Trip to the Bajothang Book Fair

Recently, the yearly Book Fair was held in Bajothang, Wangdue. The Rigsum Institute of IT and Management (the institute in which my parents work) had developed a suite or collection of educational programs like Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Scratch and a lot more. The great thing about the Sherig Collection is that it requires no Internet! The idea was that schools with IT labs or computers that have slow or no Internet connection can use programs that are usually not offline like Khan Academy, instead of only focussing on Microsoft Office (Word, Powerpoint etc.). The video below explains the idea of the Sherig Collection. If you're observant (and if you read my other posts), you'll note that the music at the beginning and end of the video sounds familiar... If you're interested, you can also visit the Sherig Collection website.

Trip to Wangditse

One day, on holiday from school (5th King's Coronation Day), my father and I decided to go on a small walk. After some discussion, we decided to go to the Wangditse Lhakang and have a nice old-fashioned picnic there.

We took a cab to the BBS Tower, the starting-point of the trail, then started on our mini trek. It was beautifully natural, how the whole world was supposed to look.

The quiet calm and the green, fresh surroundings made me want to jump for joy (which I, of course, did). We walked on and on, from time to time chatting. Beautiful flowers hesitantly took our attention, buzzing inside with striped bees.

"Kuzuzangpo, la", we would greet others, smiling from ear to ear. The view from the trail was amazing, but the highlight was the enormous Tashichhoe dzong. When we reached the Wangditse lhakang, we were immediately struck by the big monastery. I was especially surprised by the haughty cock making his way through the dense bushes. A small chorten filled with butter lamps stood in the side of the big grassy plain. We went around (clockwise, of course) and tried to find a nice place to sit down. All had marvelous view looking onto the whole town. The only problem was, the whole place was really windy!

Finally, after few rounds (and after I was getting dizzy from walking in the same direction), we found a place, though windy (what to do, la) looking over Thimphu.

After finishing our scrumptious meal, we headed back down . While reaching the road, we passed by a tinkling mule pack (more like they passed by us). We even got a peep at three policemen riding by us.

In other words, it was a wonderful trip.

A top-and-lofty cock strutting around in pride

A wise trash-can

View of the Thimphu town

The Tashichhoe dzong

Policemen on a mission!

Journey from Thimphu to Bumthang

This is the first post about a journey. Our journey was from Thimphu to Bumthang, stopping for a night in Trongsa.

The eight-hour travel by car to Trongsa on the first day was very exhausting, but very very rewarding. Trees surrounded us from every direction, and from time to time we would catch a glimpse of a chattering monkey. We passed Wangdue, where the view changed from dense, thick layer of willows to a light encircling of pines. We stopped on the way for lunch. Our restaurant was a small, home-owned place, where we were served red rice, dahl, and ema datshi (chilies boiled together with local cheese - beware!).

An amusing sign on the way

We stayed in a nice hotel called Tashi Ninjay, having a good restaurant and a marvelous view over the huge dzong (ideal place for photos).
The next day, we were in the car about two or three hours to Jakar, Bumthang. We stopped in a pass called Yotongla and ever so grateful to stretch out our aching limbs. When we passed the border to Bumthang, the landscape changed again. Now there were more houses and especially stone buildings. Still, it was much more "treey" than Thimphu... obviously.
I was looking forward to the longest straight stretch, which lasted (on car) less than 3 seconds.
We finally arrived at Kaila Guest House, our habitat for the next three nights.
The next day, we drove over to UWICE (Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation of Environment), and my parents helped the institute install a moodle. This also happened for 2 more days,  in which I got the chance to update this blog and my other website, Bhutan Baby Book Reviews.

We took the flight back! It was absolutely wonderful. Snowy mountains, green valleys and misty clouds drifted about. The plane was really small, only fit for 8 people, and all these seats were packed.
We landed at Paro, and took a car back to Thimphu - home sweet home.