Impressions of eastern Nepal & the gem that is Ilam

Leav­ing the com­forts of my home has always been not only excit­ing but also some­what com­fort­ing to me. 

Travel has helped me grow, learn, unlearn, and relearn things in life. 

The most pre­cious memor­ies I have of grow­ing up are of going to dif­fer­ent places, exper­i­en­cing dif­fer­ent cul­tures and lan­guages, and enjoy­ing the loc­al delicacies.

Tak­ing fam­ily vaca­tions as a child to explore dif­fer­ent parts of Nepal really helped me under­stand and appre­ci­ate my coun­try’s diverse cul­tures and landscapes. 

The inside track

Aay­usha Pra­sain leads the Com­munity Homestay Net­work, a social enter­prise that works with hosts and com­munit­ies in Nepal to devel­op mem­or­able exper­i­ences for visitors.

Man­aging and arran­ging travel dates for our fam­ily was chal­len­ging, so we trav­elled mostly dur­ing the Nepalese fest­iv­al sea­son in Octo­ber and November. 

The num­ber one reas­on was that we would all have hol­i­days dur­ing that time. As a bonus, it is also one of the best times to travel in Nepal. 

Even so, trav­el­ling dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son was not very com­mon in Nepal back then, which could make inde­pend­ent travel plan­ning difficult.

East­ern Nepal is spe­cial to my fam­ily. My par­ents were born and raised there. Yet when we decided to travel to Ilam in 2008, we did not know that a few sur­prises awaited. 

We took a flight from Kath­mandu to Bhad­rapur (closest air­port to Ilam), from whence we hired a car. Unfor­tu­nately, after an hour of driv­ing, the car broke down. 

It was the fest­ive sea­son so there was no loc­al trans­port to hop onto, and we were still at least three hours away from our destination. 

After half an hour of wait­ing for some­thing to take us fur­ther, a goods car­ri­er jeep came our way. Luck­ily it was en route to pass through our des­tin­a­tion so the driver kindly let us hitch­hike in the back. 

The unfor­tu­nate event of our car break­ing down became pos­sibly the best thing that could have happened to us on that trip. We bon­ded over fam­ily stor­ies as we made ourselves com­fort­able among the boxes and the pro­duce, enjoy­ing the scenery and the cool breezes from the open tray. 

Since that trip, Ilam has held a very spe­cial place in my heart. Our adven­tures as a fam­ily hik­ing through the hills and explor­ing the beau­ti­ful tea gar­dens made an ever­last­ing impres­sion on a young high school girl. 

Fast for­ward to 2021, 13 years after my first vis­it, I had anoth­er oppor­tun­ity to travel to Ilam through my work with the Com­munity Homestay Net­work (CHN).

Although my memor­ies from the first time were a bit blurred, remem­ber­ing Ilam’s land­scape and warm and hos­pit­able people made me excited about my second.

It was a short trip of three days to meet and stay with the loc­al hosts of a CHN-affil­i­ated homestay in Shree Antu, a small vil­lage sur­roun­ded by beau­ti­ful tea gar­dens and, to the north, the third-highest moun­tain in the world, Kanchen­junga (8,586 metres).

Homestays are a great option for those who are inter­ested in meet­ing and inter­act­ing with loc­al people, exper­i­en­cing their way of life, and dis­cov­er­ing the best the loc­al area has to offer. While I was there I mostly enjoyed vil­lage walks and the tea gardens. 

Most of the hosts of the Shree Antu Com­munity Homestay are engaged in the tea busi­ness. I was lucky enough to exper­i­ence tea har­vest­ing with them. And I fol­lowed my pluck­ings to the tea fact­ory, where I learned all about the pro­duc­tion process.

Sip­ping the final product, an aro­mat­ic hot tea, with a view over a scen­ic tea garden from a cozy wooden house, was some­thing I missed upon my return to Kathmandu.

Com­par­at­ively, east­ern Nepal sees far few­er inter­na­tion­al trav­el­lers than the rest of the coun­try, but those who make it there nev­er regret it. When you vis­it Nepal, take some time to explore east­ern Nepal, and the green gem that is Ilam. 

Where is this?

Shree Antu Com­munity Homestay
LH Rd21, Shree Antu 57300, Nepal
Tel: +977 984 262 9703

Com­munity Homestay Net­work
Lal Durbar Marg, Kath­mandu 44600, Nepal
Tel: +977 980 190 2572 | E‑mail: info@communityhomestay.com

Where next?