Sept. 28 Bumthang to Phobjikha Valley

At breakfast we chatted with the hotel's two other guests, one Swiss gentleman who was visiting his Swiss friend who had married a Bhutanese girl, settled down and established a factory for Swiss cheese as well a a beer plant, and the second a Dutchman who had been on the Buddha Air flight to see Everest the day before the same flight crashed in Kathmandu with all 19 aboard killed.

On our way out of Bumthang, we noticed people lined up along the roadside and learned that the chief monk of the private monastery we visited yesterday was coming to our hotel to have a hot stone bath like we did. He will bless the people as he goes along. Several hundred schoolchildren had lined up, and cheered us as we went past.

We also saw a group of British motor cyclers traveling on Indian made Royal Enfield 500cc motorcycles, and several more groups of bicyclists.

We drove up to the pass at over 3,300 meters, down to Trongsa, stopped at a riverside restaurant for lunch, then proceeded down to Phobjikha Valley at 2,900 meters, the highest place we will sleep in Bhutan. We are staying in a guest house owned by the 15th Century monastery next to it called Gangte Goemba, and we have an excellent view down to the valley. The monks were practicing their dance ceremony as we visited, and we were allowed to photograph without any problems.

The valley is an important winter home and protected sanctuary for the endangered Black-Necked Crane, but when we went down to the crane information center to locate the one old crane that had stayed here for the summer, we were told that he had passed away a couple of months ago. We did see their video on these fascinating birds, which breed and summer in Tibet, and winter in a this valley and a few others in Bhutan.

The guest house does not have wireless Internet, so we can not use our IPad, but one of the monks let us use his laptop with cellphone data card to let people know we made it here OK. Tomorrow we will be in a hotel in the metropolis of Paro, which will probably have wireless so we will be able to send out our blog. We learned that our apartment area in Chiang Mai was flooded. Emails from the expat group and also the American consulate where advising of closures and other details. Guess we are missing the adventure there. Hopefully it will be all over before we get back on October 1st.