Glimpse of Royalty - Bhutan Day 2

The next day, we woke up early and headed off to Neyphug Monastery which was founded in the 1550s. It's not in the list of the usual places that tourists visit but as we later found out, our guide was related to the Rinpoche there thus I guess that's why it was added into our itinerary. 

During the long drive to the monastery, our guide told us that the Rinpoche of Neyphug Monastery was her uncle. Apparently her uncle is the 9th reincarnation of Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche, one of the 25 disciples of the Lotus-born Buddha or Guru Padmasambhava, who brought Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan. I found that rather mind-boggling when she told us, I'm not a Buddhist but I do believe in reincarnation and even then when she told us about it I found it honestly quite unbelievable. Unfortunately for us H.E. Neyphug Trulku Rinpoche was in Singapore lecturing while we were there so we didn't manage to see him. We did enter the temple and saw the monks doing their daily chanting. 

The monastery is currently undergoing a huge restoration after an earthquake in 2011 thus the buildings were mainly makeshift and there were loads of construction materials lying around. As is the same of temples in Bangkok there were many dogs and cats around the monastery. 

hanging out in the cold

One of the monks invited us to stay for tea and biscuits and we found a kitten hiding in the room. The cat was smarter than the dogs for sure cos it was really chilly outside. While the monk went to get tea and biscuits for us, he switched on the television and I was really fascinated by the type of advertisements they have. I saw advertisements for carpenters etc and there was a  Bhutan version of American Idol but where they sang traditional songs. 

smart kitty who decided to stay warm in the room

After a quick lunch at the hotel, we headed off to Kyichu Lhakhang, which is one of the oldest temples in Bhutan. Unfortunately while we were there, we learnt that the Queen Mother was going to visit the temple thus we could only walk around the temple but not enter it. I did find it unusual that we were allowed to hang around the temple while she visited as I had assumed that all visitors had to leave. In any case we managed to catch a glimpse of her as she entered the temple. Her entourage was rather small for royalty which I found unexpected. 

walkway to Kyichu Lhakhang

As we were unable to even visit the museum at Kyichu Lhakhang due to the royal visit, our guide decided to bring us to Jangtsa Dumtseg Lhakhang instead. It is in the form of a stupa which is uncommon in Bhutan. There are three storeys in total but as we visited fairly late and no electricity is allowed in the temple, we only climbed up to the second storey and did not attempt the third storey. It's not exactly on the tourist itineary so we more or less had the place to ourselves. Though we couldn't have a good look at the murals on the walls, it was still a fairly fascinating experience. I've never been in a temple where the only source of light was from oil lamps, while we could use the torchlight function on our phones it was still fairly dark. It was quite an atmospheric experience and I don't think I'll ever experience it again elsewhere. And with that, we ended our second day in Bhutan. 

Always Expect the Unexpected - Bhutan Day 1

We were originally supposed to go New Zealand with a group of friends however in the end the best laid plans tend to go awry. The trip had been about one year in the making but alas Cyclone Gita decided to strike just a few days before our planned trip so all our plans were scuppered. The travel insurance agency that we got our policy from informed us that if we cancelled we would be able to claim any cancellation fees that were incurred, however if we chose to go on the holiday and  got into an accident then we would not be able to claim for them so obviously we chose to cancel the holiday.

Having decided to cancel our New Zealand trip, we still wanted to go somewhere but at such short notice and not enough time to plan we were kind of at a loss as to where to go. In the end we thought we could go to Bhutan since that has always been on our list of places to visit and it is the one place you can't travel independently unless you are an Indian or Bangladeshi or Maldivian passport holder which we are obviously not. With 2 days to go before our planned holiday, I decided to go down to the tour operator in Singapore to enquire about the possibility of booking a tour but they told us that all the rooms were fully booked, and that there was no way of going. I was rather disappointed but in the end things worked out cos CS had a friend who had a friend who owns a hotel in Bhutan and after CS gave him a call he said he would settle everything for us, from applying for the visa as well as arranging the tour. In addition, there were also still seats available on the Druk Air flight so everything worked out in the end. The funny thing was that because everything was so last minute, in the end we only got our itinerary the day before we flew off. I was telling CS we would be giving all these money to someone we have never even met before. 

As luck would have it our flight was rescheduled the morning of our flight. We were supposed to reconfirm our seats but didn't do so, thus we decided to go as per the original timing to ensure that we got a seat on the plane. The plane was a rather small Airbus 319 and we managed to get the window seat on the left side of the plane which is supposedly the side where you can see the Himalayas when it lands in Bhutan. The flight itself was uneventful, there was no inflight entertainment so I passed the time reading while CS watched videos that he downloaded earlier. After a short stopover at Kolkata we were finally on our way to Bhutan. Sadly there were too many clouds that day so we only got a glimpse of the Himalayas when we landed.

When we landed we were greeted by our guide and driver. Our tour guide was a really sweet young girl and our driver was a nice boy who turned out to be the same age as my younger brother. We were brought straight to our hotel where we hungrily gulped down our lunch. 

view from our room

After a quick lunch, we went to the National Museum and Paro Rinpung Dzong. No photos are allowed inside the museum but there was a marvellous display of the masks that the Bhutanese wear during their festivals. There was also a video on loop which showed the various dances during the various Bhutanese festivals so it was a good opportunity for us to see what happens even though the Paro festival season was already over by the time we were there.

There were other exhibits as well which touched upon Bhutan's flora and fauna. There were even some stuffed animals as well which freaked me out a little. 

Paro Dzong

While Bhutan has been opened to tourism for a long time, it is still highly regulated and tourists like ourselves are not really allowed to wander around freely. With most tourist attractions closed by 5pm there really wasn't much we could do, so after a short stroll around town we headed back to our hotel for an early dinner and rest.