Aum Leki Farmstay and cooking class, Punakha

The drive to Aum Leki Farmstay was truly heroic on our driver Namgay’s part. First and most disturbing was the dense fog along the entire way. It was so dense that you could see only a few feet in front of you! Second, it was a one-lane road. Third, compounding on the second point, was that for much of the way there was a sheer drop down the valley on one side of the road! And finally, the paved road wasn’t the best quality, with parts still suffering the effect of the recent rains, yet even the pavement gave way to the last stretch of unpaved dirt road full of holes. Oh. And. We were running late so it was already dark out.

So when we arrived at Aum Leki’s home, it was a big relief! She greeted us with white scarves, and we were guided down some steps by flashlight. Since it was dark and foggy out, we couldn’t see anything about our environment.

The room was excellent! Two twin beds on a floor covered in carpets - quite reminiscent of Moroccan homes. Notice the fancy towel art! It’s one hand towel placed on top of a bath towel.

I was also surprised to have an en-suite bathroom. I had read other homestay reviews which said that they had only shared baths, or even that bathing wasn’t even a choice? Everything here was very clean.

After settling in, we were invited to milk tea and biscuits in the main sitting area.

And the puffed rice to put into the tea. And new to us, fried flattened corn. The rice floated and the corn sank into the tea!

After some time chatting with Aum Leki (“Aum” is how one addresses an older woman) and our guide Keshab, we went over to the other building for our cooking experience.

This is where Aum Leki lived with her husband and father-in-law. Her husband made the cat door in the lower right of this entrance.

Receipts pinned together; somehow seems so familiar.

Accoutrements of everyday living.

First we made momos together. Starting out with rolling out the dough.

Then filling the dough.

And then crimping closed.

We had quite a variety of styles! Aum Leki self-deprecatingly said that she herself was no expert and watched YouTube videos to learn other techniques.

Then while those went into the steamer…

…we went on to make the Bhutanese national dish, ema datshi, or chili cheese. It started out by simply snapping off the stem of spicy chilis with the hand, leaving much of the green head on.

The chili was then cut into quarters, lengthwise. And then one small tomato to cut some of the spiciness, a bunch of garlic…

…and one small onion.

Then into this was crumbled a hard and crumbly cow cheese. It was like a drier and harder feta cheese.

Then this went on the stove, and cooked, covered…

…with a ladle of water…

…and a glug of oil.

While the chili cheese was on the stove, we had some of the rice spirit that Aum Leki made.

It was stored in this cool container.

Out came some little cups…

…and we had a taste! It was a little like sake, a little like baijiu.

Now back to the chili cheese. After cooking and periodic stirring (about 8 minutes after going on the stove)…

…Leki’s husband added in the salt. Aum Leki explained that if you add the salt in the beginning, the cheese doesn’t have a chance to become sticky. So salt goes in at the end.

As the dishes were being finished, Aum Leki also took out the red rice from the rice cooker.

And we moved the dishes over to the sitting area in the guest building.

There was the finished chili cheese. This was much tastier than the other “cheese” dishes we had had, some of which were quite soupy and seemed to have been made with processed cheese. This was more solid and had sharper flavor.

Our momos. The filling was made with ground pork, salt, ginger, garlic, and what made it taste different from Chinese dumplings, onion.

Beans and chili; it was great to get green vegetables!

And also mushroom cheese. These definitely did not look like canned mushroom, which was what “mushroom cheese” was in other restaurants we ate at.

Chicken with chilis: this was made with garlic, ginger, onion, and a little soy sauce.

Lentil soup: this was made with garlic, ginger, salt, cilantro, cherry tomato, and a little turmeric powder.

And a star of the show was the momo sauce. Aum Leki revealed that its ingredients were chili, onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro, and a little cheese.

All in all, a wonderful dinner!

For dessert, we had some crispy persimmon.

This evening, I slept so well. It was just so silent and peaceful outside, especially as it rained throughout the night.

In the morning, it was still foggy out. Our driver Namgay had told us that we would be surprised to see our surroundings in the morning, so it was a bit sad that we still couldn’t really see!

Still it felt atmospheric, kind of like being in a tree house.

Aum Leki served milk tea.

And rice. She had told us that they eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner: rice, rice, rice. She wondered if that was the same for us in California, to which I responded no. Sometimes noodles, sometimes bread. This rice wasn’t the red rice from last night. It was white rice, with coriander and chopped hard-boiled egg mixed in.

There were also thick buckwheat pancakes. Deliciously nutty and with a little of that buckwheat texture!

Also some scrambled eggs.

And “chili paste.” This was less of a sauce and more of a salad or Mexican pico de gallo salsa, with chili, coriander, and crumbled cheese.

I loved this breakfast, and especially loved the combination of the chili “paste” with rice. I can see how they eat this for breakfast!

We also had apples. They weren’t local, but rather from the northern regions where apples grew.

After breakfast, we took a tour of the grounds in the fog.

We learned that father-in-law was a former bodyguard of the king! And when he retired he was gifted this plot of 3 acres.

This is the building where they live, and where we cooked dinner last night.

The building where guests stay was purpose-built. There are 4 guest rooms on the upper floor (the floor you enter on), while there are rooms on the lower floor for guides and drivers. But our guide Keshab stayed on the upper floor since it was only us that night

Keshab explained that to qualify as a farm stay in Bhutan, the farm had to still be a working farm. So we saw all sorts of fruit trees like this persimmon tree, from which Aum Leki had picked persimmon and brought to the market the day before to sell.

Here was a tree of local pears.

There were also rice terraces. And she also had two cows, one of which you can see here.

We were supposed to leave at 9am, but little by little the fog started to clear up. First allowing us to see the grounds of the farm.

And then eventually…

…we could start to see the expanse of the valley in front of us.

Including the river that ran the length of the valley.

Stunning!

In the daylight, the whole property changes.

Here is that sitting area where we ate dinner last night. There’s a stove in the middle, and on top of the stove was a pot, which they fill with water in the wintertime, to both heat the water and also to humidify the room.