Thimphu, Bhutan’s huge capital: Less than 100.000 inhabitants, said to be the world’s only capital without a single traffic light. There once was one for some time, but it got removed again aftr complains it would be ‘unpersonal’. The traffic police is in place again every day to regulate the dense traffic around Thimphu’s central roundabout. Continue reading Thimphu, Bhutan’s Capital
Category Archives: Bhutan
Druk Path Trek (II) High Mountain Cuisine
Day 4, Thursday 18-OCT, Jimilang Tsho -> Simkotra Tsho (4110m) (cont.)
DP_20071018_103148.jpg: A small make-shift altar at the Jimilang Lake. Ratnar had brought three butter lamps specifically to be placed here. He had lighted them earlier before we started walking. But unfortunately they had been blewn out by the wind when we now passed by. See them burning here again after being lighted once more. They must have continued to burn for the next three days: Everything was perfect now, weather, food, health, trek… Continue reading Druk Path Trek (II) High Mountain Cuisine
Druk Path Trek (I) Only One Survives
Trekking was the part of the Bhutan trip I was looking most forward to. The cultural part reliably proved to be highly influenced by Bhuddism and is in its essence not so much different from Tibet. But in Lhasa I barely left the city proper. Here now I was supposed to walk six days, five nights, over and through Buthan’s mountains at the south-eastern edge of the Himalaya Mountains. Continue reading Druk Path Trek (I) Only One Survives
Paro (II) Taktshang Goemba
Taktshang Goembe, “Tiger’s Nest”, is the most famous and spectacular monastery of Bhutan as it is attached to sheer rock 900m above valley ground. It is the place where Guru Rinpoche flew “on the back of a tigress, a manifestation of his consort Yeshe Tsogyal, to subdue the local demon, Singey Samdrup.” (Lonely Planet) Guru Rinpoche then seem to have liked the tranquility of the place and meditated right there in a cave in the rocks for three months. Continue reading Paro (II) Taktshang Goemba
Paro (I) Entering Bhutan: Temples and Landscape
Getting up early, 3am, for a flight at 5:50 to Bhutan. Where is Bhutan?, you might ask. That’s fair. The immigration officer at Bangkok airport ask me the same thing: “Where is Paro?” (the city stated on my boarding pass) “In Bhutan.” – “Bhutan?…Is that between India and China?” – “Yes, right there, in the Himalayans” – “Oh!”
You should expect that Bangkok immigration officers have to do with Bhutan more often. Druk Air, the Royal Bhutan Airways, doesn’t fly from many places. Bangkok is one of them. But the lady was just curious. Continue reading Paro (I) Entering Bhutan: Temples and Landscape