Tibetan homestay

When we were visiting Jiuzhaigo, we stayed at Zhuo Ma's Cottage.
Zhuo Ma, a local, has converted her house into a home-stay for travelers. And it was a very interesting experience to stay with a local and learn a little more about the Tibetan way of life.

Place where we stayed. You can see Ray and Kim in the window ! (Courtesy Warren)

It was gorgeous at night

Zhuo Ma's mom - Ah Ma is the main caretaker of the place and she is awesome. She has mad skills when it comes to hand gestures and I am sure she could converse without using words if she wanted. Being a home-stay, this place was definitely not luxurious. Also, personally, I think it was a bit over-priced since you could stay at "nicer" hotels in town. But apart from that, I really liked staying there. The place itself is about 20 mins out of town, but Zhuo Ma's brother taxi'd the tourists to and fro.

The cottage is located on top of a hill and the view is gorgeous. The mornings and nights are sort of misty, making the hills surrounding the place look more enigmatic. And we could see stars, lots of stars ! It is a rarity to see stars in Beijing, with all the pollution/haze. And I may have almost gotten a frost-bite since I was wearing flip-flops and star gazing/taking pictures at night, but no lasting harm was done. Sadly no shooting stars :(

One of the best parts of the home-stay was the home-made food. We got breakfast, lunch and dinner and almost everything is home grown. Ah Ma showed us where she collected the honey from and her vegetable garden. From her sign language, we gathered that she gets stung by bees in the process of collecting honey but it doesn't stop her from doing it. Also, yak meat tasted surprisingly better than I imagined. Though yak butter is not my cup of tea. I am not sure where she gets the yak meat from, but I really don't want to know. I think yaks are cute...
FYI: Tibetan version of french fries = best form of potatoes I have ever had.

Tibetan Om nom noms

The other fun part of the home-stay was to get to meet other travelers. Met a guy from Germany, who has moved to China and now owns a travel agency in Xi'an, an American student who is doing ecological research, another American student (half Indian-half Chinese) who is studying Mandarin, and another Indian guy who works in Germany and is now traipsing in China for a holiday. Dinners were fun and there were always good stories to listen to.

All the people were really nice and it was small gestures such as making sure that our cups were always filled with steaming tea and serving us dinner, that made it a very hospitable stay. It was a great experience overall. A little pricey, but worth it for once.

With grandma and little kid !

Also Warren told me that lonely planet did a segment on this place, so it has to be cool :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmj3CFpNGcQ