In 2018, a former Indian Navy sailor and deep-sea commercial diver and a Scottish textile researcher looked at a barren 4-acre field in Bokakhat, Assam — five trees, spent soil, nothing growing — and decided to build a farm. Six years later there are 600 native trees, a weaving studio preserving eri silk traditions, a kitchen anchored by ancestral Assamese recipes, and some of the most thoughtful rooms near Kaziranga National Park. This is Medini.
The name Medini means earth in Sanskrit — and the name is the mission statement. Everything that Champak Deka and Anna-Louise Meynell have built at their Bokakhat farmstay starts from the soil: restoring it, planting it, learning from it, celebrating what it produces. The farm is a living experiment in what happens when two people with complementary knowledge, genuine conviction, and considerable patience decide to regenerate a piece of land in the middle of Assam.
Champak is a former Indian Navy sailor with expertise in deep-sea commercial diving. He grew up in Assam and understands this landscape — its agriculture, its ecology, its cultural traditions — with the intimacy of someone whose roots run deep in the region. Anna-Louise is a textile designer and researcher from Scotland, whose academic work on eri silk traditions in Assam has been translated into a practical, living practice at Medini’s Weave Studio. Together they arrived at Bokakhat in 2018, looked at a barren field with five trees, and began.
Six years on, Google Earth tells the story that words struggle to: the before image is a flat, largely empty patch; the after is a dense green canopy of over 600 native trees, fruit trees, dye plants, and a flowering biodiversity that has returned to the land because it was given the space and care to do so. Barely 5% of the farm has been developed for guests. The remaining 95% is the living experiment itself: multi-layered natural agriculture, circular waste management, and the biodiversity of a restored Assamese landscape.
The Three Verticals
Medini is built on three interconnected verticals that work together to create a stay unlike any other near Kaziranga.
The first is Tourism — the farmstay itself, a design-led, comfortable retreat amidst paddy fields and forest, where guests stay in handcrafted rooms and eat farm-fresh Assamese food. The second is Agriculture — the 4-acre farm with 600+ native trees and plants, managed with the principles of natural, multi-layered farming that Champak has developed and continues to research. The third is the Weave Studio — Anna-Louise’s domain: a working textile studio where eri silk traditions are researched, practised, and preserved, where natural dyeing techniques are alive and producing, and where guests can participate in the ancient textile culture of Assam as a genuine learning experience rather than a tourist demonstration.
Each vertical feeds the others. The farm provides fresh ingredients for the kitchen, natural dyes for the Weave Studio, and creates the biodiverse environment that guests experience. The Weave Studio preserves cultural heritage and creates livelihood for local craftspeople. The tourism vertical supports the farm and the studio while making all three visible to the world.
The Rooms
The rooms at Medini are designed, built, and furnished with the same philosophy that governs the farm: handcrafted excellence, traditional materials, warm interiors, and a connection to the landscape that is visible from every window. All fabrics in the rooms have been designed and created in the Weave Studio — an integration of the creative and the practical that means guests sleep in rooms whose textiles are part of the same story as the food on their table and the trees outside their window.
The rooms open to beautiful paddy field views. They are clean, minimal, and bright — the aesthetic of a space assembled by a designer who understands both traditional Assamese craft and contemporary comfort. The circularity philosophy extends to the construction: single-use plastics are avoided, non-plastic waste is reused or regenerated, cow dung contributes to the farm’s organic cycle, kitchen waste is composted.
Aita’s Kitchen
Mrinalini Deka — Champak’s mother, known to everyone at Medini as Aita — is the culinary heart of the farmstay. She cooks the ancestral recipes of Assamese cuisine with the authority of someone who has made this food her entire life, using fresh vegetables from the farm and the knowledge of a woman who understands, intuitively, what this landscape tastes like when it is cooked honestly.
Aita does not limit herself to the kitchen. She shares her knowledge of local culture, textiles, and traditions with guests who want to understand the full context of where they are. Her contribution to Medini is as much cultural education as culinary excellence — a woman who carries the living archive of Assam’s domestic traditions and offers it openly to those who ask.
The farm-to-fork kitchen is, in every guest’s assessment, one of the most distinctive features of a Medini stay. The herby pork broth — mentioned with specific affection in multiple reviews — has achieved something approaching legend status among return visitors. The fresh vegetables, the Assamese spices, the recipes that have been prepared by this family for generations: these are what make the food here irreplaceable by anything that could be sourced from outside the farm.
The Weave Studio and the Silk
Eri silk is one of Assam’s oldest and most significant textile traditions — a cruelty-free silk produced from the cocoons of the eri silkworm, which, unlike conventional silkworm cultivation, does not require the silkworm to be killed in order to harvest the fibre. It is a tradition that has been practised in the villages of Assam for centuries, interwoven with the cultural, ecological, and economic life of the communities that maintain it.
Anna-Louise Meynell came to Assam to research this tradition. She has stayed, built a studio, and continued the research in the most practical of ways: by weaving, by dyeing with natural plant-based dyes from the farm, by working alongside local craftspeople from nearby villages, and by creating a space where the tradition is alive and producing rather than merely documented. Guests at Medini can visit the Weave Studio, participate in demonstrations, and understand — from a researcher who has devoted years to the subject — what eri silk means to the communities that make it.
The rooms’ own textiles come from this studio. The connection between the silk on the pillow and the tradition in the studio is not metaphorical. It is literal.
What to See and Experience
Kaziranga National Park — the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is home to the world’s largest population of the Indian one-horned rhinoceros, and also to significant populations of Bengal tigers, Asian elephants, wild water buffalo, swamp deer, and an extraordinary diversity of birds — is a short drive from Medini. Jeep safaris into the park’s multiple ranges are arranged through the farmstay, and the proximity to Kaziranga makes Medini one of the most considered bases for wildlife visitors who want something other than a resort camp.
But the small wonders are equally part of the Medini experience. The farm walk with Champak — through the 600+ trees, past the dye plants and the fruit trees and the paddy fields — is an education in natural agriculture and biodiversity restoration that guests describe as one of the most illuminating hours of their Assam visit. The Weave Studio session with Anna-Louise. The village visit to local communities and their traditional textile practices. The birdwatching on and around the farm itself, where the restored habitat supports a growing diversity of species.
The Karbi Hills, rising above Bokakhat to the south, offer trekking into the forested landscape of this linguistically and culturally distinct Assamese community. The river banks of the Brahmaputra system are within reach. Jorhat — one of Assam’s major cultural centres, with its own tea estates and the Majuli river island — is accessible for day excursions.
Why It Stays With You
A guest who found Medini by chance on a Condé Nast recommendation described it as “a quaint family-run farm, weaving studio and homestay near Kaziranga National Park.” Another guest said the sustainable practices, the delicious food straight from the farm garden, and the beautiful quiet and clean rooms made it “a little slice of heaven.” A third noted the homegrown meals, lovingly prepared, and said not to miss the herby pork broth if you’re lucky.
Champak and Anna-Louise did not build Medini to be near a famous national park. They built it because they believed a barren field in Bokakhat could become a thriving ecosystem, because Anna-Louise’s research on eri silk deserved a practical home, and because Assam’s traditions — its food, its textiles, its agricultural knowledge — deserved to be preserved in a living form rather than a museum case. The park is next door. The farm is the reason to come.
Plan Your Visit
Address: Bokakhat, Golaghat District, Assam (approximately 5 km from Kaziranga National Park’s Kohora Range) Website: medinikaziranga.com Instagram: @medini_kaziranga Booking: Direct via website (Enquire Now) · Also listed on Booking.com
Founders: Champak Deka (former Indian Navy sailor and deep-sea commercial diver) and Anna-Louise Meynell (Scottish textile designer and PhD researcher, eri silk traditions) Culinary heart: Mrinalini Deka, known as Aita (Champak’s mother — ancestral Assamese recipes) Established: 2018
Property: 4 acres · Started with 5 trees, now 600+ native trees and plants · Multi-layered natural agriculture · No single-use plastics · Circular waste management
Three Verticals: — Tourism: Farmstay with handcrafted rooms, farm-to-fork kitchen, Kaziranga safari base — Agriculture: 600+ native trees, fruit trees, dye plants, natural farming — Textiles: Weave Studio — eri silk traditions, natural dyeing, Anna-Louise’s PhD research in practice
Rooms: Handcrafted interiors · All fabrics from the Weave Studio · Paddy field views · Clean, minimal, bright · Sustainable construction throughout
Meals: Ancestral Assamese home cooking by Aita · Farm-to-fork · Fresh vegetables daily · Assamese spice traditions · Herby pork broth (when available) is legendary
Experiences: Farm walk with Champak (natural agriculture, biodiversity) · Weave Studio session with Anna-Louise (eri silk, natural dyeing) · Village visits · Kaziranga safari arrangements (jeep, all ranges) · Birdwatching · Karbi Hills exploration
Community: All staff from nearby villages, representing diverse religions and backgrounds — direct livelihood empowerment
Getting There — Jorhat Airport (JRH): approximately 90 km from Bokakhat — around 2 hours by road. Regular flights from Guwahati, Kolkata, Delhi. — Guwahati Airport (GAU): approximately 220 km — around 4.5 hours by road. Well-connected from major cities. — Furkating Railway Station: approximately 30 km from Bokakhat — around 45 minutes. — From Guwahati: approximately 220 km via NH37 — around 4.5 to 5 hours. — From Jorhat: approximately 90 km — around 2 hours. — Coordinate exact directions with Champak or Anna-Louise on booking — Bokakhat roads are manageable but local knowledge helps for the final approach.
Nearby — Kaziranga National Park (Kohora Range): 5 km · Kaziranga Orchid Park: 3 km · Karbi Hills: 15 km · Jorhat: 90 km · Guwahati: 220 km
Best Time to Visit: November to April for Kaziranga safaris (park open) · February to March for the best rhino sightings and bird activity · October for the post-monsoon green · Monsoon (June–September) — park closes but the farm in the rains is extraordinary and the biodiversity is at its most active
