Holidays in Rural India

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Holidays in Rural India

Holidays in Rural India Real interaction can take place with time for friendships to develop and for experiences to be shared.

Central India - with its rolling hills and mixed forests, indigenous Gond and Baiga tribal people, and few tourists - is the perfect place for a comfortable but authentic experience of rural Indian life and landscape. We encourage travellers to allow themselves a slow-paced adventure, with time to absorb the wealth of images and impressions that will flood the senses. We meet most of our guests be

fore they travel to spend time discussing their interests and putting together an itinerary that best suits them. By choosing one or two main locations for their holiday, guests have the chance to get to know the people in whose country they are a visitor. We help visitors see India as it is lived by so many Indians yet seen by few foreigners. Guests have time to learn the lie of the land and the rhythms of everyday life, with visits to pottery and weaving villages, tribal markets and local schools. The countryside is safe and the people friendly and most guests become confident enough to do a little solitary exploration on foot or by bicycle.

07/04/2025

I don’t tend to write many posts that are just about a hotel, since it’s usually more what happens outside that excites me. But thanks to a day laid low with altitude sickness I spent most of my time .ladakh within its lovely compound, and oh it’s such a beautiful place.

The design is exceptional, Lachik has the most exquisite taste; and principles to match. All the building materials are locally sourced: mud and straw walls, poplar and bamboo ceilings, bedspreads and cushion covers woven from Ladakhi sheep and yak wool, even buckwheat in the dreamy pillows.

The two storey cottages (sitting room downstairs with patio) bedroom and bathroom upstairs (with balcony) are bathed in sun throughout the day and have spectacular mountain views. They surround an apricot and apple orchard with old trees and new saplings, bird feeders hanging from many of them.

And the restaurant .dolkhar , oh my! Vegetarian, hyper-local, recipes old and new and all sorts of clever combinations - buckwheat pancakes with beetroot hummus; a noodle soup with nettles. M says it was the best restaurant food he has eaten in India (and he’s been here a lot).

Oh, and a small but far too tempting shop where I bought a very large shawl and a very small sheep.

Thank you Lachik. An extremely special treat.

03/04/2025

Myths and legends do not remain fixed and unchanging. Rather they evolve to meet the needs of the present’ writes Miriam Dossal in her history of Kutch. I am enjoying the way she pulls in so much oral history and legend, and how unperturbed she is by how varied it is.

Also reading Verrier Ellwin’s The Muria and their Ghotul’ (sic) in which origin stories of the gotul and Lingo Pen the gotul god vary even from one village to the neighbouring one.

Miriam’s wonderful book made me realise that one of things that pulls me to those parts of India (rather than to more well trodden places on the map) is that they are all places in which oral history and legend play a larger part in peoples’ daily lives than the big ‘dates and battles’ history of the books (mostly written by male conquerors, or their descendants).

Here are a few pictures of places and people in which Holidays in India arranges trips where history is human and imagination valued.

1-2 family, whose grandmother walked across the Rann from what is now Pakistan to be married in 1947

3-4 who collects and ‘translates’ for us the stories told in textiles. A collection started by his extraordinary father.

5 💚

7-10 Kosa Barse in Gudiya Padar Bastar, the origins of whose village, despite being settled for less than thirty years change according to who is asking. Sukka showing me how old he was ‘this high’ when they walked there from Sukma 100 km south.

11-13 Manglu Bhai & Sumer who are quite certain that their village on the MP/CG border is the very centre of the world, the gods of which roam the boundary each night casting out ill will. Visit from

14-16 Chhau dancing started as a martial training for the troops, & continues (thanks in large part to the Bhanjdeo family who work to keep the local arts and crafts alive and vivid).

17-20 Avatars of Vishnu & the countless stories they contain in the Ganjifa cards whose painting is supported by

Pool & bedroom pics which I always forget to post.

All these wonderful stories are linked to hotels represented by

28/03/2025

A house move scuppered my International Women’s Day recipe postings, so this delicious dish, tasted by many of you when staying arrives a little late.

It is a simple as simple recipe that has been passed along a chain of women. At Shergarh it is cooked by men (Antaram, Rajaram and Dilip) but it is a recipe that a LOT of women have asked about, and which arrived at Shergarh via Monika (follow her, her offerings are incredible!). She in turn got it from her friend Mala’s Mum P Saraswathy (first few pics). Monika was at school in Bhopal but a lot of her classmates were from Kerala.

So this dish comes to you from Kerala, via Monika (a Panjabi who was schooled in Bhopal and now lives in Delhi), and Shergarh (in MP,) and me (British living in the Pyrenees in France. Monika is pictured with Suman bai ’s house, recipes from both of whom I have put up here. 💚

You can matchstick or grate the beetroot. If you can’t get your hands on a fresh coconut, desiccated (unsweetened) will do - I dampened mine with a bit of canned coconut milk which def lifted it a little bit closer to the real thing.

26/03/2025

Lovely lovely post from the AMAZING team PashooPakshee currently making my brilliant guest folders 💙

13/03/2025

Another recipe for Women’s Day from a family of women who make jaw-droppingly enormous numbers of samosas, pakoras, aloo bonda and sweets and biscuits; and doubly jaw-droppingly enormous numbers on market days.

Bajrain bai and Lakhan Lal run Krishna chai ki dukaan at Mandai. It’s a brilliant there-and-back-in-a-day cycle ride from or a great stop on our rides into Chhattisgarh. The double carb deep fried snack that India does so well is perfect for hungry cyclists. And the pink walls of the tea shop make a lovely back drop for photos. They are beautifully painted with useful sayings, from the profound: ‘karm hi puja hai’ (work is worship) to the prosaic; ‘plet par hath na dhoie ’ (please don’t wash your hands in the plates).

Bajrain bai is getting stiffer and older and generally watches on these days while her daughters-in-law Geeta and Agni, and granddaughter Swati make vast mountains of the aloo filling and roll and fold and fill the hundreds of witch-hat-shaped parcels that Lakhan Lal then fries.

I’m doing a lot of scaling down of recipes at the moment to work for our small household. This recipe makes eight; apparently that was taking the scaling down too far! ‘I’ve never eaten anything quite so authentically Indian tasting outside of India’ - oooh, high praise from my patidev.

You can, if you like, bake them, as frying is a bit of an arse, and I never know what to do with the oil. They are ok, and it is a hell of a lot easier, definitely tasty, but NOT the same. More biscuity than flaky. 20 mins at 200.

The chutney is, I think, very interesting. Quite unlike any I have eaten in people’s homes. The tomatoes are whizzed up in the mixie first and the chutney is thickened with besan (chick pea flour) which I guess adds protein. It’s dead good. Thank you .christian and for cycling back for me in Jan to get the chutney recipe.

I’m looking forward to being back in April and impressing my mithanin Bajrain bai with my increasingly speedy rolling, shaping and stuffing.

If you would like to try Bajrain bai’s samosas for yourself, just get in touch a. You don’t have to cycle and there is a super weekly market.

11/03/2025

I’m continuing my woman-spreading by extending International Women’s Day posts into this week.

A googled Bloomberg article tells me that 80% of the world’s unpaid domestic labour is done by women.

Planning and cooking meals obviously makes up a huge part of this.

There is one thing I get told again and again by women who feed us when we stay or eat in family homes: that the pleasure of this kind of tourism service is not just in the income but in the fact of people appreciating their cooking.

My jaan isn’t on social media so I can risk sharing the fact that rarely do I feel more murderous than when I have to f***ing ask if dinner was to his liking. When the answer is ‘yes, fine’ I frankly think that gives me licence to kill.

So I’m going to post a few recipes this week and some cheers of recognition for the EXCELLENT women cooks who feed me and my honestly EXTRAORDINARILY lucky guests in India.

First up is Moti from Bastar who has fed us many meals, and whose dal I never cease to savour.

I’m noticing interesting traits about cooking in rural indigenous communities (Moti is Muria Gond). One is that men do rather more of their share of the cooking than in many city homes; the other is that the food isn’t so dependent on those last minute additions that have women tied to the kitchen. Rotis rarely feature and dal doesn’t have a tarka so can be warmed up without too much fuss whenever anyone wants to help themselves.

This dal has lauki (bottle gourd) which I can’t get in France so I used a carrot chopped into fairly small dice.

The two green chillies in this recipe made it nicely spiky, if you don’t like it hot 🌶️ use just one and de-seed it.

This would serve three people with one other vegetable and rice; two people just with rice, or one greedy bu**er (me, yesterday) on its own.

Thank you of and for helping this low impact, high value tourism thrive; and for giving us visitors such a precious insight into life here.

08/03/2025

Happy International Women’s Day

Just the smallest snippet of the exceptionally amazing women with whom I am lucky enough to work, and whom I am honoured to call my friends.

1.Sukeerti my right hand, my rock, ever efficient, ever looking for ways to make things better for the people with whom we work.

2. Husna, the first person most of my guests will meet; how rare, how FAB is it that one’s first bleary eyed meet is with a woman, & what a woman.

3, 4 & 5. Team , OF COURSE 💚Lalita, Sombatti, Catherene, Sharmilla, Baisakin, Chinka, Sudhiya and Kesrin bai ; Aisha and C; and Katie 🐝

6 & 7 The Team and founder Savini. What work, what work!

8 Margie What’s-Lovely: planter of forests, friend to Baigas, supplier of hugs & giggles.

9 Dipti, invaluable female presence at Bastar Tribal Homestay, student of indigenous culture, unshowy sharer of knowledge.

10 Moti in Gudiya Padar, patient teacher of cooking and food preparation, and, as of two weeks ago (bahut badhai) mother to a long awaited darling.

11 Saraswati, whose tomato chutney is now being made across the globe.

12 Anita chachi whose cooking people from around the globe have flocked to eat.

13 Preeti another wonderful cook and teacher, who in a fairer world would have the brilliant career as an electrical engineer that she deserves.

14 Indrani working with craft clusters across south Odisha, loved by all 💚.

15 Bajrain bai, my mithanin, samosa maker, brave as hell in the face of loss.

16 Niyati, can’t do her justice in two lines, just book a Gujarat trip and you will see. Here pictured with Sakina Mir and family whose incomes as bead crafters have rocketed thanks to her.

17 Khondai one of those remarkable young women who carries an unquestioning pride in her heritage as part of the Puri temple potter community, who guides guests from Svanir.

18 Left to right Roshmita, Khoi, Namrata and Srividhya. Namrata’s cooking is something else, really the very best, everything that emerges from the kitchen .dalijoda has her light and magic touch.

19 Bratati who guides guests who book far enough in advance to catch her in Kolkata. Politically interested and interesting a beacon of bright and engaging guiding.

07/03/2025

International women’s day tomorrow, and I’m stealing an extra day (woman-spreading for a change) to share some great books by Indian women; women of South Asian heritage; and just one by a foreign woman writing about India.

I urge you to read some of the lesser known amongst these: the Bengali novel The Seedlings Tale by Sulekha Sanyal covers the last of the many famines in Bengal under the British occupation of India; & Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve, which was recommended to me by ; hunger from a different perspective.

The two Hindi titles are an anthology of Krishna Sobti’s writings, her ‘Ai Larki’ (Hey Girl) is a classic); and Sudha Chauhan’s ‘Mila Tej Se Tej’ (Strength Met Strength), a biography of her freedom fighter parents. Chauhan’s mother was the famous poet Subhadra Kumari Chauhan whose poem Jhansi ki Rani, who fought the British ‘khub ladi mardani’ (like a man) is (still?) learned by every school child in India. Mila Tej se Tej has never been translated into English and its missing cover shows how much wear and tear it has undergone while I lug it about, and repeatedly have a go at it myself.

F***y Parkes’ diaries, the only Anglo Saxon in here, do contain some grim colonial and racist views, but she was quite unlike the bulk of her white contemporaries. She learned Hindustani in order to try to understand and appreciate the country in which she travelled so extensively and which she loved so deeply, rather than simply to command.

Nationalism in the Vernacular is an excellent selection of Hindi and Urdu writings in translation, from the years leading up to independence. It was put together by the wonderful Shobna Nijhawan (and in amongst the giddy collection of great scholars it contains one translation of a story by Jainendra Kumar, by me).

If you read just one of these books this year, make it The Lucky Ones. Zara Chowdhary’s agonising account of her family living in fear for their lives through three months of siege in Ahmedabad in 2002, a siege experienced for the most part by Ahmedabad’s Muslims. The political landscape has got worse not better since then, and books like these force us not to look away.

01/03/2025

Ramzan Mubarak to Muslim friends in India, and around the world. With most heartfelt wishes to those in exile.

What a wise religion it is that encourages the devotion of one month of each year to fasting and prayer; to attempting more fully to imagine the sufferings of others in the discomfort of one’s own hunger; and to the ending that month with a charitable donation to those in need.

The pictures are just the tiniest snippet of India’s glorious Islamic architectural heritage.

The Jama Masjid in Delhi, and in Bhopal; Humayun’s Tomb and the tomb of Isa Khan; the Taj Mahal and the tomb of Itmud-ud-Daula at Agra; and the tree of life in the jail at Sidi Saiyyed mosque in Ahmedabad.

Ramadan Kareem

22/02/2025

Just in case it isn’t blindingly obvious, these wonderful wildlife shots (desert foxes, demoiselle cranes, wild ass and flamingos) were not taken by me, but by the immeasurably more talented . They give you a glimpse of the diversity of things there are to see and do in Gujarat, on top of all the textiles.

The size of the group tours (3-6 people) that Niyati is leading for me allows for stays in smaller family run places like (pc ) and . As well as a few nights at lux where the wildlife photographs were taken.

It also makes possible the special and not so usual experience of eating in family homes. Pictures here are of best Dholavira guide ‘s family home with his mother and father, and their camel Mayo.

The last two pictures are simply to drop a bit of hope into the rubble we seem to have made of our humanity. It’s Niyati’s hometown Ahmedabad and the Teen Darwaza (three gates). At the gateway to the walled city a diya burns to honour the Hindu goddess of prosperity Laxmi, it has been kept alight by the same Muslim family for six hundred years.

Do get in touch if you would like to join this exceptional tour (29th October to 14th November).

18/02/2025

A chhota post with a few pictures of not so maha festivals, shrines, and acts of worship sent to me by my guests, or taken by me over the past few months. I’m not a religious person but am frequently touched to the core by the faith of my friends in India: the meals served to the household devi; the prayers to the god residing in the tree; the involvement of both men and women in the many festivals that give thanks for the earth’s bounty; being asked by a Muria Gond friend ‘Sophie, who is your devi?’.

Here’s to the quieter acts of worship as seen in beautiful and peaceful Odisha and Bastar from ,

14/02/2025

Thankfully not many guests are daft enough to stay for fewer than four nights ; my wise and wonderful ones (flattery will get you everywhere) rarely take much persuading to make that 5, 6, 7 or more). Repeat guests tend to be even more likely to plump for an extended stay.

And what to do with those many days if you don’t want to do back to back safaris?

Somehow, despite always adding a couple of free afternoons, every minute seems to get filled. Messages come through to me from .christian ‘they want to cycle to the market’; ‘can we add an extra buffer zone walk’; ‘we spent so long at the market yesterday that we have to squeeze in and a visit to the same afternoon’; ‘we went to the chai shop for samosas and then everyone wanted to relax by the river so we are all coming back in the jeep’; ‘We’re all off to buy tiffin tins in Baihar’

The lodges are there because of the tiger reserve, and what a precious and beautiful reserve it is, but Katie and Jehan just shine as examples of showing a bigger picture. A picture that includes and supports the people and the creatures that live around the edges of the park not just the wildlife within.

These pics are of/by guests Gwyn and Christian who just have spent a week in Kanha at Shergarh and with Margie Watts-Carter and were only consoled on departure by the fact that they were continuing for another week . They arrived by train from Mumbai so their 18 night trip includes just two domestic flights and only two car transfers of more than an hour.

21/01/2025

Lahsun patte ka chilla (garlic greens pancakes); and Urmilla ji and the bear

Whilst we trippers pile into jeeps to go into Kanha Tiger Reserve in the hope of a sighting of a large mammal, the villagers who live around the edges of the park are more likely to have the animals come to them.

Urmilla ji works making wildlife souvenirs, in a building funded by the Corbett Foundation. The two organisations help to reduce human-wildlife conflict by increasing people’s income in PP’s case, and supplying training and helping access compensation for domestic animal loss in Corbett’s.

Urmilla ji tells guests who come to do workshops of the time a bear came into her garden and up to the veranda where she was rolling rotis. She knew what to do; quickly slipped inside, and watched from the window while the bear, Goldilocks in reverse, helped itself to her rotis and then went to the chulha where it knocked over the recently cooked rice and gobbled that down too.

Urmilla ji and her sisters-in-law Sharda and Sangita invited me home to learn to cook lahsun ka chilla and I could see for myself how the family home backs onto garden, their fields, and the national park. Bears have a wholesome disregard for borders.

Garlic greens pancakes

1/2 kg rice soaked for an hour
1 kg garlic greens
A fistful of coriander leaves and a few sprigs of ajwain leaves
1/2 inch of ginger
10 or more chillies

Grind to a paste on a sil-bhatta (tastier) or in a mixie, add water and two handfuls of rice flour, a small spoon of turmeric and a couple of salt. It should be the consistency of very thick cream.

Spread on a hot oiled tawa, cover, oil the top side after a few mins and flip.

Serve with tomato chutney. Eat at least five.

Cycle back to with Urnilla’s kind sons guiding you up to the right turn at the river.

14/01/2025

Jimmi kaanda at the Wattis

I’m spending quite a bit of time gathering recipes at the moment, I can’t tell you what a lovely way it is of being with people, sitting by a chulha, chopping and chatting (unintended alliteration).

The Wattis live in a traditional mud home in a pretty village just 20 km from Kanker town, but which feels a world, or several centuries, away from Kanker’s shops and noise and trash.

Preeti the only daughter in the Watti family has a BSc in electrical engineering but finding work has been harder than getting her degree.

She helps her sister-in-law Anita Chachi with her children (Roshni, Radhni, Anjelika, Anauj and little Triyaksh) and cooks … brilliantly.

I’ve eaten wonderfully every time I’ve visited, and wanted to get some recipes for the less common (to me) vegetables they’ve served. We giggled last time when told the vegetable we were eating was called ‘elephant’s foot’, as some guests were vegetarian, and even amongst the often still quite hunter-y as well as gather-y villages in these parts, elephants aren’t generally on the menu.

Jimmi kaanda or elephant’s foot is a large bristly skinned yam that needs careful preparation as its skin can cause irritation. It is boiled whole before any further cooking takes place and then peeled and chopped. Getting exact measurements from Preeti was quite hard as her answer to most questions was ‘apne anusaar’ (according to your taste). I do sympathise, being similarly vague when trying to pass on recipes.

Cycling on to Kanker I thought I’d try the veg market there to see if I could see it sold (Preeti’s was homegrown) but was lucky enough to come upon a village haat (weekly market) on the way, where they didn’t have jimmi kaanda but a smaller version called kochai kaanda, and a bumpy skinned cousin called dhan kaanda. I’m sure the same masala gravy could be used with any yam or even sweet potato.

Thank you Preeti for your time and patience, and Anita chachi for helping, despite having a feverish Triyaksha glued to your hip.

And thank you Rizwan Khan for your community focused tourism, your eye always on how you can help rather than your own pocket.

12/01/2025

A few lines on the gotul system that was, until a couple of generations ago, an integral part of the cultural life of many central Indian indigenous communities.

They worked in multiple forms but their commonality was a valuing of young people in those years between puberty and marriage as people who had something important to offer society. People at that juncture between childhood and adulthood whose vigour, capacity for joy and ability to learn quickly made them special, rather than troublesome as they seem to be viewed in so many societies. They also had no prim concepts of s*x being something shameful, or of virginity as something that needed guarding.

The gotul was a large building, on the edge of the village, where young people would sleep at night, where musical instruments were stored, and dances danced. Young people would attend celebrations in an almost holy capacity. Old men and women whom I have met/know well go misty eyed when talking of their gotul days. Precious years when you could reap the privileges of independence with your peers before taking on the responsibility of family.

Puritanism in its many forms meant they gradually faded.

Some still stand and are used as a store for instruments and a site for celebrations.
There are also some stupid concrete imitations, a sop to pretend anyone gives a toss.

In Garhbangal though, (an example of the benefit of reservations for tribals) a new gotul is being built on the edge of the village with the support of a local (Muria) official. It is capturing a precious concept before it is lost & valuing the traditional skills used to create it, and it is marvellous that Panderam who was in the original gotul is the key woodworker on the project. Teams of people were at work when we visited, Panderam and his son Baldev (one of the 11 of Pande’s 12 sons who have followed in his footsteps as woodcarvers) showed us round the extraordinary work in process, the scope of the carving is remarkable and the lack of anyone saying ‘I did this and he did that’ really notable.
Last 2 self indulgent pics: John at Tina & Jolly’s wedding, J & me in Suss*x. In Garh Bangal we are Lahar Singh and Jallaro.

10/01/2025

Jolly Baba’s Chilla and Tomato Chutney

Chilla was the first breakfast I ate (fully eighteen years ago 😬). I’d arrived from Garh Bengal, feeling a bit heartbroken to have left the wonder of deeply rural Bastar tribal life, but was enfolded into this family’s embrace, and I swiftly pulled myself together.

Jolly of course was the heart of it all. The kitchen was his kingdom, which he ruled in a most egalitarian, unkingly fashion. Tina told me this morning that he really cooked, he didn’t have staff chopping and laying things out for him (though there are a dozen at least who would have willingly done so), he did the hard work as well as the showy stuff. His kitchen is BEAUTIFUL. I took a photo of the shelves of pots this morning, and aaah-ed at their loveliness, ‘all Jolly’s’ said Tina.

He is desperately missed, but he is also living on here so vividly: in memories, in conversation, in Jiya and Jash’s looks and mannerisms and stories, and of course in his food.

When he asked me what I would like for breakfast and I asked if there was anything traditionally Chhattisgarhi he said he would make chilla. I think one is meant to eat 3 or 4, I must have had half a dozen. The same today; this time cooked by Tina, Pilu Ram (who has been with the family for 45 years) and Shahdev Panda (on chutney). Thank you Jolly Baba for what has become my favourite breakfast. Recipe in the last two pictures.

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Videos

This is Kamli, Kosi, Shankar, Sukka and Hidmi welcoming Al and Jen to their village. Do turn the sound on for this. The Gondi words of welcome that they sing go roughly like this ‘We welcome you visitors who come to Gudiyapadar to see the birds of the jungle that fly over our hills. You who come to see us, and to see how we live in the dense forest. You who come to see how we celebrate our festivals and live alongside our ancestors. We welcome you.’ One of the many things that has moved me over the past few years spending more time back in Bastar has been travelling there with Gond drivers from Kanha, all of whom are particularly struck by traditional artefacts, dances, ways of living, and dying, and celebrating, that they remember from their childhood, or have heard about from their elders, but no longer see. I won’t, as I often say, romanticise the difficulties of life as a rural villager in India, not least if one comes from an indigenous community. But frequently, attempts at development come at the cost of a loss of those cultural practices and acts of creativity that lift us from being just eating/earning/sleeping beings and that both shape, and are expressions of, our identity. Shakeel Rizvi’s encouraging the villagers of Gudiya Padar to continue their tradition of welcoming guests into the village with song and dance seems to me to be one of the most beautiful ways of supporting what we call intangible heritage. Shakeel says that when he first started work there accompanying tourists to the village their motivation was (understandably) financial, but that this has changed. We pay, of course of course, but that a real pride has also developed in the showing and sharing of their Muria Gond culture. Some light in this mess we have made of our world .