After dodging our way through a few more neighborhoods of Jen N's phallic symbols we arrived in Trongsa and immediately headed to the Dzong to take in the opening day of the .... Festival. Since it was a rare winter festival, there were very few tourists, and because of the Blessing taking place in Punakha there weren't all that many locals attending so it felt like we had the place to ourselves. There is no doubt, however, that this festival was for the ...

To get to our next destination in Bhutan, Punakha, we had to do another of those multi hour drives along twisting mountain roads that all too often leave you dangling on the edge of a steep drop because the road is just barely wide enough for one vehicle- and then of course along comes another vehicle heading in the other direction (somebody has to back up to a wider spot in the road!). We even came across a relatively serious accident and apparently in Bhutan, ...

We've left the smallest Asian country and arrived in, arguably, the most hidden Asian country- because of a limited number of colours, I suspect that Deb P's crayon atlas doesn't even include Bhutan. Until recently, the tiny Kingdom of Bhutan remained tucked away in total isolation from the rest of the world. That segregation has helped to preserve its deep Buddhist traditions, and pristine landscapes. Some fun facts about Bhutan:* It's one of 43 ...

When you've been traveling through exotic locales as long as we have, it takes a little extra to make us do a double-take but here we were standing in our hotel room looking at a pair of life-jackets on top of our wardrobe along with the instructions on usage! Granted our 'hotel' room was actually a very nice over-the-water-villa located on a remote island somewhere within the Maldives chain of islands (and the highest point above sea level in the ent...

One of the truly iconic symbols of Sri Lanka is the stilt fisherman of the south coast- all of the guide books, postcards, promotional brochures, etc are covered with images of these pole sitters. The fishermen sit on a cross bar called a petta tied to a vertical pole planted into the coral reef. They hold the stilt with one hand while fishing with a rod or line using the other. They’re hoping to catch spotted herrings and small mackerels, which are then st...