Nature, Nature, Nature!
Spend a day with a farming family in Dhital, an hour's drive from Sarangkot. A real home, a buffalo shed next door, and life as it has been lived in the hills of Nepal for generations.
- Duration
- About 6 hours
- Time
- 10 AM to about 4 PM
- Pickup
- At our parking
- Where
- Dhital, Dandagaun, 1 hour by car
- Group size
- Up to 6 people
- By car from Sarangkot, along two rivers
- 1 hourBy car from Sarangkot, along two rivers
- The year electricity first reached the village
- 2000The year electricity first reached the village
- Guests at most, so the house never feels crowded
- 6Guests at most, so the house never feels crowded
- On purpose: just you and the family
- No guideOn purpose: just you and the family
Drive along the Seti and the Mardi rivers to the village of Dhital, Dandagaun, about an hour north-west of Sarangkot. There you spend the day with a family we know well, at their house next to their farm.
You may have seen village life in bits and pieces on your travels in Nepal. Here you live it, up close, for a whole day. Watch the buffalo being milked and the butter churned into ghee. See millet ground by hand on a stone mill and made into roti, corn roasted over the fire, and tomato chutney ground on a stone with coriander and mint picked from the garden a minute before. Then eat with the family, fresh from the farm.
What you see depends on the season and on the family's work that day. If the millet harvest is in, you'll see it ground on the jaato and made into bread. If it isn't, there will be something else: rice to thresh, beans to pick, marigolds to string for Tihar.
From the lodge to the farm, and back by car
- 10 AM
Pickup at our parking
A private car waits at our parking.
- About 1 hour
Along the Seti and the Mardi
Out of the city and up the river valleys to Dhital.
- At the farm
Meet the family
The house, the buffalo shed, the fields and the garden.
- Through the day
Watch, join in, eat
Milk, ghee, millet, corn, chutney, whatever the day brings, and meals with the family.
- About 4 PM
Back at the lodge
The same car brings you home.
Whatever the farm is doing that day
Some of these happen every day. Others only in their season.
Milk over the fire. Fresh from the buffalo, heated on firewood, then made into dahi (homemade yogurt), and churned into nauni, butter, which is heated into ghee.
The stone mill. The jaato, two round stones turned by hand, grinds millet into flour for gilo roti, a soft bread from the pan.
Chutney on a grinding stone. Tomatoes, chilli, and coriander and mint from the garden, ground on a silauta, the way it's always been done.
The harvest. In autumn the millet is cut by hand and carried home in baskets, and the rice is threshed with the neighbours' help.
A real home, not a set
This is a family home, not a place built for visitors. The family lives right next to the buffalo shed, works barefoot in the fields and eats what the farm grows. It's our way of showing life as it is, and as it has been, in the villages of Nepal's mid-hills.
Most people you meet speak only Nepali
There's no guide on this day, and that keeps it real. The driver can answer a few basic questions. Everyone else in the family speaks only Nepali.
We send you a digital guidebook the day before or on the morning of your trip. It explains most of what you'll see, from the stone houses to the ghee. And we're a phone call away all day: if anything happens, we arrange a car straight away.
Paid in work, not in cash
At harvest the neighbours come to work one family's fields, and next week that family works theirs. Nobody pays anyone. The terraces are too steep and small for farming to sell, so families grow what they can, eat what they grow, and help each other.
Some guests call it intoxicatingly refreshing
Life here is lived close to the earth: simple, raw, and very fresh. You may go home a little different. Perhaps more easy-going about five minutes of traffic on the way to work, or a broken heater in the car.
What's included
Included
- A private car from our parking at 10 AM, back at about 4 PM
- All meals during the trip, fresh from the farm
- The day with the family at their home and farm
- A digital guidebook, sent the day before or on the morning
- Us on the phone all day, for anything you need
Good to know
- Language
- The family speaks only Nepali. The driver can answer basic questions in English
- Guide
- None, on purpose. The guidebook explains what you'll see
- What you'll see
- Depends on the season and the family's work that day
- Emergencies
- Call us any time. We can arrange a car straight away
- Group size
- 1 to 6 people
- Booking
- At least one day ahead, please. Subject to availability
More days out
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