Bryan and I were on our way around the world, and for the India and Nepal portion of our trip, we traveled with G Adventures. Part of the G Adventures Nepal itinerary was a Barauli Community Homestay, near the Chitwan National Park. We’d read some reviews of other homestays, and weren’t excited about this type of accommodation. While staying with locals would be lovely if you knew them, we’d read reviews of some homestays that were not great: one guy telling of a crying grandmother sleeping on a corner cot while he was given a bedroom, and another tale of a couple split up to stay with different families. We headed into this location with a bit of reluctance and a mantra of “it’s only two nights”.
So what is a Homestay and why does G Adventures do them?
Barauli is home to the Tharu people, a small indigenous group near the Chitwan National Park. While the park is popular for its wildlife, the Tharu people never enjoyed the benefits of tourism. Limited opportunities for the community led to poaching and deforestation in the park as a means of income. G Adventures and their non-profit arm, Planeterra, worked with the community to build cabins and host tourists, giving the Tharu people a piece of the tourism economy. The homestay program provides job opportunities in the region, and gives travelers a place to stay.
Arriving in Barauli
After about five hours on the road from Lumbini, we pulled into the Barauli Community.
The village women greeted us, standing in rows, beautiful in their traditional white dresses over velvet tops, and carrying pots of flowers on their heads. They welcomed us with smiles, flowers, and vermilion-colored blessing dots thumbed gently on our foreheads. Inside the community room, they served us fresh juice drinks while sorting out our room assignments.
We were surprised to learn that we were not staying with families in their homes. The village has 14 mud cottages for the homestay program. Our cottage, named “Tika”, was clean, spacious, and had a western-style toilet and a great shower. Mosquito nets hung from the ceilings over both of the queen-sized beds, beds which sat about a foot away from the wall. Ah…that was because there were spiders in the loo. We definitely would be using the net!
Walking Tour
After getting situated, we went on a little tour of the area. Bryan joined the bike ride group, and the photographers among us walked. We walked for over an hour down dirt roads, accompanied by a few curious and friendly dogs. We passed farms, cows (or “buffs” as Khush said), fields of crops, mud houses, and so many smiling people.
As we neared the river and sunset, we smelled marijuana. A large patch grew along the side of the road. And yes, we stopped and picked a little. 🙂
Both the biking and walking groups ended up at the river in time for sunset. Our escort dogs chased hundreds of tiny frogs out of ponds on the beach. Women from the village brought us hot masala tea and cookies. We shared tea biscuit cookie bites with the dogs, posed for a few photos with some locals, and enjoyed the sunset.
Village Dance
In the evening, the village women demonstrated three traditional dances. Popcorn sat in decorative baskets between chairs arranged in a semi-circle. The Tharu ladies jingled from bells on their ankles and jewelry in their hair. They wore velvet tops under pristinely white dresses and had little purses tied to their hips. The women gathered in a line while someone explained the dances they would do–one dance included long sticks and the whacking and shielding represented defense. Dance number two used two short sticks and celebrated the harvest. The final dance was one we were pulled into, joining a big circle and trying not to look like fools imitating the ladies’ graceful movements.
After the performance and dancing, we ate dinner together in the community room–another delicious Nepalese Thali set, yum! And in this quiet rural place, we played cards until bedtime. We slept like babies that night under our mosquito net—exhausted and dusty, somewhere in the middle of Nepal.
A morning walk
I woke up before dawn and went out on our porch. A rooster tried to rally in the distance. I heard nothing else. A grand silence. It was a painful hour or so for this early riser waiting for coffee. But my, what peace. Later, after coffee, breakfast, and wifi in the main building, we took another walk through the village. Highlights this time: four-day-old baby goats, not much bigger than our hands. A silent parakeet in a tiny cage stared at me from a farmhouse porch, surely asking me to open his cage. I hate seeing any animal in a cage, but find it particularly cruel to cage a bird. I will see that bird’s eyes forever.
Khush had been suggesting we hold our laundry until we got to the homestay, as they could use the income. When we came back from the walk, all of our laundry hung on the dusty road to our room.
Safari in Chitwan National Park
Later in the day, we went for a safari ride in Chitwan National Park. The park is known for rhinos, a variety of birds, and Bengal tigers (!). We loaded into a very high truck, open on top with seats and roll-bars. In this hummer-jeep safari truck, we went off the main road, crashing through a creek, before following a bumpy trail through grasslands. A local wildlife expert accompanied us, and he whacked a stick on the truck to signal the driver to stop when he spotted something. Because of his sharp eyes, we saw colorful birds high in the trees, peacocks showing off on the ground, a giant white crocodile across the river, monkeys screaming at us from above. We stopped several times to climb out and walk, first at a ghat and later at a watch tower. After a few hours, we headed back to the homestay.
Serendipity
But Emily realized she’d lost her watch. First, we searched the truck. Nothing. The watch was important to her and expensive, so we turned the truck around to go back to the river for a look. Luckily, she spotted her watch glinting in the tall grass not far from where we turned around. Khush hopped out to get it. Only then did we see big safari action…an elephant was coming our way!
An Elephant and a Rhinoceros
This elephant carried three adults and a child, and crossed the trail right in front of us. They were on the trail of a one-horned rhinoceros, who was close by. Our truck driver stopped and cut the engine. We could hear the rhino chewing in the high grass next to us…just the sounds of the rhino chewing, a distant bird calling, our fidgety movements, and an elephant breathing. The “driver” led the elephant into the grass, to flush out the rhino, getting dangerously close. The rhino ran from the grass, and we saw him across the trail ahead of us–still chewing, and now breathing heavily.
As the rhino moved on, the elephant stopped close to the truck. His trunk busily picked stems, rolling them up into his mouth. Another eye I’ll remember forever–his giant golden-brown eye was the size of my hand. His skin like leather, wrinkled and creased, faded all shades of gray with a peep of delicate baby pink in some places. And I felt sorry for him. Elephants are social, they need their families, their matriarchs. They remember. And here atop him sat three pasty-white tourists and a driver, urging him to chase a rhino. Animals are not here for our amusement. Please don’t ride the animals. Just don’t.
The Smiling Nepalese
When we left Chitwan National Park that night, riding high-up in an open-air jeep, kids ran to the road from fields and houses, waving and screaming “BYE!!!” at the tops of their lungs. Our group vigorously waved and screamed “Bye!!!” back. This went on for miles and miles. Such beautiful, friendly people. What great fun!
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Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, coffee-addicted photographer and blogger living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.
