Posts for April, 2023

This morning we drove a short distance up out of the valley to the small village of Gangtay to visit a temple named Gangtay Gonpar. It is an impressively large building sitting at the end of a ridge line overlooking the Phobjikha Valley. After the temple we spent a little time exploring the village, one of its general stores (quite well stocked) and the moss growing on the nearby cypress and pine trees. While walking around the village the rain turned, for a short period, into snow/sleet. Later we noticed a spinkle of new snow on the trees higher up the slopes.

Today was a big driving day, we retraced our steps all the way back to the town of Para where we first landed. Since it was a 6 hour drive (for about 160 km) we did not do much else, thus there is not much to say. I will let the photos (and a few related comments) surfice.

The Tigers Nest or Taksang is a monastry built on the face of a cliff overlooking the Paro Valley and the only accessible route to it is by a walking track that involves a climb of approximately 600 meters/ 2000 feet. It is perhaps the most popular tourist attraction in Bhutan. It has been a goal (and perhaps for Nina even the focus of this trip) and a concern ever since we added Bhutan to this trip as an alternative to Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Why a concern? Because we were not sure whether the walking track was within our capability. Well today was the day and Nina got all the way to the Monastry and I got as far as the highest point on the track.

There was no organized sightseeing today. It was a day to recover from yesterdays climb and to spend the little energy we had just generally looking around the town of Paro and taking photographs of random but interesting things; such as meat lying on the counter in the butcher's shop, Rob getting a haircut, a man fixing the road with a hand trowel, a horse parked in the middle of the road.

As I hinted a few days back Paro is currently hosting a festival called Tshechu which is being held in the grounds of Rinpung Dzong (the local traditional fort). The name "Tschechu" means "tenth day" as the festival is held on the 10th day of a month according to their Lunar calendar (It seems not all lunar calendars are the same). As this second link will indicate there are infact many Tshechu festivals in Bhutan many more than one per month, each in a different town. But it seems that the Tschechu in Paro and Thimphu are the largest. Each festival lasts for 4 days with a fixed schedule of events. On the last day of the festival (tomorrow when we will not be here) a large painting (98ft x 148ft) is unfurled.

Today could have been called a "day of waiting", a not unusual situation when travelling. The task today was to fly from Paro, Bhutan to an airport hotel in Bangkok to be in a position to catch a late afternoon flight to Sydney tomorrow. Because the flight was international we had to be at the airport at least 3 hours before flight time. Thus we left the hotel at 9:00am, arrived at the airport 9:20am (Paro is a small town and traffic is/was light). The airport is small with few flights and small planes, so by 9:45 we were checked in, through immigration and security and just waiting. Of course the flight was delayed to 12:15.

Todays flight was scheduled for 20:15 so we had plenty of time on our hands. But the neighborhood around the hotel was a wierd mix of industrial, low income housing, agricultural and other stuff, so not encouraging to explore. In addition it was hot (36°C) again. So we contented ourselve relaxing mostly in the hotel.