I got out of the tent around 6am, to check out how bad the trail was based on all the precipitation. It wasn't too bad - just a coating of snow on the ground - I think our imaginations from all the sounds got the better of us.
The trekking crew was up early too, and we had breakfast, packed up, and started off by 7:30am.
First we checked out the nearby Phajoding Goemba. The sun was melting the snow on the roof which looked like rain falling from the inside.
The trek down to Thimpu was pretty easy. It was through tall pines, and the fallen needles provided a nice cushion on the ground for walking. The smell reminded us of Christmas. The 700m descent took us about 1.5 hours.
Our driver was waiting for us at the pick-up point. Along the way to our hotel we drove by the Takin Reserve and spotted some takin, the national animal of Bhutan.
It felt great to finally shower after five days of trekking. We gave three bags of laundry to the hotel, containing all of our trekking clothes. We had saved a clean set of clothes to wear when we finished the trek, almost everything else was dirty.
We had lunch at the hotel, a little bit of a let down after the great food we had on the trek.
We had asked our guide, Yeshey, while on the trek, if it was possible to arrange another hot stone bath at the end of the trek. He had suggested going to the home of our trekking guide, Sunam, which we agreed to, as it would be a more authentic experience.
Sunam's place was about 30 minutes outside the city. His house was a five-minute climb up paths from the road. I guess that's not unusual here so no-one mentioned it; but we were in our clean set of clothes. Anyways, it's all part of the adventure :)
We thought we would head straight to the hot stone bath. But first we had to have tea and snacks. We were then fortunate to watch the whole process. River rocks were heated in a fire until red-hot, then quickly dunked in a pail of water to get rid of the ash, then placed in the tub. It took a while to heat the rocks, and so we were offered arra (a home distilled drink from wheat). We then learned customs around drinking - first you dip your ring finger in the drink and flick it in the air three times, say cheers ('le jembay dja'), and then you have to add a little more to your glass after the first sip.
The arra wasn't too strong (I would guess about the same as wine) so the full glass they poured us didn't impact us too much.
Eventually the water was hot enough and so I went first. In the commercial hot stone bath we had in Paro, there was a wooden separator between the bath and the rocks, with holes for the heated water to flow. In a backyard hot stone bath, there's no such niceties, and we were instructed how to lie down without burning ourselves on the stones. It started to cool down and so I asked for another stone; this sizzled under water for almost five minutes. It really heated up the water.
Next was Heather's turn. They replaced all the rocks in between, but Heather is okay with a hotter bath.
By the time we were done it was dark, and we descended the path back to the car using our smartphones. (We had originally thought we'd done by 4:30pm so hadn't planned for flashlights).
Dinner was supposed to be at the hotel, but based on our mediocre lunch experience, and the fact that we were in the capital with the best opportunity for non-Burmese, instead went to a pizza place. Our guide and driver picked us up from the hotel and drove us there. They were going to wait around until we were done and then drive us back, but we were just a 10 minute walk away so we convinced then we'd be okay, and so they were able to have the rest of the night to relax (our guide had started the day trekking just like us).
The pizza was pretty good. We chatted about the trek and had a couple Druk Lagers, then walked back to the hotel to sleep in a bed for the first time in five nights.
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