Bhutan

Don't know where to start on this trip - it was pretty amazing. Doug and I had both wanted to go to Bhutan for a while and as we're both leaving India soon we booked this as our last trip (no, I don't know when I'm leaving yet). In order to travel in Bhutan the government requires you spend at least $200 a day (combined total of hotel, meals, etc.) in order to keep out tourists (and especially backpackers). They also require you travel with a guide. We selected Keys to Bhutan as our travel company based on a recommendation that they did mountain biking trips. Doug actually mountain bikes - I had never been on a mountain bike (well, I just bought one in Delhi which I rode once before the trip). Since it's monsoon season in Bhutan right now (and not the ideal time to go) the company rejected our trekking/biking trip requests and recommended we do day bikes and hikes in case we get totally rained out.

At the airport we encountered a group of people wearing matching "Chinese Taipai" jackets that seemed to say Korfball and holding a pretty big trophy. Through some detective work (and a player approaching me to see if I was in fact using my iphone - which I was using to google Korfball) we found out that they had won the Asia Championship game that morning! It's like handball or something. The flight into Bhutan (on the surprisingly lovely national Druk airways) is supposed to be beautiful as you pass the Himalayas but the landing was rated one of the scariest in the world as you have to enter the Paro valley, then do a 180 degree turn through mountains to approach the runway. But really it was not scary at all and it was too cloudy to see the mountains. Sad.

I don't know how the rest of you picture Bhutan but I pictured snow capped mountains. That might be true on clear days but not during monsoons. It's fairly high altitude (even the valleys were 2500 meters) and incredibly hilly but the landscape was covered in pine forests and very green farming plots. The country is fascinating. The king is trying very hard to keep it idyllic and yet interacting with the world. They have historically fought wars with Tibet but most of the language and people come from Tibet. They have absolutely open borders with India; and way too much Indian military presence. And as they don't manufacture anything really all their goods come from India. They have required national dress (the Gho for men and Kira for women) - which has pissed off the Nepali immigrants (likely intentionally). It's a Buddhist nation with tons of monks (it's tantric Buddhism like Tibet meaning that boys join the monastery at a very young age and stay for life usually). It also means they don't want to kill anything so they are very concerned with keeping the environment clean and protected. One valley we stayed in was a migratory stop for black necked cranes and so they've said the town can't build or put in electricity as that might change the migration patterns of the cranes. Ironically, our guide (the wonderful Raj) pointed out that while they don't like killing, they eat quite a bit of meat! Most people aren't heavily practicing buddhists.

The biking and hiking were hard - especially since so much of it was uphill! But really I wish there were more of it. Car rides aren't fun and I would have rather trekked for 5 days and covered less ground than spent time in a car. But small complaints. The country is beautiful. Clean! (especially compared to India) and not tons of people. The people were all really nice to us and seemed baffled by us crazy bikers. Kids all waved wildly "hi", "bye". I was personally really struck by the diversity of ethnicities. And they certainly understand service. Most of the hotels we stayed at were gorgeous and the service was not pushy. The food got old, since we had essentially the same thing every night but it was good.

In Thimpu the capital city we got a taste of what it might be like to be young, rich and Bhutanese. The owner of the tour group took us out for dinner and when we mentioned that we heard there was someone who brewed weiss beer he took us to the bars. The beer was really good (especially since there's no local brews in India) and the bars were full of fun, pretty, young things. The night before as were searching for ice cream on a very rainy night, we found ourselves in this very modern bowling alley, bowling under black lights to "Me so Horny"! Not exactly my image of Bhutan but then that's not in the tour books. It is a small country though, i mentioned that a friend of mine from DC had married a bhutanese woman and he immediately knew who I was talking about!

Despite it being monsoons and too cloudy to see the Himalayan snowcaps which pictures showed were right behind the mountains we were on, on the flight out we flew by Everst and the other peaks and there were completely visible peaking over the clouds. It was magical:)