Last day in Bhutan! The drive back to Paro over several passes today was beautiful with the snow on the mountains giving great vistas. So...Bhutan....It's a pretty place which reminds us very much of home. Some of it looks like the Kootenays with dense evergreen forests, and some of it looks more like the Okanagan with pine forests, rocky slopes, and dry underbrush. The difference is that the valleys to the mountain passes are much higher than anything we have a...

Travel day today as we started making our way back to Paro. We backtracked on the same dismal road. This time, in addition to the road work, pot holes, mud holes, people, horses, cows, dogs, and even yaks on the road, we also hit snow! This is apparently unheard of here, but we seem to attract unseasonably cold weather wherever we go. Because of the snow and very slippery driving conditions, we did not stop in the valley of the black-necked cranes (which have not...

More monasteries and Buddhist sacred sites today as well as more festival. We visited three temples today as well as a sacred site. The sacred site was a deep pool where a miracle occured. It was rife with prayer flags and was also the site where many people have left the remains of bodies once they are cremated. After cremation, the remains are formed into little cone shapes and people leave them auspicious places. The pool in the river we went to was a very au...

Big excitement in town today! We are fortunate enough to be here for the annual festival in the dzong. We walked up to the dzong this morning and watched dances all morning. As interesting as the dances were, the local people fascinated us as well. The Bhutanese are beautiful people and the elderly ones have faces full of character. They come from all over the valley for the festival and to socialize. The dances were loud and very colourful with gorgeous costume...

We left the farmhouse this morning taking two of the locals with us to the village. From there we began our epic voyage to Bumthang. It took us 71/2 hours to cover a little over 200 kms! We were travelling over the main road linking the west of the country to the centre. The roads are abysmal - so narrow that two cars can't pass without one putting at least two wheels off what pavement there is, half completed road construction everywhere, and giant potholes lurk...