Travelblog visit Gaselo Homestay, Bhutan

Christel, May 2014

The first thing I see is a mini stupa of boulders surrounded by green bushes and plants with bright pink and yellow flowers. Set up for the house of a peasant family in Gaselo, a village on a mountainside above Wangdue. This family with their beautiful wooden two-storey home and small fields full of green asparagus, red peppers, red rice and bananas will open their homes for individuals who travel with us to Bhutan. The son proudly shows me the fields, the cowshed, a small grain mill with which they make rice flour and a wooden bath that is supplied by means of hot stones hot water.

I am invited to enter the house. Eagerly I step inside. The ground floor serves as a storehouse and kitchen. The first floor is for residential purposes. The railings of the wooden staircase that leads me to the top are very slippery from all those hands again and again moving up and down . In a small cozy room I sit down on a mattress lying on the ground. The walls are painted ina soft  blue showing cheerful Bhutanese flower ornamentation in subdued colors. Salty milk tea is served besides popped corn with a fair amount of butter through it.

I bite without thinking in the popped corn and promptly notice I have great difficulty getting the fat butter of my tongue. A big sip of tea saves me. A tiny bit....
The man of the house joins us and tells us what they grow, what they eat and what then is to sell on the market. While he is talking he looks at me with finke loin and proud eyes. His lips and teeth are indeed reddish,caused by chewing of a betel nut.
Smoking is strictly prohibited in all of Bhutan, the consumption of betel nut all the more

If I like I may spend the night in this beautiful house, I am allowed to run around on the fields, watching the cows being milked and how spicy peppers are placed on the roof to dry. I am allowed to help  the wife preparing dinner in the kitchen below. 

This sleep-at-the-farm -idea has just awakened and to me it feels like a wonderful idea. This is what I have missed the last time I traveled in Bhutan: enjoying real life in Bhutan, meet and talk to comon people like myself. A contact which can be longer than a swift smile on the way to yet another wonderful way to a further Dzong.

I sit on the wooden floor of this beautiful house and realize I just came home in Bhutan.