It was a pleasure flying into Thimphu, Bhutan. We were met by a very well-dressed woman who got us thru the airport and to the duty free liquor store. We didn’t even have to go through the line that said Foreigners. The lane next said Dignitaries or something and we all got to go to the front of the line.
Druk Airlines is the Bhutanese airlines and means Dragon. Flight attendants were dressed like this.
I met 2 guys sitting next to me on this flight. One from Spain and the other from Italy, but living in Barcelona. They were sinewy, fit, brawny and so excited they were almost jumping out of their seats. They were trekkers and were going to get off the plane and immediately start up a mountain to reach a festival going on that evening.
Little did I know I would meet them again on my trek up to Tiger’s Nest, and again at the airport heading back to Katmandu!!
They were the two who asked if I knew this airport (Paro) was the most dangerous in the world. “NOW, you tell me??” I asked. They thought it was hilarious. Turns out it’s only one of several of the most dangerous.
The airport was beautiful, with art on the walls for purchase. And the rivers and mountains on the way from Paro to Thimphu were breathtaking.
Our Bhutan Tour Guide, Sonam, handing out blessed scarves upon meeting each of us. I eventually ended up with three of them along the trip.
This is the current King and Queen of Bhutan. They look like movie stars. The prior king married four sisters!! He started taking this kid out to meet the people at the various villages when he was 7 years old. So the previous king retired at a young age, and this current king now reigns.
When 2,500 people lost their tourism jobs due to Covid, the king paid their full salaries during the shut down. He also realized that the wild dogs who depended on tourists and restaurants for sustenance were going to starve. He paid for feeding them the entire time of Covid also.
Bhutan is a much more affluent country than Nepal.
So much construction was going on — proving a country’s affluence. They use bamboo as scaffolding! These are the four Auspicious Animals of Nepal — Tag- seng – chung – druk (tiger, snow lion, garuda and dragon).
We had a lovely first lunch overlooking the mountains. The food was always a buffet, but most had enough spices/chilis to burn my mouth. People were so excited about chilis and cheese — spicy green or red chilis (peppers) with a liquified cheese sauce.
Since I have built little wooden sink cabinets for some of my tiny apartments, I noticed another way of building a sink. Brick and cement! It does the job!
Notice the gargoyle dragon things on the architecture, beautiful doors and more large prayer wheels.
Our traveling crew.
… there’s that Liberty Bell that kept following me around Asia!! JK
A takin is their National Animal. A very strange one indeed
It’s a cross between a goat and a ?????
What I remember is just the silence in this place. They had a lot of green walkways so you could see the animals in their natural habitat.
We went to a school where they taught wood carving, painting, weaving and drawing. This is the school that taught locals to paint the fantastic drawings on the insides of the temples.
I took drawing classes and always hoped to be able to draw a person like this. HA!!
The photos below I took off the Internet because we were not allowed to take photos inside the temples. This shows some of the artwork from the students of the above school.
