With the trek finished and filed into the memories catalogue we jumped into the suspension-less Toyota Hilux and headed east to the Bumthang Valley. A 250km of continuous one lane pot holed, hair-pinned bends, 3 mountain passes and cliff edges. A hair raising journey at the best of times even more so with the random large trucks going both ways. I think Douglas will return with significantly less hair. Douglas counted the bends, 16 on average per km for the whole 250km.
It is hard to describe the fun of travel to the east in Bhutan, especially if you suffer from motion sickness. Each of the three high passes we had to cross got steeper as we headed east. The steeper they got the more drastic the bends in the road got. We essentially turned each 25km of distance into 70km of driving by traversing across the hills continuously. It took 2 hours to get from valley bottom to mountain top and 2 hours down again. So that’s like doing the Rimutaka hill road out of Wellington or the Takaka hill road for 4 hours three times in a row. Joy!
The three valleys we visited were all full of history. All had been peopled for at least 1500 years. However, the great Buddhist migration to Bhutan happened in the 14th and 15th centuries and the huge fortresses and religious centres almost all appeared in the 17th century. In the 17th century a leader united Bhutan again Tibet and this structure resulted in the British Raj abandoning it’s efforts to establish control in the 19th century. The Bhutanese claimed to have kicked the British butts in a short war. I think they got fed up crossing passes at 4000m on donkey trails. We visited the many monasteries and fortresses they are truely spectacular!
Of course getting to the Dzong when built accross a river can be interesting
Luckily they are building a new bridge in Bhutan style!
The first night was spent in Yangkhil hotel, a new hotel built into the side of the very steep valley. With views across to the Trongsa Dzong. The candles in the room were either going to prove to be a considerate attempt to add some romance or an ominous sign. The power went out at 7pm and we ate our dinner by candle light. It obviously happens on a semi regular basis.
Life reverts to medieval standards as your leave Thimphu and gets more so the further east you go. Weaving cloth for clothes on traditional looms, guiding oxen to plough fields for rice and maize and grind stones to make flour run by water wheels were standard in Bumthang.
Of course you have to mend the roads
And hold the roof on
Many have switched from growing rice to potatoes as these are easier to grow in the colder areas and fetch better prices in Bhutan and India. However, to protect your potato crop you must sleep in a tiny raised hut with woven bamboo sides and roof and chase away any wild boars that come to eat your potatoes. You are not allowed to kill them as the Departments of Agriculture and Conservation protect them. So you best plan appears to be to tie a large number of old petrol cans to a top of a pole in the middle of your fields and run long strings back to you hut so that you can bang the cans together which will of course stop the pigs eating your potatoes. The good news is that you only have to do that for 5 months of the year.
The pig watching hut is the small one dead centre left-right in the photo
But there is always time for archery
. see piccies.
