Day 2 – Tiger’s Rest

Paro is in a valley lined with rice fields. You could replace “Paro” with the name of any other city in this part of Bhutan and the sentence would stand. Nevertheless, for this newcomer, the beautifully terraced fields of gold and green were captivating.From the hotel

we sorted gear a bit and headed out for an afternoon’s hike up to a famed monastery called Tiger’s Rest.

It’s about 900m up, and I set the standard of being last. Shooting photos and talking with my friends takes a long time.

   

Oddly though, we did get down first. So absorbed in conversation were we, much of it about the group we saw going in the opposite direction, well-Nikoned hikers who had chartered a 757 for their expedition, and who were well supported by Bhutanese carrying their long optics, and about whom we made amusing generalizations about their marriages and their politics, and observations about body types and the clothes and advertising they wore, and the message that advertising bore about the kind and frequency of vacations they take, and semiotics in general, that we missed the turn off to a tea-shop and were first to the bottom. This was the only time on the entire trip when I was first to the bottom of anything.

Then we returned to the hotel to unpack our bikes. This was more interesting than it might have been. We had what I think the are the usual amount amount of difficulties and discoveries. And then, we had some really interesting ones beyond that. Some in-the-field resourcefulness and KE’s bag of spare parts rescued the day. To calibrate this for you, a set of taps would have been handy. Actually, the problems of the day weren’t fully resolved until a phone call home the next morning, in which a bike mechanic explained the trick of how to remove a cable from someone’s integrated lever.

   

Days 1 and 2

Day 1 in Delhi was just gathering in the lobby of the Ashok Country Resort. Lots of other Westerners begin their trips there, too, so we had to figure out who was who. The bar had been grabbed, so we made our home a table and sofas in front of large screen TV. Beers and peanuts fueled the discussion as we shot it and waited for Helen, our guide from KE, to show up. That was like waiting for Godot, although in her case, she at least left a message. It said, “we’re leaving the hotel lobby at 2:30AM!”, so I for one turned in before either she or my two friends from CT (a small state on the eastern seaboard of the US) showed up.Dutifully, we were all dressed and ready at the appointed hour. Helen had not managed a wink after arriving from the UK. My friends had showed. Bikes and duffels were loaded into buses and we began a longish day of travel. We would have longer.

 

OK, we packed a bit two much stuff.  What was it, 200kg too much?  There was some misunderstanding about the allowance, but with bikes, it simply is not possible to get close to the allowance.  With powerbars, too, not a chance.  So, we forked over the penalties and waited for Druk Air to take us first to Kathmandu

Kathmandhu from the air

 

and then on to Paro, Bhutan.  The route in remind me more of a winding descent on a bicycle than any airport approach I’d ever experienced.

 

 Incidentally, I learned a few things about Bhutan on the flight.  First Bhutan is not India.  The plane was as immaculate as a newborn Boeing.  In fact, it was an Airbus 319. Who knew there was such a plane?  Second, the Bhutanese women are very beautiful.  Later, we learned the they are so beautiful, the king has married four of them.  But, put away your visions of Utah.  Bhutan is no Utah, either.  If you’ve ever flown United, you are probably more than a little jaded about the friendliness of the hostesses of the Friendly Skies.  You might even have feared that one of these ladies might whack you upside the head with a lead filled purse if you dared to ask for something, or that one of their smiles would fall off and cut you.  Not so with these Bhutanese hostesses.  They had a purity of innocence about them, as well as an elegance of simplicity, and a radiant beauty.  I barely dared to look at at these young women whom I now visualize as a cross between my little sister (I don’t have a little sister) and my 7 year old daughter.

I’m going to leave off here, with some photos from the tarmac.