This is the first post in  series of new locations we will keep sharing to provide you with a memorable vacation, tailored to your Fun Quotient.

Check the villages at the following blog links

http://smttours.blogspot.com/2011/05/katrathal-katraa-market-surrounded-on.html

http://smttours.blogspot.com/2011/05/villages-for-authentic-real-india.html

http://smttours.blogspot.com/2011/05/villages-for-authentic-experience-in.html

Cheers and do leave your feedbacks…

Look out for a new post soon for a new scenic  property for summer travelers to enjoy the pristine hill cottages at  Mukhteshwar.

Come and visit Shekhawati during the famous Shekhawati Festival during Feb11 – Feb13 at Navalgarh.

Visit our packages at “Shekhawati Festival Special”

Please look out for the latest brochure on Shekhawati Festival coming up soon.

I had a chance to visit Holland some time back, invited by the Netherland government under a program, where they invite people from across the globe to evaluate cross-border business opportunities. It was a very nice trip and the embassy arranged for me to meet people in my business interest areas of Agriculture and Rural Tourism.

It was a great visit and have now utmost regards for dutch hospitality, attitude and their professionalism. However, more of that later.

In one of my rural-tourism stays, i met Mr. Hans Schiphorst, a dedicated environmentalist with a very keen eye for promoting sustainable tourism. He was instrumental in slowly but steadfastly convincing government, the local farmers in the area and getting all stake holders together to create the Weerribben Wieden National Park.

It was a great learning experience for me, as Hans explained the sound fundamentals of investing multi-million EUROS in converting the marsh lands (and even converting some farm-land) into forest. The national park is a great eco-tourism attraction now, inviting tourists over weekends. Most of the vacationers come for cycling, relaxing, bird-watching and possibly do some local farm shopping, while staying at local farm properties there.

In India, and for now focusing further on Rajasthan, we have enough and many pre-identified wildlife sanctuaries. However, except for a couple (ranthambhor, and Bharatpur) not many are promoted well. Infact, except in ranthambhor, i believe all the sanctuaries are slowly dying out because of different constraints.

There has been a monumental government effort to revive Siriska by releasing 4 tigers from Ranthambhor, unfortunately only 3 survive as of date. Ironically, the traffic in local hotels there has suddenly picked up again inviting tourists to see theses 3 tigers in asias’s largest wild-life sanctuary.

It does confirm two things

1. Indians like tigers

2. Growing Indian middle class is desperate to find some wild life sanctuaries / holiday destinations

Possibly, there is a merit, to give chance to Indian traveler an opportunity to explore activities beyond “tiger watching”. We can design some PPP initiatives to improve our forest lands green cover, promote different animal and bird life, create forest trails and cycling tracks, train guides, and market the forest for it’s own unique identity and voice.

We recently visited Kolva, a rustic village 15 Km from Sahaj International School at Devrala. Our host was Shri. Gopal Singh ji, a very well respected Rajput in the village. We visited there family haveli and spent a lot of time with the family. We had with us a 6 months old baby, who was amazed with the farms, animals (dogs, hen, cows, and a donkey) and the baby sheeps in her first outing.

We fed the cows and the hen and also learned a very good Chutney recipe from Mrs. Singh. Mr. Gopal singh’s daughters in there early teens, study at Jaipur and were home on a holiday when we visited them. They provided excellent hospitality and company to some of the guests explaining the different farming concepts and of course playing with the baby and introducing her to the animal friends.

The food was rich with Rajasthani hospitality and all plucked from the host’s own farm , except Gud (Jaggery) that they bought from the local kirana shop. It was a great outing and we look forward to longer stay enjoying the peaceful tranquility and fresh air of rural India.

Mr. Gopal Singh is younger brother of Mr. Hukum Singh ji, an ex-banker and now a farmer and wearing a multitude of other hats, including an exquisite tourism property with individual huts at his farm. In our next trip, we look forward to a night-stay at these huts and enjoy the natural beauty and pluck our own salads and vegetables at the farm.

Posted on behalf of the guest….

I recently developed a fancy to wear nice leather Jooti (A village made shoe, with a peaked end) and asked my colleague “Arjun” to take me to a village cobbler. He introduced the cobbler as “the family cobbler” for his dhani (the group of houses belonging to same family at the farms). I asked him to explain further.

He told me, that at every harvest, the family invites this cobbler to pick up all the left out grain in the field after the mechanised harvesting. This grain (possibly from 2-3 of such dhanis) is enough for the cobbler family for the whole year. In return for this grain, the cobbler repairs all the footwear of Yadav clan of respective  dhani free of charge.

I realized that i had seen the most traditional “Barter System” in action. I also appreciated the efficiency with which the post-harvest waste grain in the field was utilized in a commercial chain at no additional cost to the farmer and the cobbler got his annual grain stock by putting in a few days of field labour and servicing the client with his skills.

This season we had identified a new farmer location at “Bhandarej”, a small village in Dausa district of Rajasthan. In march we had an opportunity to host some of our international tourists at Bhandarej as a Break-in group. The guides accompanying them have been to many of our older locations and understand our value proposition well.

They gave us a very positive feedback about the family. They only had one complaint “It was very crowded, as if the whole village was there to see them.

Our local resource person had explained about the curiosity factor to the tourists and they were very understanding and in-fact enjoyed it as well.  It is important to brief both the host locations and the tourists about the “Curiosity Factor” and help them enjoy the attention and take the responsibility of leaving a good impression….