Jakar Village Lodge Bumthang

... for the best. However, if you hit the target white area you get 1 point, the colors 2 points and the bulls eye 3 points. Each team attentively checks where the arrow lands (again how they see it an not get hit is beyond me). The opposing team yells playful insults from the other side at the other team after they do a shot. When the target is hit, their teammates at the other end do a little yelping and jumping dance. Amazingly ...

Email access has been spotty as I've now gone into Central Bhutan. I won't be able to write often - maybe every three days or so. Yesterday we drove six hours along extremely windy roads to get to Jakar in the central Bumthang district. THank god for Dramamine. By far, the most striking thing about Bhutan as a whole is how kind, friendly and generous people are. It's such a contrast to India where people are staring and trying to figure me ...

... our altitude was well over 3700m. The clouds were thick now, and the snow had grown more heavy. The damp cold was biting, and it kept us to a brief 15 minute stop befpre pushing on. We had decided (I think I was part of the discussion...??) to push ahead to the next campsite as we were making good progress, and even more importantly, the snow looked to be quickening and we did n0ot want to be caught in the high trails. The next few hours ...

... Whisky - a blend of local whisky and Scotch - that went down all too well!! Another delicious dnner, and an hour by the fire was all that was needed to send us to bed for the night. The horsemen I noticed slept under the open sky, quite a feat considering the temperature overnight dipped to -10C at least! I did take note before crashing out, that there were NO Yak herds anywhere nearby, so fingers crossed for a sound sleep!

... latest and this had not been passed on. We discussed it, and the guide went our way !!! Dochu La We left Paro and followed the mountains for over two hours, and then we climbed. Around an hour later, we reached Dochu La pass. Once again the views were great, and as an added bonus, there were 108 chortens to check out. They were all the same bar the large centre one, and had been built for winning a one day war which nobody seems to know/care about !!! Above it ...

... and the more people the woman sleeps with the more of a goddess reputation she develops. She is said to have more MERIT based on the number of people that she sleeps with. Yup, not a slut as the culture in the US would dub her. And the cherry on the top of this festival? Its held in a monastery. And you don't have to wait for this yearly festival to get your rocks off. Fortunately there is another practice, mostly in rural areas, that you can take ...

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 Touring in Bumthang Dear Readers: Our destination today is Ogyen Choling Museum, a palace once owned by a powerful family which has been preserved to show how people lived in an earlier era. Our guide explains that the family owned thousands of acres of land, and that all the tenants and villages on their property had to give a sizeable percentage of their crops and goods to the family every year as a tax. The fourth king of Bhutan decided to bring up ...

We spent 11 days in Bhutan - just enough to brush the surface of this very different, fascinating, friendly culture and people. Bhutan (or "Druk Yul," the land of the Thunder Dragon) is an isolated, fiercely independent Buddhist Himalayan kingdom that, unlike unlucky Tibet to the north, has never been invaded or occupied. To this day very few outsiders visit Bhutan - fewer than an estimated 20,000 total in all of last year! Of course, that´s ...

... Tage abzudecken. Der Mondkalender (der fuer buddhistische religioese Rituale benutzt wird) ist aber nicht eindeutig, und das Tsechu fing erst einen Tag spaeter an als geplant. Am ersten Tag war daher Sightseeing im Jakar Tal angesagt. Es gibt dort einige wichtige Tempel. Der Jampa Lakhang Tempel ist einer der aeltesten Bhutans, gebaut von einem tibetanischen Moench im 17 Jhdt um einen Daemonen zu unterwerfen (er musste dazu insgesamt ...

Sober tonight! left Thimphu at 7.45am this morning and drove to Bumthang where we arrived at 7pm. We stopped off in Wangdue Phodrang in the morning and then had a picnic lunch somewhere below Pele La pass. Cheese sandwiches, fried chicken, boiled potatoes, boiled eggs, locally produced apple juice and a banana. Don't worry, it had only been hanging around in the back of the car for 6 hours before we ate it. Stopped in Trongsa this afternoon to go into the Dzong - built as a ...