Farm day and homestay night near Ilam

Ilam's economy is not only tea. Most families also keep a cow or two, grow large cardamom under the shade of alder trees, dig ginger and cut amriso, the broom grass sold across Nepal. Milk from these villages goes to the dairies that make Ilam's cheese and chhurpi. A night in a village homestay shows you how these crops fit together through the year, and how a family keeps several small incomes going at once.

We drive or walk from the bazaar to the village in the afternoon. Your host takes you round the farm, explains how cardamom pods are dried over a wood fire in a small kiln called a bhatti, and lets you help with whatever needs doing, whether that is cutting fodder or bringing the cows in. Dinner is usually rice, dal, a green, a pickle with akabare chilli, and perhaps chicken; tell us in advance if you do not eat meat.

Rooms are simple and clean, usually with two beds, thick quilts and a window onto the fields, and shared toilets in most houses. Evenings are early: families eat around seven and sleep soon after. In the morning there is tea from the family's own bushes or from the nearest garden, a breakfast of roti or puffed rice, and then we walk back to Ilam or carry on to Kanyam. We pay the family directly for your stay and meals.