Why go to Bhutan?
- Going to Bhutan is not an obvious choice. The main problem is of course cost. Government regulations require you to contact a Bhutanese travel agent who will then guide you around the country for a fixed rate of about 200 US$ a day (although these rates can be flexible, see general info). To this you need to add the cost of the flight since the flight from Katmandu to Paro costs at least 390 US$. Secondly not all travellers would like to be guided around all the time, and maybe prefer to travel on their own. All this explains why Bhutan only gets about 7000 visitors each year, even less the last years after 11/9/2001. In 2002, they only had 5550 which was less then they had hoped for. This is because 40% of the tourists were US citizens, and that number has dropped since 11/9 and the attack on Iraq. Second are the Japanese, third are the Europeans. In 2002, tourism brought in 8 million $ which is a lot for a country like Bhutan where the average income per person is only 550 $ per year.
- The advantage to this is that Bhutan is still a pure experience, where tourism did not have an immense impact on Bhutanese culture and Bhutanese life as for instance in Nepal.
Highlights
- If you can go during one of the festivals, this should be the highlight of your trip. In fact, I advise you only to go to Bhutan when you can visit a festival. I visited Bhutan in march 2003
and I visited the Punakha festival.
- The dzongs, the fortified monasteries are of course also an architectural highlight. I only visited those of Paro, Punakha, Wangdue and Tongsa.
- Tiger's nest in Paro is probably the most photographed building in Bhutan.
- You can go either trekking, either walking to Goembas, and there are some older palaces which can be visited.
My program
Day 1: Visit of Paro Dzong and Ugyen Pelri Palace (outside only). Short stop in Bondey village. Stop at Dochu La pass. Visit of Chimi Lakhang. Overnight at Punakha.
Day 2: Morning visit of Chimi Lakhang. Afternoon visit of Punakha festival
Day 3: Half day visit of the festival. Visit of Wangdue and Rinchengang. Onwards to Phobjika valley. and visit of the Black crane observation centre and Gangte Goemba.
Day 4: Early morning walk at 6 am to view the cranes, after breakfast visit of the Black crane observation centre. The Gangte Goemba was under repair. Transfer to Tongsa and visit of the Dzong and city.
Day 5: early transfer from Tongsa to Timphu and visit there of the Cheri Goemba (walk of 2 hours) and the Dzong from outside.
Day 6: visit of weekend market in Timphu, then transfer to Paro and visit of Tiger's nest. Also visit of Druk-Gyel.
Day 7: flight Paro - Katmandu.
