Gangtey Palace Hotel Paro

... 7th<br>century by the Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo is one of the oldest and<br>most sacred shrines in the kingdom.<br>Evening leisurely stroll in Paro Town.<br>DAY 08: Hike to Taktshang(Tiger Nest monastery)<br>Today,<br>we make an excursion to Taksang Monastery &#8211; this has to be the<br>monastery with the most outstanding setting in Bhutan. Set on a<br>vertical cliff face 800m above the ground, it defies all engineering<br>logic. Hike about 2-3 hours up to the ...

... most famous is the red rice. As you can see from the photos it is just fields and fields of rice fields. The Bhutanese are mainly an agricultural people, internet first came into the country I think in 2004 or 2006.<br><br>Arriving at the hospital, was a strange experience, it brought me back many years to a time when I was in India, everything is quite rudimentary, queues of people standing outside doors, waiting to be seen by doctors, and eye department, a blood ...

... Druk Air own 2 planes only and finally stepped out and was greeting by Ian, my dear friend who offered me the job at Amankora. It was so good to see him, Ian and I have an amazing relationship, he's one of those people that you meet and you feel immediately comfortable with. He and I share an instant and a very deep spiritual connection with each other, where he just 'gets' me on my wavelength, (Carma knows what I mean! You'll love him BTW!)<br><br>We drove to the ...

... loved to have taken a photo of her. He kindly went into the café and asked her if it would be OK for me to take a pic. She accepted (and didn't even consider a donation as gratitude) and I have this terrific shot of her in her traditional Layabs clothing. It's the garb commonly found in rural Northeastern Bhutan. Sangay said she was in Thimphu to go to the hospital since she wasn't feeling well. What else... It seems the Bhutanese also take advantage of their ...

... likely kept younger people from coming here, but in any case, dinner was nice and we met a few folks that we expected to bump into later in our travels since most folks were travelling to the same places, on slightly different schedules. With dinner and conversational nicities finished, and the beer buzz wearing thin, we headed home. As would become the norm while in Bhutan, lights out was relatively early (usually by 10!!) and that was all she wrote.

... having ended in the best possible way. Now all that remains is to get our flights home, through Bangkok (via Calcutta!) and Singapore. Hopefully we will make all our connections and be home on Saturday morning. After 4 months of travel through some amazing but sometimes challenging destinations, I am very much ready to come home. I look forward to seeing my family and all my Aussie friends soon. Thank you for joining me on my journey.

... vans were cheap and brimming with Malaysian Idols. Borneo is called the Kland beneath the wind" but the moniker should read "the land of the answer is blowing in the wind". Huge for my life. I met a Dutch guy named Marco at the airport who was traveling the same route from Borneo to Bangkok. He was a fishing fanatic and had been travelling between remote fishing villages in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and ...

... Let me tell you, I ate pretty fast. We went back to the festival, but the last dance was ending, ****! Yesterday, I managed to wear my hat to protect me from the sun, but today they had a masked of the guru in one of the dances and I was asked a few times to take off my hat, so I got sunburn in the face and on on my legs between my socks and pants. On the last day of the festival they unroll a huge thangka. The one here is an image of Guru Rinpoche, the ...