Bhutan Day 3

The day began beautifully with the clouds slowly rising off of the mountains surrounding the Paro valley. Blue sky was our fortune for the first 30 minutes of our hike. We were driven by Tshering (it's always him) to the post office where I mailed a couple of postcards to family for 50c each - MUCH cheaper correspondance than calling. And only 2 weeks delay! :P We drove to the trailhead for the Druk Path which is just up the hill from the Museum.

There we were greeted by 2 of Namgay's staff as well as a host of asses that were supplied by a man in Paro. Each of the 5 asses were loaded with supplies. Here is the kick off pad for the trail:


Kinsung was the name of our cook (Yah, we had a cook!) and Santosh was camping assistant who was about my age. Namgay told me (in front of him) that he's still looking for a Bhutanese wife so to let him know if I see any elligibles, lol. Our hike consisted of 4 hours of inclined climbing up to a summit - then a short descent to a small clearing where our tents were already being set up for us by Santosh, who'd passed us up an hour earlier. On the way up:

Here's our campsite

We ate a pre-cooked meal and tea, then went each into our separate tents to rest. It was pouring rain at this time and when I got to my tent I realized that I had to pee but I would've gotten soaked...

Here's a little account of my struggle.



My tent rocked! The fly kept the rain out and allowed cover just outside the main zippered section for me to leave my wet boots. They had layed down a THICK pad and thermorest layer for me! Pretty much all I was responsible for bringing was a sleeping bag and a pillow. This was luxery camping!

After a short rest I walked into the "dining room" tent to find tea and cookies neatly layed out on the foldup table.

I took full advantage, of course. The rain stopped for only a couple of hours durin the whole day. But it was nice just visiting with the other three in the cooking tent while leasurely waiting for dinner. As we waited we snacked on fresh roasted cashews and Namgay gave me some of his special Bhutanese whisky made in the south by their military. Dinner was the same great food except with an addition - incredibly tasty local fried fish. I usually don't care for fish, especially when it's "fishy" tasting. But this fish we unbelievable - great seasoning, no fishyness, and fell right off the bones! Dessert was a mildly sweet coffe custard, which was excellent. After dinner, Namgay and I visited in the dining tent for a while, sipping hot chocolate and whisky to keep us warm. We talked a good bit about rock climbing. He travelled to Austria in 1995 and was trained and certified as a professional trekking/alpine guide - which included training in rock climbing. He hasn't climbed in 5 years, but he told me that he had thought about climbing the rock face directly below Taktsang. Wow, that'd be difficult. And probably prohibited. I showed Namgay a picture of me with Ellen and he said that she was very pretty. I wished that she was there to meet these wonderful people! We read some magazines that he'd brought, then went to our tents around 9:00 so we could get up early the next morning. Namgay decided that we could do the trek in 4 days instead of 5, but that meant a total of 7-8 hours of trekking for tomorrow! Yes, it was definately time to sleep.