Land of the Thunder Dragon

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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 time to serve a 3 course meal, the 7 staff serving us managed an impressive 33 minutes on our second night!! The service is extraordinary at breakfast I was offered tea countless times by numerous different waiters who magically appeared at our table!!

The country itself is incredible, and crammed full with amazing sights at every corner; even the standard houses are impressive in the traditional wooden build. We were shown an array of ancient Buddhist temples and fortresses, met monks and some strange animal that is a cross between a cow and a horse!!
Also visited an amazing high mountain pass where a divine saint had built 108 temples just because he could!!

It’s a sparsely populated place and we frequently met no one for a day or two then we ended up at a lovely wooden lodge where dear old Cameron Diaz stayed last year - We hope her fame somehow rubs off on us!! After a few quiet days, our guide stopped us at a temple where a big ceremony was about to start, we stood in awe as drums, huge trumpets and gongs were played and monks and Lama’s circled the building, then out of nowhere we saw the hedhoncho of religion in Bhutan!!

To continue our theme of seeing the stars of Bhutan the next day we ran in to the Prince in his Toyota Landcruiser bopping along to his IPod!!!

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