Ahsa Farm Stay Thailand - International Traveller

The hosts of a farm stay in northern Thailand sow seeds of hope in the community with a range of down-to-earth activities.

I’m looking out over the mighty Mekong at the point where Thailand meets Laos and Myanmar in the light of the late afternoon. Here, where the muddy waters merge with an even murkier past, I can’t help but think how life has changed for the people of Thailand’s northern farming communities, including the one we have just visited.

The journey to Ahsa Farm Stay

The family-operated Ahsa Farm Stay rests in the foothills of Doi Mae Salong. It’s an hour’s drive north from the city of Chiang Rai and south of where I am standing on the viewing platform at Sop Ruak, in the heart of Southeast Asia’s infamous Golden Triangle.

To get there, my two Australian travelling companions and I set out from Chiang Rai together with local guide Kantapong Thepsurin, identified as one of Thailand’s Best Tour Guides by the Tourism Authority of Thailand.

From my place in the passenger van I spy the stupa of a golden Buddhist temple poking up through low-lying cloud, which is clinging to the top of lush hillsides. And, up close, there’s the green rush of rice fields and plantations of pineapple, coffee and corn.

farmers planting rice at Ahsa Farm Stay — Rice planting is part of the farming traditions in Thailand. (Image: Ahsa Farm Stay)

“Coffee grown in this area has become famous and each year we have visitors from all over the world, especially Italy where Arabica is popular," says Kantapong. “Farmers here used to grow poppies for opium but since the government’s ban in 1958, and thanks to the Royal Project, they now grow many different crops like fruit, coffee and Oolong tea."

The Royal Project Kantapong is referring to is the one implemented by the late King of Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The charitable project partnered with the UN’s Fund for Drug Abuse Control in 1971 with the aim of tackling poverty and drug addiction in northern hill tribe communities and farming villages through alternative development.

It has led to the transition of more than 150 replacement crops – with poppy cultivation falling by 97 per cent between 1985 and 2015.

a rice field in front of Ahsa Farmstay — Different crops are grown at the Ahsa Farm Stay. (Image: Ahsa Farm House)

How tourism is blooming in rural Thailand

Turning off the main road and following an unsealed track to our destination, we are keen to see what life looks like today for farmers and their families. What we discover is that tourism in these parts is also a growing business.

Ahsa, which means ‘life’ in the local dialect, was established in 2017 by local boutique tourism company Rung Rak Chan. The farm stay, which was conceived by founder Rossawan Kamwang, is located in the heart of Doi Mae Salong’s rural community and set amid 14 hectares of organic working farmland.

the Mekong river in Chiang Saen — Admire the mighty Mekong River. (Image: sonatali via Getty Images)

Rossawan’s vision was to introduce guests to a taste of northern hospitality and provide the opportunity to ‘live like a farmer’ through authentic hands-on experiences.

Activities such as rice harvesting, rubber-tree tapping and cooking Lanna (North Thai) cuisine offer opportunities for cultural connections under the guidance of the host family that call Ahsa home.

“One of our aims is to create employment for young people and activities that support the community," Rossawan says. “We also invite local people with expert skills to help us run activities, such as our trekking excursions to Akha hill tribe villages."

an old man with a child while rubber-tree tapping at Ahsa Farm Stay — Tap into time-worn farming traditions. (Image: Ahsa Farm Stay)

Expert skills were also used to construct Ahsa’s architecturally designed accommodation, with four traditional farmers’ cottages built using vernacular design principles and the knowledge of skilled local craftsmen.

The dwellings are designed to exist in harmony with natural surrounds using sustainably sourced materials such as recycled teak from the old village school. It’s these eco-conscious principles that played a pivotal role in Ahsa Farm Stay earning BCI Asia’s Interior Design award and a finalist nomination in Completed Buildings at the World Architecture Festival.

a traditional farmers' cottage in Ahsa Farmstay — Guest accommodation is in traditional farmers’ cottages, built sustainably by the community. (Image: Bonita Grima)

The best experiences on offer at Ahsa

Our first task is to gather ingredients for lunch accompanied by host family members Aong Aiyod – who first came to live at Ahsa with his wife and their two young daughters – and his cousin, Aun Wannamala – who also acts as manager. We each grab a wicker basket, don a traditional straw hat and follow Aong for a foraging tour of the farm.

With waddling geese in tow, we wander past paddies of jasmine rice, pausing to pull garlic, ginger and turmeric from the ground, and marvel at the majesty of water buffalo, casually grazing in a field.

baskets of local produce from farm foraging activity at Ahsa Farm Stay — Farm foraging is a popular activity at Ahsa Farm Stay. (Image: Bonita Grima)

“They were used for ploughing but now we let them roam free," Aong tells us. Culturally significant and bearing the brunt of hard labour for centuries, these gentle creatures were once a prized possession for farmers. These days, they have been mostly replaced by tractors – except for ones like these that have been rescued by the farm.

We join Aong gathering fruit from the orchard, collecting freshly laid eggs from the henhouse and picking chilli, coriander and lemongrass from the herb garden. Before preparing our farm-to-table feast, we have the opportunity to press pause at Ahsa’s spa.

relaxing in a rattan chicken coop overlooking the rice paddies — Enjoy a traditional herbal sauna in a rattan chicken coop overlooking the rice paddies. (Image: Ahsa Farm Stay)

Ahsa’s spa is an open-air structure where Thai massages take place overlooking the rice paddies. It is also where you can experience traditional beauty treatments unique to the area, including a sauna session in a rattan chicken coop and a facial using thanaka – a paste made from ground bark.

“This style of sauna was traditionally used by women after giving birth because we use boiled herbs to create a cleansing steam," Aun tells me as I sit within the scented dome that doubles as a chicken enclosure, my head poking comically from the top.

“And this paste for the face is one my mother used to make. It came from Burma originally where it’s used to protect against the sun."

the interior of Ahsa Farm Stay with chairs — Embrace the languid pace of life at Ahsa Farm Stay. (Image: Bonita Grima)

Why it’s important to keep the culture alive

Raised in the nearby village, Aun shares more of her past with me as we walk over to the cooking shala after my treatment. “I moved to Chiang Rai when I was young where I learned to speak Italian and work as a tour guide," Aun says. “But I had to return to look after my ageing parents who could no longer work on the farm."

A shortage of agricultural workers and loss of cultural knowledge are now the main concerns among the farming communities in northern Thailand; the current trend is for the area’s younger generations to move to urban areas in search of alternative work and lifestyles.

Ahsa farm stay hosts Aun Wannamala and Aong Aiyod — Meet the farm stay hosts Aun Wannamala and Aong Aiyod. (Image: Bonita Grima)

Aun, who now has a 15-year-old-daughter of her own studying in the city, says community-based tourism operations such as Ahsa Farm Stay are important because they provide more diverse job opportunities for young people and help keep culture alive. “It’s something I talk to my daughter about, because if young people continue to move away from the area, we will lose our lifestyle and traditional ways," says Aun.

Finally, at our outdoor cooking stations, we are eager to make nam prik ong (minced pork), thom kha kai (sweet and sour chicken with coconut) and kanam klauy (steamed banana cake).

Aun says she learned to cook these three traditional Lanna dishes from her grandmother. Before we start cooking, Aun shares one last piece of advice. “Here, we don’t have strict rules, no exact weights or measures. Here, just like everything we do, we do it from the heart." Sounds like a recipe for success.

visitors participating in a Thai cooking class — Visitors can also participate in Thai cooking classes. (Image: Jules Park/@AmazingSydneyLife)

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A traveller’s checklist

Getting there

With daily connections from Bangkok, the city of Chiang Rai is accessed by operators such as Bangkok Airways, Thai Smile, Air Asia, Lion Air and Nok Air. Ahsa Farm Stay is located 35 kilometres north of Chiang Rai International Airport and can be reached by taxi or car hire. Alternatively, Ahsa Farm Stay provides a return transfer service from the airport for $127, which can be booked in advance.

Staying there

Family rooms at Ahsa Farm Stay start at $238, while double rooms start at $263 and include all daily meals.

the guest accommodation at Ahsa Farm Stay — The rustic cottages are built using reclaimed timber. (Image: Ahsa Farm Stay)

Playing there

While the city of Chiang Rai is known for its night markets and contemporary works of art, including Chalermchai Kositpipat’s famous White Temple, Doi Mae Salong is home to scenic mountain trekking, traditional hill tribe communities and some of the best tea and coffee plantations in Thailand.

Check out Choui Fong Tea Plantation, which has a tea cafe and shop. Visits to the area’s best attractions, within an hour’s drive of Ahsa Farm Stay, can be accessed independently or arranged via your hosts.

the tea plantations near Doi Mae Salong, Chiang Rai province — Find tea plantations near Doi Mae Salong, Chiang Rai province. (Image: Alamy/CPA Media PTE LTD)

After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?

In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.

Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?

Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?

How tourism is changing in Nepal

Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.

Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.

“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.

Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”

Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”

CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.

A new generation demanding more

Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”

We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”

Boudha Stupa's prayer wheels — Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)

In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…

bouda stupa prayer flags — Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.

Boudha Stupa vendors — Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.

A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.

Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.

Life unfiltered in the Terai region

tharu woman — Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.

Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.

Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)

We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.

Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.

On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.

community homestay entrance — A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.

The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.

In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.

food at community homestay — Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.

The power of community homestays

community homestay owners in Nepal — Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)

Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.

“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”

The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.

Sonara community room — An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)

Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.

Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.

CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.

“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.

In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.

“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”

Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”

Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.

Keeping culture alive at a Northern Thailand farm stay