Paro, Bhutan

We had a traditional breakfast at the farmhouse in Haa. While I love eating local foods wherever we travel, for some reason I've never been able to adapt to a non-western breakfast. But we were at a homestay where it was about the culture, so we gave it a go.

Our hosts had been up very early to prepare a local delicacy, dumplings made with buckwheat flour and filled with minced vegetables. Normally they're served only on special occasions in Bhutan.

The full breakfast included red rice, chilies, a chicken curry, vegetables, and the dumplings, as well as butter tea. It was very good, although I would have enjoyed it more as a lunch :) maybe one day I'll get over my provincial breakfast tastes.

There's not too much to see in Haa, the main tourist attraction are the homestays. Yeshey went to boarding school 15 years ago in Haa, so we walked about town and he pointed out the changes and a bit of the history of the main street.

We also visited two temples. The first one was okay; the second one was amazing because we were fortunate to finally see a ritual in progress. I suspected we might be in luck as we approached the temple, as I saw lots of crocs (the footwear of choice for most monks) outside the door.

The monks sat in opposing rows, with the front rows beating on large drums. A couple monks off to the side blew on low-pitched horns. A monk near the front had thick cymbals. Seated rather sternly at the front was an older head monk. The monks read through their readings in unison, while complex rhythms beat out on the percussion instruments. Yeshey said they studied for over six years before being able to participate in the ritual.

It was very cool to listen to, especially as we were the only tourists. However after about 10 minutes we felt like we were a distraction especially to the younger monks, and that we were imposing by staying much longer, so we left.

We drove back through the 3988m pass, and then descended almost 1800m to Paro. We had lunch, and then got down to the serious business of souvenir shopping.

We had a few things on our list (scripture cards read by monks, cymbals, a large mandala (circular Buddhist painting), masks, and antique butter tea churner). Unfortunately a lot of the items were very pricy - I think there's been a lot of tourists with money to spend in the past, and the vendors have adjusted their prices accordingly. For example older masks were almost $1,000, and mandalas 2'x3' and medium quality were $500.

We did find an antique butter tea churner which was the least likely item I thought we'd find. I guess the low demand for these kept the prices down too. The store did a great job packing it - it's over 40" tall, about 8" diameter. I think we'll be able to take it as carry-on back to Bangkok on DrukAir, but getting it home on Emirates will be trickier.

By 3pm I had reached my shopping limit, and so had Heather. We drove to the Raven's Nest Resort, an upgrade for our last night in Bhutan. You can see Tiger's Nest from the hotel, which sounded way cooler when I booked the place. It's newly opened and they're still figuring things out. Our room was nice, but had oddities like the shower door opening to the side of the bathtub.

Dinner was okay, I had to ask for chillies on the side as their was no spice in the food. The chef made up a Bhutanese-inspired dessert for us, yak cheese in a heated butter-sugar sauce. Yummy, but probably not the healthiest :)

I was concerned that they might not serve beer as Tuesdays are the "National Dry Day"; but they make exceptions in tourists hotels. So we were able to have a Druk Superior Lager to celebrate our fun trip on Bhutan.