Day Ten In Bhutan
Punakha Dzong
After I finished the last blog post I went and had a shower which was totally fine. The floor in the toilet area is sloped to one corner and the show just drains there. As everywhere in Bhutan the hot water is very hot so balancing it with the cold for the shower is a bit tricky to say the least. Once I got it set up it was a nice warm shower. I got changed and ready for the day which started with breakfast. Since it is a New Year’s holiday here there was a special dish that we started with. It was a rice porridge that was cooked with beef bones and had bits of beef in it as well as some pepper and chili spices as well. It was a bit different but quite tasty - not what I expected. After this I had some rice with egg topped with spinach and chili sauce. This was washed down with some masala milk tea. Our driver joined us for part of breakfast having some of the special rice porridge. He had gone back to his parent’s home for the night as they live nearby. His wife had come from Thimpu so he had some family time.
We set off for the day with the first stop being a nunnery high in the hills. This nunnery was only recently built. I say recently as that is relative but meaning within the last 40 years. It was set up and built by the family of the four queens of the retired king. They donated the land and started the building of the temple. The queen’s mom still lives in a house across the road and comes to pray at the temple. We walked around doing our three laps before going in.
After visiting the temple we drove further up into the hills where Tsering and I were dropped off to hike a section of the Trans-Bhutan Trail back into Punakha. We set off walking on a narrow road which soon because a hiking trail. Although we were walking across the ridge back to town we were descending pretty much consistently. As we got closer to town the number of options multiplied and Tsering was navigating us towards our lunch stop and the hotel we would be staying at the next day. We ascended and descended as Tsering navigated. At one point I looked at my GPS and decided to take a more direct route. He was scouting another route that he thought would be better. Finally, we made it to the the hotel for our lunch. The view from the hotel was very nice as we were looking out over the Punakha Dzong and the surrounding valleys that join there.
After lunch we drove down to the Dzong where the driver dropped us off. My legs were feeling the walk a bit so I was grateful for the ride down from the lunch stop into town. As we crossed the pedestrian bridge to the Dzong I could see a large school of trout in the river that people were tossing bits of bread to. They were very large trout. We did a tour of the Dzong which has a rather spectacular temple in the religious side of it. As we went in there were a lot of monks apparently taking a drawing exam. There was also a rather long painting of the life of Buddha at the back wall which Tsering talked me through. There were a lot of tourists here as well. After the Dzong we walked to the suspension bridge which was a short walk of about half a mile. We sent the driver over to the other side to meet us. Since it was a holiday there were a lot of people crossing the bridge with a lot of teenagers trying to swing it. It is the largest suspension bridge in Bhutan and being only wide enough for two people to pass was pretty impressive at about 100m across. It did swing quite a it too. On the other side we waited for the driver to take us back to the farm house. He showed up right as we had decided to start walking along the road towards the farm house.
At the farm house we had some tea and I mostly read my new book. The family room was very comfortable to hang out in. Just before dinner there was another treat in store. Lotay, the owner, had made some BangChang which is a fermented rice beer that is the starter for making Arak. It was server warm in a pot and had a bamboo strainer in it and a ladle for serving it. The taste was very similar to Chinese Mei Zhou except that this was a strained drink and was not sweetened. As a guest we had to drink several servings of it to show respect. It was pretty good and the low alcohol content made less of a worry than the Arak from the previous evening. We chatted and talked before dinner as we drank our Bangchang. It was very cool to experience this as it is only available as a home brew in someone’s house. Tsering and Lotay remenisced about their trekking days and shared some stories. Dinner was similar to what we have been eating. I was using a spoon to eat mine while the family was using their hands to ball up some rice and dip it into the various dishes.
After dinner I was already feeling pretty tired so I helped clean up a bit and then got ready for bed. I read for a bit before turning it in. I slept very well again and am getting myself up and ready for the day ahead.