Sunday, January 6, 2008

Bhutan Diary 2: Phuntsholing to Thimphu

The route to Thimphu is completely mountainous, and our taxi driver, Sonam drove like crazy as long as there was light, ignoring our pleas for tea. He finally stopped at 5:30 at a small restaurant where he had momos, and we had that life saving liquid called chai. He wanted us to have dinner as well, but dinner at 5:30? Only after we positively implored did he agree to make another stop later.
Every small and big restaurant in Bhutan seems to serve liquor. The route to Thimphu is dotted with restaurant-and-bars, as is every other place in Bhutan. It was getting to be really cold by this time. Every time Ramya opened the window for a smoke, we could feel the icy cold winds. Sonam said that it was going to be much colder in Thimphu, though it hadn’t snowed yet. ‘Shit’, I thought, ‘it snows in Thimphu’, followed by ‘whippee, it snows in Thimphu’.

We stopped at a sweet little place called Damview for dinner. I spent most of my time sitting next to this big heater, sipping hot suja, butter tea. We had some more delicious Bhutanese food, served to us by a giggling 16 year old girl called Ganga. She must have taken a liking to us, for she showed us the view of the valley from an adjoining room.
The pictures: (1) Ramya having dinner at Damview, (2) me warming my hands at the heater and (3) our driver Sonam (left) and the giggly Ganga (right)



(To be contd)

2 comments:

Sgrk said...

When is the rest coming up? And how about some more pictures!!!

Unknown said...

yea .. we want more pictures! ..