A night in the home of
a Tibetan family

We arrange this experience in villages across the Tibetan plateau of Gansu, Qinghai and western Sichuan. We work with specific families under direct agreements, and we cap every group at six people per house.

There are no borrowed costumes, no choreography and no souvenir stall at the end. There is butter tea, a wood fire and conversation with English interpretation.

What you do during the stay

The afternoon starts early and has no fixed script. These are the things that always come up, because they are the ordinary life of the house:

• Churning butter tea with the wooden churn, the way it is done every morning.
• Kneading tsampa, the roasted barley you eat by hand with the tea.
• Cooking dinner together: vegetables from the garden, yak yoghurt and, sometimes, dried meat.
• Hanging prayer flags on a mountain pass at dawn the next day.
• Learning the guozhuang, the circle dance performed around the fire.
• Waking up with the yaks and helping with the milking if you feel like it.

How we agree it with the family

This is the point that sets us apart. The price is agreed directly with the family before we ever sell the experience, the family receives 100% of the fee, and no local middleman takes a cut. Where it applies, we also pay a village contribution.

Visitors are capped at six per house, and we do not return to the same house more than twice a month, so that village life stays the life it was.

Rules of respect

We explain them before you arrive, and the guide reminds you at the door. They are not negotiable:

• You never touch anyone's head: it is a serious insult.
• You always walk clockwise around monasteries, stupas and prayer walls.
• You ask permission before photographing people, houses or religious images.
• You do not point with a finger, and you do not walk in front of someone who is praying.
• You do not haggle: the price has already been settled with the family.

What to bring

Warm layers, even in summer: nights on the plateau get cold. A torch or headlamp, because the power sometimes goes. And your own water bottle. There is no need to bring gifts: if you want to contribute, the village contribution is the right channel and we handle it.