Category Archives: Bhutan Travel Blog

Bread Delivery

Bread delivery
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 22-11-2015 09:19 | Resolution: 5433 x 3622 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/500s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 35.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 35-100/F2.8

Some of you will know that I have an unerring knack to home in on bread, wherever it is and in whatever form. I couldn’t possibly miss this shot!

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On the Road Again

The Dzong at Tsonga
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 22-11-2015 08:29 | Resolution: 4961 x 3101 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/125s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 14.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

We have a 4.30 start for the long drive back to Punakha. I grumble a bit but this turns out to be a good call and our misty and cold but unaccompanied drive to Tsonga completes in an hour less than in the other direction on Friday.

After coffee we get an hour to wander around the Tsonga Dzhong, and then back on the road. If anything the next stage of the journey is rougher than on the way down and we suspect that the bus may have lost a shock absorber, but we make good time, including photoshoot of a troupe of cooperative macaques sitting at the roadside. However it’s still almost 6 when we finally get to the hotel in Wangdue, Punakha. We arrive with the hotel in darkness, but power is restored quite quickly.

The rest of the drive after that was very tiring, and we’ve arrived at a hotel which has no desks in the rooms and almost no Wifi cover. However I get an excellent night’s sleep, probably aided by an extra Druk 11,000 (the local beer).

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Three Little Maids from School

Three little maids from school - Bumthang style
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 21-11-2015 08:37 | Resolution: 3888 x 3888 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/400s | Aperture: 9.0 | Focal Length: 89.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 35-100/F2.8
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Bhumtang Yiddle-I-Po

Hand weaving!
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 21-11-2015 11:13 | Resolution: 3874 x 3874 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 6.3 | Focal Length: 20.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

Well, Bhumtang may well be a land of breath-taking sweeping vistas and intriguing details, but my room overlooks the local timber yard, and it looks very cold out. I start the day with a bath.

The hotel is a triumph of style over substance, and over night I have discovered errors of design (fiddly lighting, bed corners which bark your shins if you brush against them) and execution (a very slippery bathroom floor, and nowhere to put the soap and shampoo). Some of these will probably be rectified as the hotel gets some serious use. Others will annoy future travellers for some time to come…

While it looks cold as the sun comes up, it’s clearly going to be another day of sunshine, cloudless skies and warmth at least in the sun. So much for needing the waterproof trousers in Bumthang.

First stop of the day is the local secondary school, where we are allowed to photograph the assembly and the students getting themselves sorted out for lessons and exams. It’s amusing how many behaviours are absolutely universal for children of a certain age. It’s also refreshing for a group of people all mid-fifties or older to be allowed to wander around a school taking photographs. At home we’d be arrested, but we’re not doing anything improper and that’s recognised, whereas at home paranoia sometimes trumps common sense.

After breakfast it’s back up the pass to a small village which specialises in weaving and textile crafts. We’re also invited into a couple of homes, and free to wander around photographing the farms and common buildings. I finally find some appropriate recipients for the contents of the "goody bag" which Frances prepared, and hand these out to much squeaking and hilarity. It’s very interesting how quickly one boy, aged I reckon 3 or 4, picks up the words "goody bag"!

After lunch a couple of us decide to walk into the centre of town, to see what makes it tick and photograph the shops. (The others decide to go and visit another couple of temples, but I’m getting a bit temple’d out.) As I observe, it has the feel of a very small town in the midwest of the USA, with a similar single main street and lots of small shops carrying a very wide range of goods, but Asian.

Tonight we’ve been invited to the birthday party of the hotel owner’s daughter, and then it’s an early start tomorrow for the long drive back to Punakha.

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From Nobgang to Bumthang…

Yak at the top of the Pelela Pass
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 20-11-2015 10:57 | Resolution: 3575 x 3575 | ISO: 400 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/640s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 300.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

Via Nobding (with more phalluses) – I couldn’t make this up if I tried!

Today was essentially a very long and somewhat boring drive, to the “alpine” bit of Bhutan. Although start and end are probably only 50km apart as the crow flies, the road takes 200km as it hugs the sides of the very steep valleys, and crosses 3 passes all well over 3000m. On a normal day, the bus trip takes at least 10 hours (an average of about 20kph, including stops).

However, to make things significantly worse the Bhutanese have initiated a completely crazy programme of road improvement, which really isn’t working and slows everything down even further. At least 70% of the route is currently "undergoing widening", but rather than having a few moderate to large teams focusing on specific sections, they seem to have decided to try and do it all at once, with a large number of small teams going almost the same work concurrently. What this means in practice is that for much of the whole route they have just finished drilling/dynamiting/digging the bank for the widened route, but you now have a route which is regularly almost blocked by heaps of stone either waiting to be taken away, or being assembled for the next stage, reinforcing the banks. Also the original surface is now either broken up, or covered in rock and mud. There’s a lot of big machinery busy doing the digging and moving the rock and soil around, but very little evidence of anything at any other stage. I estimate the average speed has dropped to 15 kph for a bus, or rather less than 10 mph, and it’s all very uncomfortable with a very uneven surface and large amounts of dust throughout the journey.

If it was me, I’d have a much smaller number of larger teams, with each section in a "pipeline" – a group doing digging and basic earthworks, one or more behind them doing reinforcing, bridges etc, and the last one surfacing. The road users might experience a few short stretches with perhaps bigger challenges, but offset by most of the journey being on either old, untouched road (fine, if a bit narrow), or by this point in time some on stretches of new, wide and fully surfaced road.

A "big parallel waterfall" method never, ever works in software development. It doesn’t appear to work in roadworks either.

The worst thing is that we have to do it all in reverse on Sunday.

OK. Rant over.

Great lunch, and dinner, both including recognisable and very tasty beef dishes. We’ve obviously moved into an area with cuisine more compatible with my normal diet.

The hotel in Bumthang is wonderful. It has literally just opened, and reminds me of a an official park lodge in the US (but brand new). I have a room you could kick a football in, all done in lovely wood. Even the dragons in the foyer (just to remind you you are still in Bhutan) are carved in the same wood and not painted. Very elegant. We haven’t seen Bumthang yet as we arrived in the dark, but it’s meant to be very pretty, so fingers crossed.

First thing tomorrow we have been invited to attend an assembly at the local school, which should be fascinating.

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The Monastery Institute

Young initiate at the Nalanda Monastery Institute
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 19-11-2015 10:18 | Resolution: 3888 x 5184 | ISO: 3200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/20s | Aperture: 5.0 | Focal Length: 26.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

After a somewhat later start, we drive up a steep mountain road to Nalanda Monastery Institute, basically a training school for Buddhist monks, with several of the initiates only 6 years of age. It’s ironic that these boys are entering a lifetime of study and meditation, and we have them working as models… However they are very welcoming, and the results are excellent in photographic terms.

The visit gives me an opportunity to reflect on another surprising dimension of Bhutan. Most of the older students and teachers speak excellent English. Bhutan seems to have decided that if it is going to have a successful high-value tourism industry, and also act as a “thought leader” in areas such as environmentalism despite its tiny population, it needs to operate in a globally-understood language. Unlike, say, the tourist coasts of southern Europe this runs a lot deeper than just the point of contact with tourists. Children take most of their school lessons in English, and it is rapidly becoming the primary “public language”. Most road-side signs are either bilingual, or English-only. Businesses have signs in English, even those with an “internal” focus. Behind the bar in a cafe all the health & safety notices are in English, except for maybe a couple of lines of preamble. All this despite never being part of the British Empire or Commonwealth.

It’s a fascinating contrast to Bhutan’s much larger southern neighbour, who while exploiting their skill with English for commerce, seem to be equally determined to drop English as an official language, with its colonial connotations.

Back to the photography, the second site of the day is a beautiful mountain village with the splendid name of Nobgang! From here we can get views with the village in the foreground and very high Himalayan peaks behind.

We are expecting to take lunch at a hotel back in the valley, but half way down the bus turns into a delightful picnic area under the pines, and we’re treated to another elegant al fresco meal.

After a couple of free hours in the afternoon, we gather for our guide, Yishi’s, “surprise activity”. This turns out to be an archery competition, in the dark, with alcohol! Great fun and fortunately no-one loses anything except pride. I am happy to report that thanks to a last minute bulls-eye by the most short-sighted member of the team, England beat the Rest of the World (Wales, Ireland, Australia, Germany and Bhutan) on aggregate, despite some outrageous cheating (such as having done it before) by Bhutan! 🙂

Long drive tomorrow, into the colder and wetter areas, so maybe some of the other gear will get a bit of use.

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Panorama from Kahmsum Chorten

Panorama from the roof of the Kahmsum Chorten
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 18-11-2015 10:52 | Resolution: 1920 x 1440 | ISO: 400 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/800s | Aperture: 5.6 | Focal Length: 12.0mm (~24.0mm) | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8
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Tantric Temple

The Kahmsum Chorten
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 18-11-2015 11:21 | Resolution: 5104 x 3828 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/1000s | Aperture: 7.1 | Focal Length: 9.0mm | Lens: OLYMPUS M.9-18mm F4.0-5.6

After a very meagre breakfast (breakfasts are getting steadily worse while the other meals may be improving slightly), we have a short drive and then start off by walking up to a temple which nestles on a hilltop below some larger mountains. The temple is the relatively new Kahmsum Chorten, which is dedicated to a Buddhist tantric guru portrayed as a monster simultaneously killing multiple evil spirits with daggers, and also enjoying sexual congress with his female half! Busy chap…

It’s unfortunate you can’t take pictures inside the temple, as the decoration is truly wonderful. However you can get up to the roof, and take pictures from there, so I get some great panoramas of the valley and the very pretty temple grounds. It’s a wonderful location, and I spend a couple of hours there. Interestingly only about 5 of the group go up the whole way – the rest stay down in the fields and take pictures of farmers. I don’t know whether that pattern is going to repeat.

We have another sit-down outdoor lunch, complete with little marquees and a "restroom tent". The shrapnel chicken has been rendered completely inedible for westerners by the addition of significant quantities of chillies. However when we are finished it’s enthusiastically demolished by the Bhutanese staff. I suspect a conspiracy.

After lunch we move to the local Dzong, which is very impressive. Some more great photo opportunities, but a bit hard on my knees after the morning. When they shut up at 5pm they switch on floodlights and we take photos from the other side of the river.

Punakha is in the high twenties, and I spend most of the day in a T-shirt with slight trepidation about being too hot when I have to put on long sleeves for the Dzong. I invested in some very expensive waterproof Paramo trousers for the trip, and so far they, and the other cold/wet gear may be going back unused!

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In Close

Agricultural detail, Punakha
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 17-11-2015 13:37 | Resolution: 3888 x 3888 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/320s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 150.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 100-300/F4.0-5.6

I’ve discovered that I’m tending to go to extremes with my lenses on this trip. The shot in the previous post used the 12-35mm at 12mm. This shot was taken down into the Punakha valley from above, using the 100-300mm at 300mm. It’s not bad when consumer camera technology allows you to count blades of grass at about a mile!

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Of Temples, Portals and Knobs…

Edge of the field of stupas, Drochula Pass
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 17-11-2015 09:52 | Resolution: 4082 x 4082 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 10.0 | Focal Length: 12.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

We leave Thimphu via a small mountain road which climbs rapidly our of the city towards the north-east. We are treated to great views of the Buddha, which although below the summit is brilliantly positioned and visible from all over the valley.

The drive up to the Drochula Pass is pretty, but quite hair raising. Apart from hugging the side of a steep valley, the Bhutanese seem to have decided to simultaneously rebuild most of the length of most of their roads, which means near constant construction conditions.

The Drochula Pass is at 3050m, or about 10,000′, and is home to the prettiest temple yet, brand new in 2003, a field of 108 stupas, and yet more acres of prayer flags. It’s being developed both because of its position on the road to Punakha, but also in commemoration of a short war in which India and Bhutan were allied to drive out some terrorists hiding in southern Bhutan.

It turns out the drive up to the pass is nothing compared to the drive down, which takes over two hours on almost completely unsurfaced roads. However we do get a couple of good photo opportunities, and lunch near the bottom at the Divine Cafe is both delicious and very welcome.

In the afternoon we trek over to the Chime Lhakhang. This means “no dog temple” which is singularly inappropriate since like most other locations in Bhutan there are vast numbers of mutts roaming about. The founder of the temple was Lam Drukpa Kuenley , my kind of Buddhist, fond of wine, women, song and meat! Given that one of the other areas in which Lam Drukpa Kuenley exceeded normal clerical expectations was in siring children, the temple has a reputation for enabling fertility, and the people of Punakha have an obsession with, shall I say, knobs. There are phalli everywhere, painted by every door, welcoming you to the cafes. Obsession doesn’t quite cover it.

The base of the Punakha Valley is at about 4,000′, and it’s warm enough that the jacket I have worn elsewhere is too warm, and I’m fine in just a T-shirt. Not bad for the Himalayan foothills in November.

The Pema Karpo Hotel is an odd mix with, for example, multiple very nice easy chairs in each room, but no power socket or light anywhere near the desk. Investigations continue…

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The Golden Bhudda

The Golden Bhudda, above Thimpu
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 16-11-2015 14:15 | Resolution: 5184 x 3888 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0.33 EV | Exp. Time: 1/200s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 15.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

Self explanatory, I hope!

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Culture and Food

Monk at the Golden Bhudda, Thimpu
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX8 | Date: 16-11-2015 14:21 | Resolution: 3690 x 3690 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -33/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/250s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 35.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

We’ve had another good day. We start at the National Memorial Chorten (a sort of shrine), which is very busy but I get some good shots of old ladies cleaning all the brass lamps, and then the brass lamps burning. After that we were supposed to go to the craft school, but it was shut. However we do get half an hour in the craft shop, and I managed to get two embroidered T shirts, so at least I’m not going to smell my way around Bhutan.

We then had a look around the national library, followed by an excellent lunch at a Chinese restaurant. It makes a welcome change to have real recognisable meat. In Paro most of the food was vegetarian, with an Indian flavour – tasty, but not what my body is used to. Occasionally we were offered "chicken curry", but this appears to consist of chopping the entire, scrawny bird into uniform cubes most of which are shattered bone, and then nuking it to ensure there is no animal DNA left. In Thimpu there seems to be a bit more of a Chinese influence on the food, including meat which may still have some relationship to the original animal.

After lunch we go up to see the Golden Bhudda, a massive (51m high) golden statue they have just finished building on the mountain ridge over Thimpu (very much in the style of the Christ statue in Rio). This is a great photo location which I really enjoy. I got some great shots, especially several which I think should work well in 3D on the TV.

The Bhudda is very obviously a work in progress, with construction still underway on the supporting facilities, outdoor meeting area and other bits and pieces, such as additional Bhudda statues waiting to be installed, or railings which have not yet had their coat of gold paint. The reason for this state is fairly obviously, Bhutan has just had a major festival, celebrating the 60th birthday of the "old king", and obviously the Bhudda needed to be officially "open" for it. The regal arrangements are interesting: basically the fourth king in the Wangchuck dynasty reigned for 40 years from a relatively young age, and retired in his late 50s to let his son take over, so Bhutan currently have a king, and an "old king". One can only speculate how this arrangement has been discussed in the Windsor household!

This evening is “culture night”. We all go to a restaurant at the other end of Thimpu, are dressed in Bhutanese costume, and then listen to and watch “culture” (a lot of banging on drums and some dancing). Unfortunately this is done mainly in near darkness, which somewhat stymies attempts to capture great images. I go prepared to shoot video with my second camera, and that works quite well. We have another nice meal (fine except for “cauliflower cheese” which was about 90% chilli :(). Afterwards we go up to a view point and photographed the Dzong where I had the problems yesterday. Ironically I am known as the guy who never uses his tripod, but because I had brought it to video the dancing, I was almost the only person to have one for the night photography. Excellent.

Tomorrow we move on again, to the even warmer bit of Bhutan.

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