Holidays in Rural India

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Holidays in Rural India

Holidays in Rural India Real interaction can take place with time for friendships to develop and for experiences to be shared.

Central India - with its rolling hills and mixed forests, indigenous Gond and Baiga tribal people, and few tourists - is the perfect place for a comfortable but authentic experience of rural Indian life and landscape. We encourage travellers to allow themselves a slow-paced adventure, with time to absorb the wealth of images and impressions that will flood the senses. We meet most of our guests be

fore they travel to spend time discussing their interests and putting together an itinerary that best suits them. By choosing one or two main locations for their holiday, guests have the chance to get to know the people in whose country they are a visitor. We help visitors see India as it is lived by so many Indians yet seen by few foreigners. Guests have time to learn the lie of the land and the rhythms of everyday life, with visits to pottery and weaving villages, tribal markets and local schools. The countryside is safe and the people friendly and most guests become confident enough to do a little solitary exploration on foot or by bicycle.

26/07/2026

An event at the Indian High Commission on Tuesday, all about one of my favourite things Indian Trains.

it began with a video of a train rolling into a platform & Monisha Rajesh 🇵🇸 (star attraction for me)’s first words echoed my own thoughts that just that sight and that sound gives one goosebumps.

Off we go, woohoo, yip yip.

One up from the excitement of the train rolling in, is being on it as it rolls OUT. Dinner ordered and bed roll in its paper packaging waiting to be spread out for a night being rocked to your destination.

Lots of excellent points were made at the event, most eloquently by Monisha, and mainly about how gloriously sociable Indian trains are; how tip top the food is; and how even if you are cocooned in First AC you are properly IN it when on a train. Life rolling by outside, beautiful and ugly, uplifting and heartbreaking.

As Monisha said the key really is being realistic about what you feel comfortable with. For many just the short but beautiful ride from Bhubaneswar to Rambha along lake Chilika is enough, or the trundle through Vansada wildlife sanctuary to Dang Forest Retreat . Other guests this season are rising early to get the Vande Bharat from Delhi to Varanasi, and many are happy to take the plunge and do an overnight. Snorers are the main thing people struggle with but that is as likely to be your own friends or family, as unknown fellow passengers. Our fave is the Vidharbha Express from Mumbai CST to Gondia for Shergarh, Kanha Tiger Reserve, India My daughter took her first Indian train when she was 6, her son will being doing his first at 9 months old when we all travel on the Vidharbha to Shergarh in Dec.

All our guests are assisted into their carriage and met by s’one holding the bright blue HiRI sign.

Essential Kit

Noise cancelling earphones
Jumper for icy a/c
Bialetti Eletrikka if milky chai makes you gag, and a morning without an espresso is a catastrophe
Small change for snacks at every stop
Notebook for memories
Books, included here are two new to me, and both unputdownably brilliant Railsong & The Social Life of Indian Trains; and one classic, Monisha’s fabulous Around India in 80 Trains.

24/06/2026

made this beautiful and touching video of our time together in Bastar last week, trying to identify people in photos taken by John Ash fifty years ago.

I am so grateful to have him and by my side in this ongoing project. Both of them helping to document it all with the tenderness and sensitivity towards the people we met that they deserve, in these profoundly moving moments.

22/06/2026

The happiest of days cycling with Katie from Shergarh, Kanha Tiger Reserve, India to Sinali Experiences to go over (any excuse) our oh so lovely new route for next season.

Setting off at dawn is always a good idea, not least in June, when only mad dogs and Englishwomen go for a 90km cycling loop. Our Toutche | Electric Cycles e-bikes made the whole thing almost effortless though, and cloudy skies a blessing.

Flat roads through villages, gentle ups and downs through forests, a dart up a tempting hill on foot where hosts of spot sword-tail butterflies fed on tiny flowers in trees that remain impossibly green despite soaring temperatures and a monsoon that is yet to deliver.

Villages of bright white mud houses with terracotta roofs that have thus far escaped the bullying cement, an old man placing a layer of palash leaves on the roof of his cow barn to keep his buffalo and cattle cool. A halt to help a family push their broken tractor over a speed hump.

We stopped for tea in Sarekha, crossed and recrossed the sandy dry riverbed of the Banjar and arrived Sinali Experiences Outpost Barah up the banks and through their back door in time for breakfast. Fruits and aloo paratha, omelettes, strong black coffee and … a shot of vodka infused with the mouth tingling spot flower. It’s been a week of daytime tippling, from chin toddy tapped from the date palm to this more sophisticated micro shot (all in tiny quantities!).

Sturdier snacks at Sarekha on the return. Buddhram’s son Raja dishing up samosas with black channa chutney and mangora (bite sized moong dal fritters) with a fresh cold tomato chutney (new recipe in the next week or so on my substack),

Our cycling trips give you a deep and rich experience of rural Indian village life with proper comfort at every base. Next season’s trips will as usual be based from Shergarh and include nights Outpost Barah & Kipling Camp or Courtyard House. All will be led by our very own Catherene Christian

Small (very) group trips for 7-8 night long stays kick off of 7th December 2026 and 16th and 26th January 2027.

Many of our guests have done these trips multiple times. Us? Countless! And always different but always spirit lifting 🚲💚🚲

17/06/2026

I knew John Ash for just two years, but he had a greater impact on my life than anyone else I have known, outside my family. He introduced me to Bastar, and to the people there who had him in their lives far longer than me.

He was a prolific photographer, and last year his sister Penny gave me his photographs of 1970s & 80’s Bastar. With huge input from M, we transferred a selection of the 3000 + slides to digital and print. I went back with some last November, and we had a small exhibition of some of the photos at Surooj Trust ‘s annual event last week, where various people recognised their friends in the pictures. It felt fitting to show them amongst the people of Bastar first.

I asked Shoba Mohan of RARE India if we might display some at Bridges for Conscious Travel in Delhi in Sept and she kindly & enthusiastically agreed.

I want to get permission (to exhibit) from as many people in the photos still living as I can and went to Garh Bengal after the Surooj event with Dipti ogre , Shakeel Rizvi & Uttam (Dada Guru Travels ) to continue trying to find people.

Not enough space here to do this justice but watching the faces of people see themselves and their friends dancing, drumming and laughing half a century ago, people who will never before have seen images of their youth and childhood was yet another gift from John.

The most poignant thing is that the culture they were part of has all but vanished; a way of life, aspects of which are visible in 10,000 year old cave paintings in central India, wiped out in a generation.

As pleasing as seeing the emotions on the older people’s faces was seeing the interest on the younger ones’. Surooj trust works to promote the passing on of skills & knowledge to young people by elders, knowledge that will die with them if not saved, and we hope that these photos might also play their part.

Sensitive tourism can too. You won’t find swimming pools or spas here but you will find (and help to show it is worth saving) a culture from which we could all learn a lot.

Photos include Sukdei, Laharo, Somari, Sattaya, Kolé, Kandé, Jairam. Vid (last but one slide) is Sattaya and Somari singing about the dhamke dot decorations put on home walls after the harvest.

04/06/2026

It was world bicycle day yesterday (I missed it as it’s also our wedding anniversary and we spent the day looking for orchids in the Pyrenees).

I searched ‘bicycle’ on my phone photos and it told me I have 1100+ pictures of bicycles! Here are a few of them, mostly riderless, but last pic is me on my v first one giving my brother a backie way back in the 1970s.

Cycling is such a free and happy way to see rural India, and bicycling is available on pretty much all the holidays we offer. Our longest and loveliest start from
and are led by .christian .

Week long group trips start 28th November 2026, 16th January 2027 and 26th January 2027 and include stays at and .experiences as well as at Shergarh.

Independent groups and couples can make contact to arrange rides anytime from October to February.

Multi day rides in Odisha looping in .dalijoda .svanir and will be finalised by end September.

🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲

13/05/2026

Girls on bicycles! 🚲🚲🚲

Few things whack a smile on my face as fast as this. The freedom it represents for girls in India is huge, in part due to the time saved for those burdened by domestic chores.

All our guests visit the sports academy for tribal children run by .20 and all are as bowled-over and wonderstruck as I am every time I visit.

Kind guests this season assisted in the purchase of eleven bicycles to help the girls speed from school to sports practice. One was bought in January and ten this weekend.

Thank you lovely guests and thank you Dibyaranjan fot being such an inspiration. 💪🏼

01/05/2026

Happy May Day and Happy Buddha Purnima.

It seems fitting that Buddha Purnima collides with Labour Day this year.

The revolutionary nature of the Buddha’s teachings don’t seem to get the attention they deserve and maybe today we should all look at the one of his eightfold teachings that focused on work:

‘Right Livelihood’ ie to earn a living that causes no harm to others or to oneself.

As India swelters (it has the hottest cities on earth at the moment) its forest and wild places (many lived in and depended on by indigenous communities) from the Andamans through Odisha and Chhattisgarh and up to Ladakh, are being threatened by the trillionaires who are basically setting the country of fire.

So here is to the revolutionary (aka sensible logic) of Buddha’s teachings, and here are a few drops in the ocean of lovely places to stay in India within a stone’s throw of extraordinary Buddhist sites in India. The majority of which are quite remarkably peaceful and free from crowds.

Ladakh .ladakh

Maharashtra

Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh (for Sanchi and more)

Odisha and .svanir .dalijoda

01/03/2026

A busy season of holidays in beautiful Odisha is coming to a close and it’s been a happy success.

I operate a bit differently to larger travel companies, with a focus on depth rather than breadth. I build working relationships, that almost invariably become friendships, with people in a few less touristy parts of India.

* I visit the places to which we send our guests multiple times.

* I don’t use a third party to plan my itineraries.

* I work closely with our hosts, experiencing first hand, and sometimes co-creating or fine tuning, the activities we arrange.

These are activities that make our guests’ stays more meaningful, mutually enjoyable, and which, where possible, support craftspeople, environmental activists and NGOs.

Spending a morning with at Dibyaranjan’s sports academy for indigenous kids in Baripada from

Taking a country boat on the shallow waters of the north eastern edge of Lake Chilika at Mangaljodi to see birds in their thousands, now protected by those who used to hunt them.

Learning how to paint the papier mâché-like cow dung and rice husk masks with Mausi ji in her village from .svanir

Meeting the potting community in Puri who make the thousands of pots used for prasad (blessed food) at the temples each day.

Visiting the highly skilled ikkat weavers in villages from or

Chugging through the mangrove forested backwaters of Bhittarkanika spotting crocodiles and birds from

Seeing the multitude of crafts in villages outside Cuttack from .dalijoda

Odisha is blessed with great natural beauty, some super places to stay, amazing food and extraordinary creativity.

Aching to return!

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