New Friends in New Places
From the village we headed to Kathmandu.
A friend had forwarded me a flyer she saw when in Kathmandu for a “free farm stay” that immediately piqued my interest. I sent an email to the contact asking if they had availability for two in the next few days, and they responded right away with a “yes!”.
So we hiked our way out of the village, bussed back to Surkhet (it was again loud and VERY bumpy), and stayed 1 night in Surkhet. Funny enough the Pradiya Foundation has a partnership with a super fancy hotel in Surkhet so that’s where we stayed. We showed up after being in the village and on an 8-hour bus absolutely covered in dirt and looking VERY out of place from the suits and well-dressed crowd there. It was quite amusing to see people’s faces when we arrived. But everyone there was so nice and we were grateful to have a hot shower, good food and comfortable beds.
We then took the longest bus I have ever taken from Surkhet to Kathmandu. A whole 17 hours of blasting music, winding and bumpy roads (as always) and no bathroom on board… with the little-to-no-sleep we both had, we just hoped we would be awake at the right time when the bus decided to stop for a bathroom break (aka the bus pulls over and everyone gets out to find a nature spot mot fitting for them). In sum, neither of us slept a wink.
But we arrived in Kathmandu excited to be there, went straight to the farm stay and were absolutely blown away by this place that we found.
We stayed at Natural Earth Order Farm. It’s the home of Suju and Amy, a couple working towards living off the land 13 km outside of Kathmandu. They recently finished building the most BEAUTIFUL bamboo home overlooking the city and clearly have a way with plants because everything on their farm was exploding with life – fruit trees (apples, peaches, plums, bananas, pomegranates), nut trees, grapes, beans, cabbages, radishes, carrots, greens, pumpkins, other gourds local to Nepal, and flowers everywhere. We helped with weeding, seeded some radishes, okra, various types of beans, and medicinal plants, and created a few more spaces for planting beds.
I was so inspired by their home and what they are doing together. Suju grew up in Kathmandu and studied in Australia, where he met Amy (who is from Australia). They then moved back to Nepal together, purchased this land and started the farm a few years ago. Everything they’re doing is based on principles of sustainability — permaculture, natural farming and natural building, and indigenous practices.
The area around their home is frequented by wildlife that go down to the nearby water source: leopards, barking deers, martens, Himalayan giant squirrels and many others. So they have leased the lands around them to plant trees to create corridors for these animals to still have access to the water as the city is expanding and lands are being cleared.
We became really great friends. Indianna and I stayed for two weeks. We went for a 3:30 am sunrise hike, made homemade momo’s and had the BEST home cooked meals – this was officially my favorite food on my trip thus far – went out to dinner at a local Newari restaurant (Newar is the indigenous group of Kathmandu valley – it was like tapas, Nepali style), and played card games together almost every night. Amy taught Indianna and I how to macrame and we each made a plant hanger for ourselves! They run a local craft and food market in the city, so we also visited the city and the market they run together, and had a lot of fun exploring the city together.
All around we had SUCH a wonderful stay. I will definitely be visiting them again and will be inviting them to come stay with me when I have my farm one day :)
Homemade Momo’s (above)
Nepali tapas (below) — rice flour “pizza”, spiced lentil patty called Bara, and fried buffalo tripe stuffed with bone barrow
