A Ride to Sikkim and Bhutan 2200KM - Part 13

Today  we set off to explore Butan. Paro to be precise we have only half a day for sight seeing as tomorrow we have to reach Guwahati to board our flights the day after. All the days wasted in permits and illness have brought us down to only half a day. Anyways we head forward and make most of it. Below can be seen Tigers Nest the most famous monastery in Bhutan. Only Raman had the strength to go to the top me and Vishal pix-elated it from the bottom and headed to check out other attractions. Raman joined us later.

Approaching the Tigers Nest Monastery

First view of Drukgyel Dzong at the upper end of the valley, built to protect against invading Tibetans, but in ruins since a fire in the 1950s.

We basically had the whole fort for us we spent time clicking lots of pics.

Rinpung Dzong, also known as Paro Dzong, the massive fortress/monastery which is also the administrative center of the dzonkhag.

View from near Rinpung Dzong.

Bhutan National Museum

The Museum is the final pic clicked from my DSLR though its pretty big from inside only this much portion of its is visible from the road side.
After this we started our return journey to the hotel our luggage was waiting at the reception. We had some food and set towards Jaigaon, we reached at night stayed in the same hotel as while coming. In the morning we set off for Guwahati and the next morning loaded our bikes on a train and we moved to the airport for our flight to Mumbai.

A Ride to Sikkim and Bhutan 2200KM - Part 12

The following sets of pictures are in Jaigaon , the last village on India side below 4 pics are of the Gate to Bhutan from India side.

Vishal posing with his passion at the Bhutan Gate.

 The Bhutan security personnel got into a tussle with Vishal and Raman over them clicking pictures at the gate. I wasn't around as was resting at the hotel. It took them around 2 hrs to get back to the hotel once back on inquiring I came to know that they were being grilled at the Indian post about their intentions. Finally by the intervention of higher authorities they were allowed to go.

The next day was spent roaming around Jaigaon and a little inside Bhutan our bike permits were still to be issued without which we could not venture far into Bhutan. We did some shopping and Vishal and Raman had beer inside Bhutan and we returned back to the hotel after getting our permits. The bike permits would have to be collected next morning. One more precious day wasted.


Finally the following day we received our bike permits and without wasting any more time we headed into Bhutan. Below is the route we followed:

Though Google suggests that the route takes around 2hrs 5mins to traverse it took us the better part of the day and also some of the evening to reach our destination Paro. The whole route is scenic with clear blue skies. There is occasional very dense fog which makes progress very slow. Also the regular pit-stops for photo and fuel for us slowed our pace further.

 Not far from the start we stopped for breakfast we had the perpetual Maggi now called as wai wai noodles and a local item called Ema Datshi. Now I did not have the local delicacy as it is basically a soup of chillies and I already had a bad stomach. Only Raman dared to have it. I while the meantime changed into tracks as my new jeans bought in Jaigaon was making me very uncomfortable to ride till now haven't wore them again :) .

The roads in Bhutan are quite OK in the initial part i.e Phuentsholing we found good roads but later on found that the roads were not paved fully there was enough part on either side which was unpaved. A bigger vehicle coming from opposite side meant we had to get down of the paved road on to the dirt again it was tough getting back onto paved road as the edges were steep this continued quite some time. Later higher up dense fog made it impossible to see beyond few feet's further slowing us down.

In the evening after dark we finally reached Paro. As I am a newbie with the DSLR and no tripod the night shots are hazy.

The population and traffic is sparse the vehicles mostly comprise of pickup trucks pretty obvious considering the terrain of Bhutan. The search for a decent hotel ensues we land one after some food call it a day.