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Blogs from Bhutan, Asia
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February 1st 2013
Hiking to the cliff-hanging Tiger Nest was one of the items on my Bucket list: Now, scretched off. Yeahhh! On May 2012 I made it to the tiny kingdom of Bhutan, where I spent the first few days exploring a little of its wonders and getting a taste of its culture, while getting used to the high altitude, before embarking on the hike. Paro Taktsang is the popular name of Taktsang Palphug Monastery, also known as The Tiger's Nest, a prominent Himalayan Buddhist sacred site and temple complex, located on a cliffside of the upper Paro valley. A temple complex was built in 1692, around the Taktsang Senge Samdup cave where Guru Padmasambhava is said to have meditated for 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days and 3 hours in the 8th century. Padmasambhava ... read more
December 18th 2012
Sadly our time in Bhutan had to finally come to an end. Having had such an amazing time, both through our rewarding work, and through the never-ending hospitality of our Bhutanese friends, we left Thimphu with heavy hearts. As we wrap up this chapter on the blog, there are some photos which we are rather proud of, which never got uploaded earlier. Our home is no longer our lovely Thimphu flat - it is now two bikes (Surly Long Haul Truckers), accompanied by six small bags. We'll be telling you more about this in the weeks to come! In the meantime, have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! We will be somewhere in Northern Laos (probably fixing a puncture by the side of a road). Much love , Andy and Mel... read more
December 15th 2012
Day 1 – Drive on winding narrow mountain roads from Thimphu (2300m altitude) to Gelephu (200m altitude) on the Indian border (9hrs). The last section of this journey has to be done in daylight and at speed without stopping because it is flanked on either side by forest which makes it prime ambush territory for Assamese Militant Groups. Have dinner with Lhendup’s family (our friend who was looking after us during this trip) in Gelephu with views of the Himalaya behind and the plains of India in front – very surreal!! Day 2 – Wake up and realise that militant groups have put a ban on vehicle movement through Assam for 3 days. Therefore travel to Manas through Assamese India (by far the shortest way and also the only way to get there by road) would ... read more
December 15th 2012
In the end Mel made 7 half hour maths programmes for the Bhutan Broadcatsing Service. Topics were: The Golden Ratio Area Surface Area Volume of Prisms Speed Triangle Relationships (Pythagoras, Trigonometry, Inequality Law etc..) Maths in the Work Place (Ratio, Percentages, Proportion, Fractions etc....) Here is a mash together of some of the more interesting parts of the 7 programmes, including some outakes to make it a bit more fun to watch...... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ceqi3JwNELQ... read more
December 10th 2012
Who would have thought it - we kept on bumping into people that looked really similar to us, or similar to the friends that we were with. Amazing - you really wouldn't have thought that people could look so similar and would also choose to wear such similar clothes, on so many occasions.... read more
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December 8th 2012
There is a story that we heard. Apparently, disobedient soldiers in years gone by were given a punishment to run between Thimphu and Paro. 29km, 2000m of altitude gain and loss on mountainous terrain, all run between 2400m and 3600m. Sounds curious... but wait! it gets more interesting! There was a 'fastest known time' for this punishment. A time of 7hours and 50 minutes. Now, let me introduce you to Randall. Randall is a curious chap. He likes challenges. He was triumphant in the Thimphu Momo-Off (eating as many Bhutanese dumplings as you can), and astounded his audience by putting away a healthy 32 of them! In addition to momos, Randall also likes hills, and running up and down them. Those of you that know me (Andy), know that I am also impartial to the occasional ... read more
November 30th 2012
These are our favourite animals' noses in Bhutan. Some of our models were slightly shy to display they sniffers - others showed off and were more than happy to get the old proboscis in front of the camera. Originally this blog was to be dedicated to the schnoz of ungulates alone. By doing this, I would have a reason to use the word 'ungulate' and thus appear clever. However, such a selection of smellers would be speciesist, and would not give fair exposure to the nostrils, nares, muzzles, snouts, snuffers and whiffers of non-ungulates as well. It now looks like I contrived a pretty feeble way of including 'ungulate' on our blog, and I might look a little less clever than I had originally hoped. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ungulate... read more
November 24th 2012
We did a trek. It was amazing. It took us to the very remote region of Laya, right up on the Tibetan border. 12 days involving lots of uphill, lots of downhill, lots of yaks, lots of snowy mountains, and not very many toilet facilities. We went with 3 other expats our age, plus the usual Bhutanese staff for a mountain trek. We didn't find the yeti, but we think we might have heard her one evening (although that could have been a horse). Highlight: Being totally in the middle of nowhere: 5 days walk from the nearest road at one point. Lowlight: Being a long way from a meal which did not involve rice and chilli. Highlight: Being somewhere so remote that signs of snow leopards were seen Lowlight: The sign of the snow leopard ... read more
November 14th 2012
A couple of bits and bobs which we found curious during our stay in Bumthang and we never got round to telling anyone about. You might find these photos curious! (There are 9 photos to look at - you may need to scroll down to see them) One of the most interesting moments was our meeting with the Rimpoche, a 7 year old reincarnate of a very important Lama. His introductory question to us (remember that he is 7 years old) was "is your home country peaceful?". He had only just been discovered having insisted to his parents since he was a toddler that they 'took him home'. 'Home' being a monastery in Bumthang (Tharpaling) that his parents had never heard of! When he got to the monastery (which he hadn't been to before in this ... read more
November 13th 2012
Day 1 So we headed to Bhutan – a small land locked country sandwiched between Tibet and India. Our flight from Kathmandu to Paro was incredible including a view of the Himalayas out of the left side of the plane the whole way. This included a fantastic view of Mount Everest and many of the other tallest mountains in the world. Bhutan had resisted modernization for a long time and was the last country on the planet to get TV (in 1999!). They believe in low volume high quality (and expensive) tourism. What this means is that you pay a standardized daily rate per person and for this you get your hotels, 3 meals a day, a guide and a driver. In 2006 the King just announced one day that the country would become a democracy. ... read more
