Passang Dolma

These are the girls we brought down from Dharmsala to Delhi for the first few days our Bhutan adventure. We stayed in New Delhi, India for 4 days before flying to Bhutan for two weeks. We have been sponsoring/supporting Passang Dolma for 10 or 12 years.The girl on the right is Passang, our Tibetan "daughter". Her sister Tsedong is in the middle. Born in Llasa, Tibet, they escaped at age aprox 6, one with their mother and at a separate time one with the father who was subsequently killed. Neither girl knows her actual birth date, nor their last name, their family name. I don't know exactly why they don't know these things. We weren't able to get at that piece of info, undoubtedly a story there.



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Sadly leaving Bhutan

The beauty of the Tiger's Nest Temple seemingly growing out of a sacred cave on this sheer rock mountain coupled with the " Four Friends" painting really speak to me of this great Bhutan. The Four Friends is about living in harmony with each other and with our world. Pretty good message, let's all listen and learn. This painting helped inspire the fourth King of Bhutan on his path to formulating Gross National Happiness as the prime national measure of his countries progress and status. Now that is enlightened.

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Favorite Bhutanese Photos

Bhutan is a fabulously beautiful Country. Most homes are works of art - inside and out. Temples many times have beauty in rare abundance. I have taken several thousand photos of this beauty. The people are the real treasures, I think. These are my three favs so far.

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Bhutan, Day 9, Tuesday, Nov 15, 2011

Bhutan, Day 9, Tue, Nov 15, 2011

Early this morning I felt greeted by a day that seemed to be filled with serenity and a reassuring comfort. That was a good omen, I thought. This is a long travel day from centrally located Trongsa to Punakha, our two night stay town, half way to Thimphu. The Bhutanese newspaper reports that according to the local astrology, this is an inauspicious day to travel. This is disturbing as there are concerns about rains, possibly heavy rains today, and the possibility of snow on the one high pass we will encounter. I simply can't imagine traveling on these Bhutanese roads when bad weather makes them more difficult or more treacherous. They do not have snow tires for vehicles or chains. When it snows a lot, which it does - these ARE the Himalyas after all - they just close the roads. So a fair amount of this country lives in isolation in the winter. So, ... a day radiating clearity and comfort is quite welcome.

The sky presents a high cloud cover and the low valley has collected all the fog in sight which is mimicking the river flowing gracefully down the valley, wherever the speeding river may direct it. The Dzong down the hill and the far valley hillside are clear and crisply visible.

Breakfast awaits us at 6:30, and our journey, now not seeming quite so ominous and uncertain, is ready to spring into action at 7:30 sharp, with, 'bells-on-it's-toes'.

The mornings travel was unremarkable, except to say the Bhutanese Weather Gods smiled kindly on us and the traffic was blessedly light. Our driver Ka Ka is so good.





We lunched in a very small rustic village. The Restaurant was primitive but delightful. The proprietor was a friend of our guide who used to guide for the same company. We did not order. He brought enough food for 4 people. But that's ok as they reserve food that we don't serve to our plates. Is was interesting, but "fun". Next to the restaurant was a very active chilly pepper market. It struck me larger and more active than a town of this small size would support .





An hour into the afternoon's drive Thinley, our very fine guide suddenly said we must stop here and motioned toward a large flat area in the rock wall to our right. It was a cave maybe 50 feet tall, 100 feet wide and likely 30 feet deep with several paintings and writings on the wall. Wow, I recognized it immediately! Bhutan's most well know movie: Travelers And Magicians had a number of scenes shot here. I've seen the movie a number of times. As I looked around, quite a bit of the movie was shot within a few hundred yards of the cave.

Long drive finely made it to Punakha. Lovely hotel: great room with a view. Crash til dinner, then early night after eats.


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Kurjey Lhakhang Temple

We spent several amazing hours in this three building temple this afternoon. The far right building was built in the 17th century. This temple was built to honor the man who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, Guru Rinpoche. The middle building was built by Bhutan's "First King" ca 1915, the left by the Third King in the 1950s. This active temple is just breathless in so many ways for so many reasons. Patricia and I were both very moved by our time there. The story connecting Guru Rinpoche to this spot 2 centuries before it was built are worth finding and reading - and way too long to include here. I'll see if I can find a link to put here. Some call him the second Buddha. He was foretold by the original, Sakyamuni Buddha.



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Location:Jakarta, Bumthang, Bhutan