. Today, a number of these have been converted into hotels. Those fancying a troglodyte lifestyle, will find no better option than the Kayadam Cave Hotel costing $ 65 a night. Visit http://kayadam.com/ahotel.htm for details.

Each of these hotels demands just one thing from guests-a willingness to suspend disbelief.

- -By Sushmita Choudhury

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