Udee Guest House Bumthang

... crooked drumsticks, chanting and periodically playing notes on long animal horns covered in silver. Its translated as the "annual Ritual Prayer' and performed only once a year, but for seven days. Its a prayer to rid of all suffering from all living beings. Pretty cool. - In the monastery where they were performing the ritual, Sangay brought me to a heavy sheet of chain mail that was downstairs by a row of lit butter lamp candles ...

... in spirit, were circumventing the monastery spinning the prayer wheels to bless this world. Around and around they went. In their right hand they would spin the prayer wheels, in the left, either counting prayers on their prayer beads or spinning their own 'portable' prayer wheel round and round. How many times would they go around the monetary spinning each of these 50+ prayer wheels I had Sangay ask? At least 100 an old man said. He ...

... more time spent by the fire and it was bed-time. We were getting into a pattern of 8am lights out, given all of the hiking done through the day, and the effect of the cold, clean, crisp mountain air. The biggest challenge was ensuring that the midnight pee runs were minimized (or avoided if possible - but that prooved not to be the case again and again). Speaking of which, my visit to the "toilet" facility on this night ended up with dire ...

... Another fixture of this portion of the trail was the frequency at which we encountered herds of cows, horses and numerous dogs wandering freely. I'd call it a Bhutanese traffic jam! After about 45 minutes of ascent, we cleared the settled portion of the trail and began our passage into the spruce, hemlock and rhododendron forest that would be our environment for the next few hours - interrupted every once in awhile by a clearing or historic building where we would ...

... very friendly, very open and approachable. English is spoken everywhere - and even if the country is open to the modern world for some time now, you still feel that Bhutan is very special and people are very proud of their country. Please have a look at the pictures and the stories. It is truly a unique destination and worth to visit - even if I felt to be a bit overpriced... but still you can see and feel the beauty of a very secret place....

... you would be sorely mistaken. There was an eye opening article in the Bhutan Times while I was here that would make any marketing director from Durex or Trojan weep with excitement at a completely underdeveloped market. The highlights for your viewing pleasure are as follows: -"Some years ago weavers in the east discovered that the condom was an effective tool to stop fluff coming out of the yarn. They drape the condom over a wooden pole which is then ...

... bed, it can sometimes be a risky and confusing process, with the amorous male crawling into bed with the mother or the father! The government official comes out, and speaks with me for a few moments. He introduces himself, and explains that his guest is a representative of the Prime Minister of India. I thought it was very kind of him to speak with us. We tour the museum, have tea on the terrace overlooking the valley, then climb down to the bus for a box lunch of potatoes ...

... democratic government. Like it or not (and most don´t), the final step in this process took place March 24th, 2008, with the election of the democratic representatives. As already mentioned, Bhutan is very much a Buddhist Kingdom. They practice Tibetan, ritualized, tantric Buddhism, which permeates all aspects of their daily lives. Mysterious, centuries-old monasteries and temples cling to cliff faces, prayer wheels and prayer ...

... Um puenktlich am Tsechu zu sein, sind wir dann um 16:30 nach Ngang Lhakhang aufgebrochen, ein 3h Trek (nun ja, die Zeiten in Bhutan sind zum Glueck fuer langsame Trekker, wir haben es in etwas ueber 2h geschafft, allerdings mussten wir uns auch beeilen um 17:30 kommt die Daemmerung und um 18:00 ist es dunkel). Dort wartete ein Zeltlager auf uns, wo zwei Oesterreicher, zwei Briten (die mit der gleichen Company wie ich reisten) und ...

... been to this festival last time in Bhutan so we were able to catch up with our old friend Pema Gyelpo, then the monk caretaker of the temple and now promoted to second ritual master. He gave us tea and arranged for us to sit ON CHAIRS in a tent along with a load of monks to watch the dancing. It was most enjoyable. We popped back to the hotel for lunch and then came back in the afternoon. We were allowed inside the temple and then went back to Pema's room for ara (locally brewed ...