Bhutan - an A to Z of a Lost Kingdom

Advantages: Spectacular scenery, stunning architecture, weird stuff
Disadvantages: A bit over-sanitised and unreal - like Disney does Asia

...I suspect that a lot of people haven't even heard of this tiny Himalayan kingdom and that would be fair enough. Don't beat yourself up if you don't know Bhutan - most people can't find it on a map so you're not alone. Tucked away in the Himalaya, sandwiched between Tibet and India, and strictly controlling who comes in and who goes out, the Bhutanese adopted a tactic that reminds me of Douglas Adams' creation, the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. This creature appears in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a "mindboggingly stupid animal" which assumed that if you can't see it, then it can't see you. By looking inwards and ignoring the outside world, Bhutan has long been hiding in plain sight. So where should I start to write about such a bizarre place? As Julie Andrews would say 'Let's start at the very beginning...

koshkha 15.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of General: Bhutan

A Little Bit of Everything from Bhutan

Advantages: A pot pourri of Bhutanese life
Disadvantages: Remember you're the client and if your guide is boring you silly, just move on.

... The Museum Bhutan's National Museum is not located in the capital city of Thimphu, but in the second city of Paro. It's housed in a round building which started life as the watchtower for Paro Dzong, the fortress-monastery that sits below it on the hillside on the outskirts of Paro. It was built in 1641 and converted into the National Museum in 1968. For most people taking a tour of Bhutan, the museum would be visited on the same day as the Dzong, but our first day in town was a Monday and the museum is closed that day. Consequently our visit was taken after climbing to see the Tiger's Nest monastery and before leaving for Thimphu. Sitting in the car on the way to the museum I was feeling a bit nervous. My legs were aching from the ascent we'd just done and I didn't fancy the walk up the hillside to the Museum. Luckily I need...

koshkha 07.07.2009 · Read review
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Review of National Museum of Bhutan

The ruins that made Bhutan finally seem real

Advantages: Amazing sense of peace and calm.
Disadvantages: In most countries someone would want to rebuild this

...Toward the end of our first full day in Bhutan I was feeling a little bit flat. I'd wanted to visit the country for 12 years, ever since someone I'd met in India had told me it was their favourite place in the world. It took a while to get there because it's such an expensive place to visit and quite difficult to get to. With such a massive mental (and financial) build-up the reality seemed almost sure to fall short of the dream. There was nothing actually wrong with what we'd seen and done, indeed it was all very lovely, but there was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind that it wasn't quite what I'd expected. I have an aversion to places that are just a bit too clean, ordered and smooth-running and Bhutan was starting to feel a bit TOO perfect and a teensy bit 'Disney-fied'. I always bristle when people tell me "We had a lovely...

koshkha 22.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Drukgyel Dzong, Paro, Bhutan

The Smallest Capital...in the highest hills.

Advantages: Everything
Disadvantages: Nothing...unless you're some-one who shouldn't really be here.

...their Gho-pleats in the reflection of the hotel windows: uniforms evident in the specific check of the Gho and the like-coloured stripe of the female kira. Children, office workers, street sweepers alike, all paused by the prayer wheels in their elaborately carved, brightly painted wooden cage, to give them a spin. Whether this is an act of devotion so deeply ingrained it needs no thought, or merely a habit to which none is given, it's impossible to tell. ~ Trying to see Bhutan in a ridiculously short space of time, enough of it at least to get a feel for the country, our stay here would be woefully short, so only the merest of glimpses can be offered to tempt you: THE BASICS: Thimpu has been Bhutan's capital only since 1961 and currently has a population of approximately 50,000 and growing rapidly. It straggles along...

hiker 07.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Thimphu (Bhutan)

Weaving and Threshing

Advantages: ~
Disadvantages: ~

...to be wasted. THE TOWN & THE VALLEY: Paro is where most visitors will get their first taste of Bhutan. The country's only airport is here. On our arrival, we'd pretty well by-passed the town heading straight for the capital, Thimpu ~ so our real experience of the place was to be by way of departure. Sitting in the centre of the Paro River valley it looks as though it has grown dark and gnarled with age. The heavy wooden shop-fronts with their small windows and dark interiors hidden behind, the alleyways, the half-demolished/half-built (it's hard to tell which) constructions resting precariously on their bamboo scaffolds, all speak of tradition and settlement, and of a placed getting on with its own ancient life in spite of the modern western encroachment. Turns out most of this is scarcely 20 years old. It is both...

hiker 21.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Paro (Bhutan)

Slumming in Bumthang

Advantages: Enlightening, beautiful, interesting...
Disadvantages: ...the Hotel!

.... No-one was impressed. Some were disgusted and angry, others (after the initial reaction) amused and philosophical. A certain amount of the laughter that evening may have been something akin to nervous hysteria. I fell into the philosophical camp, but I am also told that I had one of the 'best' rooms. Some took it as part of the experience, others I've no doubt composed their letters of complaint there & then. I had said all along I wanted to see Bhutan "if it meant sharing a yurt with the Yaks" ~ and I meant it. This was OK. It wasn't brilliant. It wasn't what we might expect for this kind of money. But this is Bhutan. And then, possibly unlike many of my companions, I have actually stayed in worse places. Let me give you the facts: TSCD Lodge is about a kilometre or two from Jakar town centre. It sits at the end...

hiker 19.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Bumthang (Bhutan)

In the Home of the Thunder Dragon

Advantages: The country, the people
Disadvantages: Some of the accommodation

..."But the real question is:" my dad said, "Did you find him?" "Who?" "The young man who ran away to become a monk?" "?because the yaks keep falling off the mountain and your dad shouts at you" I finished with him, smiling. I was surprised he remembered. That was the start of it. A television programme some 20 or 30 years ago about this fascinating country in the Himalaya, where being a monk was still an occupation of choice, where travel was difficult, and the scenery astonishing; where there was no distinction between myth and history. That was it. I wanted to go to Bhutan. Years passed, and the dream trip lay simmering somewhere buried in that maelstrom of unvisited places that forms the focus of my ambitions. I went to Nepal. I read Seven Years in Tibet. Then, there it was, hidden on the website, not greatly drawing...

hiker 25.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of General: Bhutan

And so it came to pass - a Himalayan Pitstop

Advantages: Spectacular Views
Disadvantages: Pukey roads

...I have long had a weakness for high places and am always mentally lifted by standing at the highest point and looking out across a fantastic panoramic view. However, my love of a good view is matched only by the weakness of my stomach when faced with too long in the back of a car on a road full of hairpin bends. We had left our hotel in Thimphu after a thankfully rather bland breakfast and had stupidly not thought about what lay ahead of us. Getting anywhere in Bhutan by road is an arduous business and within 30 minutes of leaving the city, I was starting to struggle to keep my breakfast down as we wound back and forth round rough bendy roads. By the time we reached the Dochu La (or Dochu Pass), the highest point on the road between Thimpu and Punakha, I was ready to curl up in a ball and die. I couldn't wait to leap out of the car...

koshkha 17.03.2009 (18.03.2009) · Read review
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Review of Dochu La Pass, Bhutan

Going for a Dzong - A visit to Paro Ringpung Dzong

Advantages: Spectacular example of Bhutanese architecture
Disadvantages: Not for those who are unsteady on their feet

...For most visitors to Bhutan, Paro Dzong will be either the first or the last dzong that they visit in the country. This is due to it's proximity to Paro Airport, the country's only air-link with the outside world. For us it was the first dzong and one to remember. As our plane landed and taxied along the runway my eyes swivelled to hunt out the big white block on the hillside which I knew from my pre-trip research would be the dzong. What's a Dzong? The concept of a dzong is an unusual blend of the sacred and the secular and something that's found in Himalayan Buddhist communities but is most characteristically Bhutanese. Traditionally a dzong was a combination of a fortress crossed with a monastery whilst today most serve as a combination of monastery and local government administration centres. I find something engaging about...

koshkha 06.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Paro Ringpung Dzong, Bhutan

Valley of the Thrung Thrung Karm

Advantages: splendid isolation; black-necked cranes
Disadvantages: no gurantees, obviously

...living, and the balance with nature remains. A living they do make however, growing potato and wheat, millet and buckwheat, and keeping a few livestock. The people here are isolated too, and hold to the old ways. Family resemblances are evident as you wander down the one road and return the greetings of Kuzuzanpho-la with due respect to weather-wizened faces, old before their time. Unlike must of Bhutan, here the family wealth is still passed through the female line, which ought to give women an edge. It was hard to see. There is another draw for the tourist though. Apart from the sheer self-contained nature of the place ~ a deep valley that encloses you on all sides, but tempts you to wander in every direction imaginable, there must be paths on those hills, across this marsh, over to that remote dwelling, or that one, or that...

hiker 10.01.2007 · Read review
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Review of Phobjika Valley (Bhutan)