What a teahouse is like, from the rooms and food to the showers and stove
Where you sleep for two weeks and what you eat every night, why the dining room is warm and your bedroom is not, and which parts cost extra.
By the Lakeshore team · 7 min read · Updated 5 October 2026
People research the mountain and then arrive knowing nothing about the building they'll sleep in for fourteen nights. Of eighty-six articles on the blogs of the eight biggest Nepali operators, five were about accommodation and food. No part of trekking here gets less written about.
Teahouses are what make trekking in Nepal different from most of the world's mountain ranges. You don't carry a tent or a stove. You walk between family-run lodges, eat what the family cooks and sleep in a room that costs almost nothing.
This is what it's like, including the bits that rarely get mentioned.
The rooms
You get a twin room with two hard single beds, a foam mattress, a pillow and a blanket or two. The walls are usually plywood, so you'll hear your neighbours, their alarm and their zips. Earplugs are the cheapest comfort upgrade you can buy.
Bedrooms have no heating on any teahouse trek, anywhere. At 4,000 m in November your room gets close to freezing overnight, so a warm sleeping bag isn't optional and a blanket on top of it is normal. The room itself costs very little, often a few hundred rupees and sometimes nothing at all if you eat dinner and breakfast there. The lodge makes its money on the food, which is why you shouldn't eat your own snacks in the dining room.
The food, and why dal bhat wins
Menus are surprisingly long. Expect pasta, pizza, fried rice, momos, soup, porridge, eggs and pancakes, and expect almost the same list in every lodge, because the trekking regions standardised them decades ago.
Dal bhat is the one to order. You get rice, lentil soup, curried vegetables, pickle and sometimes greens, with free refills. The family is cooking it anyway, so it reaches your table fastest and freshest, and it's the meal made for people who walk all day. The porters eat it twice a day.
The pizza is not good. It's fine, but the kitchen isn't built for it. By day four most people have worked this out on their own.
Prices climb steeply with altitude, because everything came up on a porter's back or a mule. A plate of dal bhat at 4,000 m can cost three times what it does at the road head. The extra pays for carrying it up.
The dining room and the stove
Every teahouse has one heated room, and in the evening everyone in the building is in it. The stove sits in the middle, burning wood or, higher up, yak dung. It's lit around five or six in the evening and out by nine.
Evenings round the stove are one of the things people remember most about trekking in Nepal. It keeps everyone in the same room, so you end up talking to people from six countries over a pot of tea.
Two bits of etiquette. Order dinner at the same time as everyone else if you can, because the kitchen cooks on limited fuel and a stream of separate orders wastes it. And don't hog the seats nearest the stove. Take your turn.
Showers, charging and wifi
You'll find hot showers surprisingly high up. They cost extra, a few hundred rupees, and they're gas-heated and often properly hot. Further up the shower turns into a bucket of warm water, and near the top of most routes there's no shower at all. Most people stop caring around day four.
Lodges charge for charging, per device per hour, and it gets expensive high up where the power is solar. Bring a power bank and pay for a single charge, instead of charging three things separately. Wifi is sold by voucher on the main routes, and it's slow. Above a certain height it stops altogether. Assume you'll be offline for the top few days of any trek, and tell people at home before you go so they don't worry.
Water, and the plastic problem
Bottled water is sold everywhere and costs more the higher you go. The bottles are also the biggest waste problem on Nepal's trails, because somebody has to carry the empties back down.
Carry a filter bottle or purification tablets, and fill up at the safe drinking water stations many villages now run. Over a two-week trek that saves you several thousand rupees and around thirty bottles.
Don't drink tap or stream water untreated, at any altitude, however clean it looks.
Booking, and the October problem
For most of the year you turn up and there's a room. In peak October and April on the popular routes, lodges above the last village are full by mid-afternoon, and late arrivals share rooms or sleep in the dining room.
That's why we start early in peak season and our guides phone ahead. It's also why the quieter routes are worth asking us about in those months.
At Machhapuchhre Base Camp and other small, high places on a busy night, nobody gets a private room. That's the limit, and paying more won't change it.
Walk it with us
Private departures on your dates, guided by the people who wrote this page.
Questions we get asked
Do I need to bring a sleeping bag?
Yes. Blankets are provided, but they aren't enough above about 3,000 m. Rent a four-season bag in Lakeside for a few dollars a day, from our office if you like, instead of buying one.
Is the food safe?
Cooked food in teahouses is generally fine. Eat vegetarian at altitude, because the meat has often travelled a long way without a fridge. Treat all your water, and skip salads and unpeeled fruit.
Can I get a private room?
Almost always, except at small, high lodges on peak-season nights. Where a lodge takes bookings, we book ahead.
How much extra should I budget per day?
Roughly 1,500 to 2,500 rupees a day covers showers, charging, wifi, drinks and snacks if you want them all. Less if you skip the shower and the beer. Our treks already include your room and meals. Bring small notes, as there are no ATMs above the road head and no card machines.
Are there western toilets?
Mostly yes lower down, and a mix higher up, where squat toilets are common. Bring your own paper and hand sanitiser, because neither is guaranteed.
Still deciding?
Tell us your dates and how much walking you've done, and we'll tell you whether Annapurna Base Camp is right for you. If it isn't, we'll say so.
Nothing to pay online. We confirm your dates first.
Or call the office +977 61-457830