Bhutan

Well, we almost did not make it here. We were enjoying Kolkata and were ready to head for Bhutan, but there was this sticky problem that the Government of Bhutan, which is very picky about to whom it issues visas, had not actually issued the visas to our group, but they had let us book our flights.

We all finally agreed to head for the airport in Kolkata Tuesday morning at 5:30, try to get on the flight and sort it out when we landed. Well, it worked. We got on to the flight and once we were on the ground in Paro, Bhutan, the bureaucracy took about 20 minutes to get its act together, and here we are.

I should add that landing in Paro is a thrill. You come in over the mountains and swoop down to the runway, but, again, it worked.

We visited a monastery after arrival and got in lots of photos the young monks, who were only too glad to pose for the tourists. Our Flikr acounts show some of the images. By the way . . . you can get to the Flickr accounts at any time by clicking on the boxes below the photo of us at the top of this blog.

We spent our first night in a pleasant but somewhat basic tourist hotel. Our hot water was not working well, but food was good and we survived.

This is a very friendly country, as is India, with a population of about 625,000, roughly the size of Vermont. Its average altitude is 7500’ and it is quite mountainous. The roads tend to be very windy because of the terrain.

Today we hiked to the Tigers’ Nest, http://www.cs.unm.edu/~shapiro/BHUTAN/MIDSIZE/tigersnest.html

We were led to believe it was an easy hike – no need to take along our trekking poles. Not so. It was a three hour strenuous hike, particularly with our photographic gear. We should have had less photographic gear and more food and water. Three of the eleven in our group dropped out. Giules and I were in the group of three who made it to the monastery first. The only real frustration is that we were not allowed to photograph inside.

We started the hike at 8,000' and at the monastery we were at 10,240'.

You will see some of the images from today on our Flikr accounts. However, there are only just so many images of a monastery you really want to post.

The hike was great, ultimately, but the real hit of the day is the resort at which we are staying. The place we were supposed to stay for three nights was damaged in an earthquake two weeks ago, so we were rebooked into a five star resort nearby. Our room is about the size of our residence.

There is a problem with the booking for tomorrow night because of the festival that is in town and so we are getting only four rooms instead of nine tomorrow night. However, the women in the group would not dream of our leaving this place a minute sooner than necessary, so we will work it out.

Tomorrow, Thursday, is the first of three days of a festival here in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. We are off to it bright and early . . . .