Bhutan: Punakha

2nd April 2013

Previous posts:

Flying to Paro

Thimphu

Today, we would leave Thimphu and head to Punakha which is 75 km away. It would normally take 3 hours to cover this distance but we need to visit few places on the way. Our guide gives his extra SIM that would ease the process of making calls to Home. ISD booths are fewer in number and calling from Hotel is expensive. And it is not easy to buy SIM card for non Bhutanese people (Update: It looks like the information I had was wrong. It is possible to get a SIM card by producing a copy of passport and entry permit). So this extra SIM would help as Bhutan has extensive cell coverage and the call rates from cell phone are nominal.

At the outskirts of Thimphu, we see Simtokha Dzong on the other side of the River. Constructed in 1629 by Zhabdrung, it is the oldest Dzong in Bhutan. Zhabdrung is known as the unifier of Bhutan.

The road from Thimphu meanders round the hills to climb to Dochula which is about 10,000 feet. At the top of the pass are 108 stupas built by the Queen Mother of the current king (5^th King).

On a clear day, we could have seen the highest peaks of Eastern Himalayas. But we were not fortunate enough to feast it as the pass was covered by mist. A small consolation was that we would be coming back on the same way and hoped for a better weather (that never happened!!).

There is a story behind these 108 Stupas. Few terrorist organizations of North Eastern India had put up their camps in Southern Bhutan. Bhutan Government efforts to move them out peacefully went in vain. With pressure building up from India, Bhutan Government had little choice. In December 2003, Bhutan Army conducted operations resulting in destruction of all terrorist camps. Hundreds of terrorists were killed in the operation. These stupas were built in memory of its victory in 2003 military operations. 

The road from Dochula continuously winds down to Punakha valley situated at about 4000 feet. The area was dry and thanks to hot weather the extra layers that we had put on at Dochila were removed.

As we get down to the valley, we see a River to our left. On a hillock next to the River was Chimi Lhakhang, a monastery from 15^th century. To reach the Lhakhang, we had to walk for about 30 minutes along agricultural fields. The monastery was established by Buddhist saint Drukpa Kunley. More popularly known as “Divine madman”, he adopted crazy methods of teaching which included sexual overtones. It is hard to understand his way of working but looks like he had lot of influence during those days!!

It is said that he subdued a demon of Dochula and trapped it in a rock. The rock is kept in the monastery.

After lunch at a nearby restaurant, we left to Punakha Dzong. Punakha was the capital of Bhutan until 1955 and the Dzong was an important administrative center.

It is situated at the confluence of Mo Chu and Pho Chu rivers.

Bridge across the river to connect to the Dzong.

Like in any Dzong, Punakha Dzong is also divided into administrative and religious sections.  All Dzongs and monasteries in Bhutan maintain dress code. Bhutanese people must be in their traditional dresses. Tourists are required to wear collared shirts and full length pants or skirts.

While coming out of Dzong, a lady from security section asked whether I could exchange my INR with Bhutanese currency. She was planning to visit Kolkata and was collecting Indian currency. Though both currencies are equally valued, one might have to pay commission to exchange currency. I obliged to her request and exchanged some money.

Our hotel was at Wangdue, few km from Punakha. As we neared the town, we could see the ruins of Wangdue Dzong. It was burnt down by an accidental fire a year ago. Efforts are on to restore the Dzong.  When we look at the history of Bhutan, there are frequent incidents of fire accidents.

Our stay was at Puna cottages situated next to the River overlooking new Wangdue town. 

Bhutan: Thimphu

31st March - 2nd April 2013

Previous posts:

Bhutan: Flying to Paro

From Paro airport we head towards Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan. The distance from Paro is about 50km which normally takes an hour and a half to cover. The first part of the journey is along the river Paro chhu until Chhuzom where the river is joined by Wang Chu River from Thimphu. The rest of the journey is along Thimphu River. The journey was exciting because of the calmness and serenity of the area.

Thimphu is the only capital city that does not have a traffic light. A traffic light was installed once but was removed when people were not happy with it. Population is less than a lakh but consider the total population of Bhutan itself is about seven lakhs.

Parliament building

Our stay at Thimphu was at Hotel Phuntso Phelri. According to our plan, it was supposed to be a rest day. But it cannot happen considering we still had half a day to spare!! We decided to visit Tashichhoedzong. It is opened for tourists only from 5-6PM on weekdays while on Sunday it is open from morning till evening. That would give us lot of time to spend there.

Dzong is a fortress with administrative and religious sections. The Thimphu Dzong is one of the biggest one in Bhutan. Only religious section is allowed for public.

We can also see Parliament building from the Dzong. Kings Palace is also very near to the fortress but people are not allowed to photograph it.

From Thimphu Dzong, we headed to weekend market. We had no plans of buying any stuff but just wanted to experience it. Good to see a clean and well maintained market.

Handicrafts market was next to weekend market. The prices were exorbitant but later we find that Bhutan is an expensive country. The local currency Ngultrum is pegged to Indian Rupee for equal value. Indian currency is widely accepted. In fact we find that people are more eager to accept INR than local currency!! But denominations of 500 and 1000 are not accepted in Bhutan.

We strolled on the streets of Thimphu. While it was a pleasant walk, my daughter became cranky. Lack of sleep for past two days was showing its effect. After spending some time at clock tower (supposed to be the most happening place in Thimphu), we headed back to hotel.

Next day started with visit to National memorial chorten. It was erected in memory of the third king of Bhutan in 1974.

Prayer bells at Stupa complex.

Since the weather was good, we decided to visit big Buddha statue on top of a hill. It provides nice view of Thimpu and its valley.

The Buddha complex itself is under construction.

It would have snowed during previous night!!

Takin is the national animal of Bhutan. Since the chance of meeting them in wild was remote, we decided to have a look at them in the zoo. 

The view of Tashichhoedzong while coming back from takin zoo.

We went to National Institute for ZorigChusum more popularly known as “painting school”. It provides courses in 13 traditional arts of Bhutan.  From close quarters, we can see people learning various skills in painting, stone carving, sewing etc.

I was bit hesitant to take students photo but my guide I was told that they would not mind it!!

Next stop was the nearby folk heritage museum. Here one can have a look at a typical farming house in remote Bhutan. It was interesting to see how water flow is used to run prayer bells (a typical scene in Bhutan), various utensils and the house itself.

My daughter did not find it interesting to spend time inside the house. She headed outside to play in the gardens outside. Things seemed normal until we heard her crying. She had fallen and had slight injury on her knee. Nothing serious but it scared her a lot.

Institute of traditional medicine was nearby. For Indians, it does not look that attractive as we know (or at least heard) most of those stuff.

Post lunch, we headed to textile museum which had good collection of traditional dresses and also the tools used for their manufacture. There was a documentary about the dress culture of Bhutan. Very informative one, I must say.

Archery is the national game of Bhutan. It is common to see people play archery in many villages of Bhutan. In Thimphu, people practice at Archery ground. While in Olympics, the distance to target is 70 meters but here they practice keeping the target at 130 meters. It was quite fun to see this game. Each time when the target is hit, players sing a traditional song.

The last place we visited in Thimphu was National library. “What is so great in that?” you might ask. It houses the largest published book in the world. The name of the book is “Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey across the Last Himalayan Kingdom“. It weighs about 60 kgs!!

Bhutan: Flying to Paro

31st March 2013

Bagdogra airport wore a deserted look in the morning. It sometimes feels good to only hear our own footsteps and nothing else. Druk Air to Paro was the only flight scheduled at that time from Bagdogra, a military airport also shared by civilian flights. Check-in was a cool affair with only surprise being handwritten boarding pass instead of computer generated!!

Apart from our family, there were few foreigners who were boarding that flight. Little surprised at low volume of passengers but then realized that the flight was just making a stop on the way from Bangkok to Paro.

Paro airport

Reaching Bagdogra was a task by itself. We first landed in Kolkata on the previous day, waited for four hours before taking our flight to Bagdogra. The new and renovated airport of Kolkata was much better than the previous dingy building. We had to spend a night in Bagdogra as the flight to Paro was scheduled early in the morning.

New Kolkata airport

The flight arrived on time but there were no signs of boarding even after 30 minutes. We were told that weather at Paro was bad thus delaying take off from Bagdogra. Soon, another Druk Air flight also landed in Bagdogra. It was not a scheduled stop but they had land at the nearest airport thanks to the bad weather at Paro.

Paro airport is surrounded by high altitude peaks making it one of the most difficult airports to land. Only eight pilots are certified to land at the airport!! Hence bad weather makes it extremely risky to land which no airways would like to take.

The wait ended when the ground staff gets clearance for boarding.  But a surprise awaited us in the aircraft. One of our seats was already occupied by a lady from Bangkok. She shows her ticket which had the same seat number!! Air hostess calls one of the ground staff who then realizes that she had written a wrong seat number in our boarding pass. The issue was sorted quickly and we were offered a different seat!!

There are two ways to enter Bhutan. One is the land route through the border towns of Phuntsholing near West Bengal, Galepu and Samdrup Jongkhar from Assam. Other way is to take a flight to Paro, the only international Airport in Bhutan. At present only Druk Air flies flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gaya, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Bangkok and Singapore. There are no border crossings on Chinese side.

View Larger Map

The flight duration between Bagdogra and Paro is just 25 minutes. As soon as the seat beat signs were switched off, air hostesses hurried to serve juice and nuts to the passengers. They had only few minutes to finish serving which they did in a jiffy. The flight had already started its descent when serving was completed!!

The scenes got better as the flight descended. The snow clad mountains started appearing which provided a good photographing opportunity. My daughter was at window seat (obviously!!) and we quickly took turns to get view from window.

The flight descends into the valley at a very fast rate. Also the flight angle seams to go haywire with series of left and right turns which is not usually the case while landing. But here it has to wade through the narrow hills before landing on the airstrip.

Immigration was a simple affair.  Indians do not need visa to enter Bhutan. Having a passport or voter ID is sufficient enough. The process is complicated and expensive for foreigners. They need to pay at least 250 USD per person/day. In addition, they need to be in a group and accompanied by guide. This makes Bhutan one of the costliest tourist destinations. Bhutan has very good relation with India and hence we do not have such restrictions.

When we walked from aircraft to immigration area, my daughter commented that the airport was looking like a Temple. Indeed it was!! And that was the reason for our trip to Bhutan!!!! To experience the place that is still virgin and original where traditions are well preserved and environment intact.

Paro airport

The journey to Bhutan had just begun!!

To the base of Unchalli waterfalls

23 February 2013

During my previous visits to this waterfall, I could only view it from the top. My first visit was in late 90’s when the falls was less known. Those were the times I could only afford to travel in public transport. It had taken almost half day to reach this falls from my native place that was barely 50km away!! A futile attempt was made to get down and we quickly returned back when a snake appeared on our way.

The next visit was few years ago. By then, the falls had gained popularity. Since I visited with my little cousins, I made no attempt to get down.

I was in my native place this February. I, my brother and two cousins set up a plan to get to base of this waterfall. Since I had not taken my car, we had to settle down with bikes. A challenge for me considering my limited two wheeler experience.

Reaching the falls was an uneventful affair. The place was empty as only visitors had left before our arrival. I must say the falls had decent amount of water considering weak monsoon we had this year. Spent some time watching the waterfall before heading down.

There are two routes to get down to the base of the waterfall. The prominent route directly below the view point is shorter but steeper which requires tricky navigation on rocks. The other route goes next to a toilet near the view point. The path meanders through the shoulder of the hill and then climbs down to the valley. It joins the river about 200 meters from the waterfall the distance which needs to be covered by jumping on rocks formed on the river. This route is safer.

We took the later route. It took us less than an hour to reach the bottom of the valley. A group from Shimoga was ready to head back. Having taken the short route to descend, they looked concerned about climbing up the same way. After discussing with us, they decided to take the route we came down. In the process of discussion, my cousin found out that one of the guys in the other group was his classmate during school days!! Mobile numbers were exchange with promises to call later!!

A huge pool formed at the base of the falls. It was too risky for us to go to the pool as the rocks were too steep and slippery. I found a safe place and then jumped into water!! Others were little hesitant but after few minutes all of us were in water!! 

The return journey would have been uneventful but for my inexperience with two wheeler. Just after Unchalli falls is a steep climb. Due to my foolishness, Bike stopped in the middle of this climb. On a car, I can handle it in a jiffy. On bike I struggled to keep the brake pressed, at the same time kick start the bike and accelerate at decent level. I do not know what happened but the bike did a 90 degree wheeling and fell down. That was bad and I hate myself for that.  Good thing was that there were no injuries either for us or bike.