My first vacation experience in a home-stay

[goelmyself]

Last week, went for a family vacation to Chail, a place in Himachal with beautiful scenic beauty. Since I wanted to spend some quality time in the lap of nature, I booked a homestay around 15 kms ahead of Chail, which was in a small village & situated in the middle of a reserved forest. Google Map reviews helped me choose this place.

I deliberately wanted to avoid booking a hotel in any popular town, since hotels are by nature formal, usually are similar on the inside & situated in crowded areas & your vacation days are spent travelling to different destinations in the morning & returning by evening.

Homestays are very common & popular in Himachal itself, where a family lets out a furnished room/s & provides food & amenities to guests, on a paid basis.

Our stay turned out to be excellent. We had consciously decided to spend our time just chilling & not run from one attraction to another. Heavy rain was falling intermittently which made the weather awesome & cold, and we had to wear warm clothes.

My kids and wifey were able to watch apples, walnuts, peach, pomegranates, fennel, zucchini, plums, cauliflower, capsicum, Japanese fruit, chillies, French beans, cucumber growing, many of these they saw for the first time. This was a wonderful experience for them as we live in a city.

The homestay also had three dogs, which attracted our kids & they were only too glad to keep playing with them, even in rain. They saw clouds moving very near to the homestay and were charmed. These views were enchanting.

On top of that, the food, which was cooked by the owners wife, was awesome. Add to that poor & intermittent cellphone reception in that area, and the absence of TV, there were no distractions.

We were able to let our hair down & enjoy. Pure Bliss!

None of the above would have been possible had we booked a hotel or even a resort.

Posting some pics for everyone to see..

[BorrisS]

Hello @goelmyself,

Thank you for sharing your experience and trip with us, I really enjoyed reading it step by step.

The photos and the area looks amazing and very peaceful. What did you enjoy the most?

PS: I am going to put your post in the section Local Stories on Connect, as it fits better there. 

[goelmyself]

Thanks for liking it @BorrisS.

To answer your question, everything,  including :

1. My first time to drive so far in the mountains..  Thankfully my car didn't betray me. 

2. Family vacation,  after almost 5 years (yes,  it's true).  Thanks to two small kids,  a bunch of family responsibilities. 

3. The place itself.  Beautiful,  serene,  no TV and erratic phone/internet connection.. 

That's all mate!! 

[TorM]

Nice post @goelmyself

Happy that you have had time with your family and that you could enjoy.

Especially the 3 🐕🐺🐶 on the first picture caught my eye!

Really thank you that you did share. 

Regards from Germany 

[Male2019]

@goelmyself  beautiful!!!

[Emmik20]

A very interesting post. Sometimes it is good to escape to the country side away far away from the bustling city. I like the story , many of the fruits you mentioned , I myself I haven't seen them. The village scene is just too captivating ; children running on the green field and the dogs barking and playing with one another. @goelmyself  thanks for sharing.

[goelmyself]

@TorM , u have no idea! My wife loves dogs, but she cant bring herself to even touch them (even cows, which are very very gentle & common in India) so i have been pretty careful with both my young daughters that they should interact with dogs & other animals as far as possible. I've been pretty succesful so far, as u can see in one of the pics (the left & middle one are my lil daughters, the one on right is my sis-in-law's daughter). 

The owner of homestay had clearly defined that they couldn't leash their dogs, so i could consider that before booking. I told him i trust my kids, & they didnt let me down one bit!

One was a Siberian husky, one a boxer, third one i dont know.. thanks to my poor knowledge about dogs.

Thanks.

[goelmyself]

@Emmik20 , seeing you guy's affection, i'll try making a collage of the fruits i mentioned & post it here.

Thanks. Love from India.

[helga19]

Thank you @goelmyself  for your nice post.

I agree with @TorM  your photo attract attention,expecially with dogs,I love dogs too.

I read your post with great pleasure,because it is interesting.

I think you made a good choice -to book a home instead a hotel.

Increadible beautiful nature,fresh air,a lot of fruit and vegetable ,quite and peace without gadgets,TV,Internet.

I think every people dream about such vacation -on the nature ,without modern benefits of civilization,away from the noisy streets of the city,from the hustle and bustle of business life.!

Sometimes you get very tired of the hustle snd bustle,and you want to be in the silence in nature,among the mounting,admiring the sunset and dawn.

Thank you for the photos and the post.

How far is it from your city!?

Best wishes from Moscow.

[goelmyself]

@helga19,  you just spoke my exact feelings for a perfect vacation. 

It's around 110 or 120 kms from my home. 

I hadn't expected all you people would like it sooo much.. 

Am planning to post all the pictures on google photos and share a link here. 

Thanks again, 

Love from India🇮🇳