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Bhutan Travel Blogs

In 1865, Britain and Bhutan signed the Treaty of Sinchulu, under which Bhutan would receive an annual subsidy in exchange for ceding some border land. Under British influence, a monarchy was set up in 1907; three years later, a treaty was signed whereby the British agreed not to interfere in Bhutanese internal affairs and Bhutan allowed Britain to direct its foreign affairs. This role was assumed by independent India after 1947. Two years later, a formal Indo-Bhutanese accord returned the areas of Bhutan annexed by the British, formalized the annual subsidies the country received, and defined India's responsibilities in defense and foreign relations. A refugee issue of some 100,000 Bhutanese in Nepal remains unresolved; 90% of the refugees are housed in seven United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camps. To be updated

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By SharkStalker
September 30th 2006

Dance up to the Monastery Asia » Bhutan » Thimphu

Bhutanese Flag

30/09/06 Thimphu Again! Our day started with a morning hike up to the Tango Monastery. The 250m ascent took about an hour and was well worth the effort. The monastery was beautiful - so quiet and peaceful. A central courtyard contains a small building where butter lamps were burning. We were shown around the temple by the caretaker monk who led us up 3 steep wooden staircases, more like ladders between the floors, in order to show us the 5 temple rooms. The monastery houses a young monk, now 13 years old. When he was 6 or 7, it was realized [View Full Entry]

By grantcorp
September 29th 2006

Enter The Dragon: Redux Asia » Bhutan

...and who doesn't?

Last year's succesful trip to Bhutan not only convinced me that I really wanted to spend more time in this country, but the knowledge that I had only scratched a little bit on its surface pestered me to no end. I kept coming back to my thumbed copy of the first edition of the Lonely Planet guide. Right there, on page 193, in glorious full colour is a half-page photograph of the fortress in Gasa province (it seems to have been omitted in the later editions). Thrown into a sea of thick green forest resting beneath some very evil looking, snow [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 29th 2006

Whirling monks Asia » Bhutan » Wangdue

Whirling Monk

27/09/06 - 29/09/06 Wangdue Sure enough with Bless-ed Rainy Day over, the weather picked up and we started having sunshine and blue skies. Our journey back West was initially to the Yanghill Resort in Trongsa. Our first incident of the day was a landslide on the road. We whiled away a few minutes in the sun waiting for the JCB to clear the boulders away. It didn't take too long ,this was the main East - Wast highway after all! Following our morning traveling, we went for an afternoon drive south, following the valley to an old village, Kuenga Rapten. En [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 27th 2006

The Sacred Bumthang Valley Asia » Bhutan » Bumthang » Jakar

Old folk turn about the Temple

25/09/06 - 26/09/06 Jakar, Bumthang province. We carried on further East into the Bumthang province - a 9 hour journey with an hour’s stop when we spotted a family of Common Langurs (or white cap langurs) and stopped to try and photograph them amongst the forest canopy. We crossed the Pe Le La pass at 3350m and climbed up through the clouds. With ever changing vegetation and rising and falling temperatures, we ascended and descended through 2000m. We passed a famous Chorten, which is a replica of one found in Lhasa, Tibet. Well almost… according to the story, a monk dec [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 25th 2006

Our journey East begins Asia » Bhutan » Punakha

Bhutanese archer lets fly

24/09/06 Punakha Leaving Thimphu after breakfast we headed East over the Dochu La Pass climbing to 3000 and a few meters and finally back down to 1300m into the almost tropical valley. With such varying altitudes, Bhutan has an abundance of wildlife, flora and fauna and is a paradise for ‘twitchers’. The vegetation had changed form blue pines to chir pines and plentiful fruit trees and lush green stepped rice fields. We stopped to try and feed some wild monkeys but they ran from our apples thinking that we were throwing stones at them. (OK - this is supposition - I [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 24th 2006

Capital of Bhutan Asia » Bhutan » Thimphu

House Decoration

23/09/06 Thimphu One of the most famous Buddhist Lama masters of Bhutan was Lam Drup Kinley, better known as the Divine Madman, and certainly my favourite character from all Bhutanese history, that I have encountered to date. Temples in his name are dedicated to fertility and he is the reason for the wonderful phallus paintings that adorn Bhutanese houses. The Takin zoo is a small park area housing a dozen or so takin(or is it takins, and what is the collective noun for takin, I’ll have to check that out!) The animal that ‘befuddles taxonomists’ according to a sign in [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 23rd 2006

A Royal Hike to the Tiger's Nest Asia » Bhutan » Paro

Tigers Nest

22/09/06 Taktstang - The Tiger's Nest Taktsang Temple monastry is probably the most famous site in Bhutan and revered as a holy place built on the spot where Guru Rimpochey, the Great Buddhist Master landed on his Tigress after flying from India in the 8th Century and meditated in a cave high up on the cliff side. The shrine in the cave was slowly added to with additional buildings until the monastic temple was formed. Destroyed by fire in the 1990's, the temple was completely re-built and only finished and re-ordained in recent years. Legend has it that the gold statue [View Full Entry]

By SharkStalker
September 22nd 2006

Dramatic Entrance to a Dramatic Land Asia » Bhutan » Paro

Monk in Burgundy Robes

21/09/06 Paro, Bhutan With 30 minutes before landing, the pilot announced the time and expected weather conditions in Bhuta, before adding For those of you who are flying to Bhutan for the first time and not used to seeing mountains in such close proximity, please don't be alarmed as this is the standard procedure. The plane proceeded to bank left and right around the mountains, with the wing tips seemingly a few meters away and then banked one more time even moments before landing as it rounded one final curve into the Paro valley and straightened up perfectly to touch [View Full Entry]

By LJ Gilly
December 10th 2005

Land of the Thunder Dragon Asia » Bhutan » Paro

Sky High

Bhutan is like the land where time stood still! Mobile phones have just hit the streets here and TV’s are barely out of their boxes in this Himalayan paradise. Bhutan although shunning the western thirst for gadgets and commercialization does have great ambition and is a sort of trendsetter in its own right - one of the few countries to completely ban tobacco and the proud owner of the largest book in the world (just a whisker taller than me!). Also we soon noticed in our luxury hotel that the restaurants were keen to set a world record for the fastest [View Full Entry]

By grantcorp
September 15th 2005

The eight manifestations of Guru Rinpoche and other stories I cannot remember Asia » Bhutan » Thimphu

Trashi Chhoe Dzong

Last day in Thimphu already. How dull! We have agreed to leave for the tsechu at 7 am to stand a chance against the expected crowd. This being the last day of the tsechu also means the most people will be present. I wonder how it can be possible to squeeze in even a single person more than yesterday and shudder at the thought of finding a good spot. We quickly check out from the hotel and I load all my surplus bananas Jasu's friends gave me into the trunk of the car and we speed off towards the dzhong. The [View Full Entry]

Old monk, bored monk, young monk, hot monk...

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