Bhutan Day 1

After being picked up, we drove for 20 minutes straight to the hotel, which is just outside of Paro. The place I stayed is called the Namsay Resort. Nice accommodations - wow do they treat their guests nice.

We stopped and almost immediately the driver hopped out of the car and opened the door for me! I felt like royalty! lol. Namgay told me lunch would be served in a couple of hours, so I went to my room for some rest.

After half-sleeping for 2 hrs in my gigantic room, we went into a large room off of the main lobby of the building to eat lunch. We sat down at a large, decorated, set table and sat at either end. About 8 dishes were brought out to us to share. Red rice (grown locally), pork, thin noodles, spicy eggplant curry, fish curry in red sauce, some type of dark crispy green plant (i think fiddle head ferns), and noddles with chicken in creamy sauce. Very tasty. I think my favorite was the eggplant curry which had large green Bhutanese chillies and cheese sauce in it. The chillies have such a great flavor! They also eat them raw dipped in fine salt and eaten with rice.


After lunch we were driven by Tshering around the perimeter of the Paro valley and up a hillside to the Museum of Bhutanese History just outside of town.


(Namgay on Left)
The big round tower used to be a watch tower guarding Paro and now has many artifacts, treasures, stamps, and mainly statues and tapestries of Buddhas. The focal point of the tower was something that resembled a Christmas tree with Buddhas as ornaments. It had 4 sides which represented the 4 sects of Bhutanese Mahayana Buddhism. Namgay explained that each sect was considered the same religion - just different ways of practicing it. Just below the tower was the Paro Dzong (Temple) which is the religious and government seat for the Paro District.

Here is a view of Paro from the tower:


We were then driven back to downtown, which basically consists of a long strip of buildings with hand-painted signs over the doorways that for the most part all say "General Store - Paro Bhutan". Namgay and Tshering parked and let me browse the stores. It was sort of strange because I never knew if I would be walking into a shoe store, textile store, food store, or WHAT. I ended up finding a neat gift shop on a side street where I purchased a few items. It was a little uncomfortable walking into these shops by myself. Mostly because people aren't used to seeing tourists- especially just ONE and one so young.

I then re found the guide. We were driven back to the hotel and I hit the sac hard for about 4 hours! The receptionist had to give me a wake up call when I didn't show up for dinner at 7:00. Every day but this one I was wishing that dinner time would be earlier - but 7 - 7:30 is normal there. Dinner was just as great as lunch with white rice, whole fried potatoes, fried beef strips with peppers, chopped up spinach, locally grown apples... About halfway through the meal the waitress brought out a single skin-charred Bhutanese chilly. We ate it with salt and rice. Hottest chilly I'd ever tasted! I think Namgay was excited that he wouldn't have to hold back on spiciness in our trekking food when I told him I liked spicy foods.


I told Namgay that I was late to dinner because I decided to leave my watch at home (which was a mistake!). He said to take his and that he knew the time by his cell phone. I kept it the rest of the trip even though i tried to give it back multiple times.


After dinner I went to my room and called Ellen for a few minutes to let her know I'd arrived and was safe. Then I crashed again. I was wondering how long the jet lag was going to last! Wow.