King's Birthday roadtrip

Last Monday was the King's 31st birthday (yes he is younger than me, which makes me feel like I could have accomplished more with my life thus far, like become king of a small country...). Thankfully, it takes a full three days to celebrate a monarch's birthday, making it a five day weekend! And, since school is about to start on tuesday, Rachel and I decided to do a bit of exploring.

Saturday: Drove out to Phobjika, a beautiful high-altitude valley where the majority of the world's remaining Black-necked cranes come to over-winter. There is a wetlands in the valley floor, and the cranes spend much of their time there during the day, eating dirt or whatever it is that cranes eat. They're huge, beautiful birds (standing over 4' 6") and about 250 of them overwinter in this tiny village. We also got to see yaks in the valley, which was a first for Rachel. Luckily they didn't charge the car. Unfortunately there was no electricity and so it was a pretty cold night, especially since I was a gentleman and gave my sleeping bag to Rachel and somehow lost my top blanket in the middle of the night. I had no idea until the morning.





Sunday & Monday: The next day we drove from Phobjika to Trongsa, which is in the middle of the country. We found a fantastic resort just outside of town that had super comfortable beds, a bathtub (YES!!!), a couple ponds, and was just generally comfortable. AND we got a good rate, so we decided to stay for two nights. Trongsa was super relaxed, got to see the school children putting on a big performance for the king's birthday which mostly consisted of coordinated dances in a big soccer field. Unfortunately the new museum there was closed for the holidays, but I did manage to talk our way into the Dzong w/o a permit (mostly because of my nepali language skills) which was really beautiful and is where the first two Kings of Bhutan ruled from. This photo is of a massive cedar tree in front of the Dzong.


Tuesday: We got up a bit late b/c the electricity had gone out all night, and began the journey back to Thimphu. We drove to Punaka, which is only a couple of hours from Thimphu (note, while the whole journey was only like 100 miles of driving, the roads are all mountain roads, and maximum speed is around 25mph and usually closer to 15). We again stayed at a fairly nice resort, only to discover that our bed there was merely a box springs (I'm sure the delux rooms got the mattress), so it was a bit of a rough night. We got to see the Punaka Dzong as well, which featured an incredible prayer room with huge golden Buddha statues. Can't take photos inside the Dzong's but here is one of the outside of it:



Wednesday: Got up early, and headed back to Thimphu. I've got a couple more stories from the trip, including a more detailed explanation of Dzongs, and Bhutanese phallic wall art, but I don't want to overwhelm the reader. So, more to follow!