To the Land of the Thunder Dragon

Soon, Amy and I will be heading off on one of our most anticipated adventures. For years, Amy has been telling me she wanted to go to Bhutan. I must admit, when she first told me this I had barely heard of this fabled land. I only knew that it was some mystical place high in the Himalayas. But in the fall of 2007 our brother in law, Bob Hoffman, spent 5 weeks there along with Amy's sister, Janet, and niece, Genny. They came back with many stories of this marvelous and unique place.




Bhutan is no ordinary country. What to make of a country where buying cigarettes is illegal, the rice is red, and where chillies aren't just a seasoning but the entire dish. What to make of a country where archery is their national sport and the one main road has an average of 17 curves per kilometer (no wonder it takes 3 days to go about 150 miles)! Where else on the planet do most men and women still wear their national dress? Only in Bhutan did the king recently push the country to a democracy. And where else in a country about the size of Switzerland does the elevation change from 23,000 feet to 300 feet in not so many miles?



Located in the heart of the high Himalayan mountain range, Bhutan is completely landlocked and is surrounded by mountains in the north and west, by the very rugged terrain of the little known Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh to the east, and by the plains and jungles of Northeast India on the south. Some of the highest mountains in the world separate Bhutan from Tibet to the north.



The population of about 700,000 is made up primarily of indigenous Bhutanese. In the higher reaches of the kingdom and in some isolated valleys live many nomadic tribes that bear a close affinity to similar tribes across the border. Some, like those from Merak and Sakten in the east and Laya in the north, have almost no contact with western civilization and trade only in bartered goods.



On October 9th we set off on a two day flight...first to Bangkok, then to Paro, Bhutan, where we will arrive on Oct. 11th. We plan on heading to the middle of the country, to the region of Bumtang, to see a religious festival, stopping along the way to see monasteries and other local sites. We know where we are going (you have to have this all set up before you get there), but have no idea really what awaits us. When possible, we'll find an internet cafe and let you know what's going on.