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Bhutan

Welcome to the adventure of Bhutan and Nepal. Todays travel started in San Diego to Los Angeles, to Hong Kong to New Delhi. Over night in New Delhi and an early morning flight to Paro, Bhutan flying alongside the magnificant Himalayan Mountains.

Mount Everest Mountain, one of many in the Himalayan Mountains is the tallest peak in the world at 29,029 feet above sea level.

Paro Airport. The only major airport in the country. Only the airlines of Bhutan , two, are allowed to land at Paro International Airport. The terrain is very difficult to land and take off. Only a few pilots in the world are allowed to land and take off there.

Bhutan a Buddhist kingdom on the Himalayas eastern edge is known for its monasteries, fortresses (Dzongs) and dramatic landscapes that range from subtropical plains to steep mountains and valleys.

Typical home with the roof raised above the house for ventilation.

Lookout point for the airport - see next photo

Paro airport has been described as "the most difficult airport in the world". The airport has only one runway, airplanes approach pass by 16,500 foot Himalayan Mountain peaks, and the 5,940 foot runway length presents a double challenge, due to low density altitude at the site. As a result, only a handful of airline pilots, 8 as of December 2014, are certified to operate commercial planes there.

Ringpung Dzong - Bhuddhist Monastery and fortress, established in the 15th Century. The building houses the district Monastic Body and Government administrative office of Paro.

Local transportation

Downtown Paro

Notice the ornate paintings on the buildings

Bhutan remains one of the most mysterious lands in the world

Dragons

Mother attending to hee children. Notice the local dress for this young mother

View from the hillside looking down at Downtown Paro.

National Museum Exhibition Hall Entrance

National Museum of Bhutan - It received major damage during the earthquake in Nepal

Side View of the National Museum

Bhutan in 2001 installed their first televisions - probably the only place on earth where the Governments first priority is something called "Gross National Happiness"

National Museum Exhibition Hall - Photo Exhibition

On the wall inside the entrance to Rimpung Dzong Buddhist Monastery and Fortress

Inside the Monastery are 14 Shrines and Chapels. It also houses the district Monestic Body and Government Administrative Offices of Paro district.

Young Buddhist Monks

Courtyard

Our local guide in Bhutan Tashi Dorji. He is wearing typical clothes for every man in the country.

East meets West - Monks pausing to check their cell phones

Tashi is explaining the prayer wheels - you walk along them and turn each of them and your prayers hopefully will be answered

Looking up from a courtyard at the ornateness of the buildings

Our group overlooking the valley from the Monastery

View of the valley with Prayer flags in the distance blowing in the wind

Local to the left speaking with two Monks

Two young Monks, young boys, in training brushing their teeth from the water faucet

Inner courtyard. - notice the intricate wood work of the walls of the Monastery

Entrance into and out of the courtyard of the Monastery

The flags placed on hill slopes are normally a profusion of colorful religious flags fixed by the Buddhist people as a mark of veneration. Flags are made up in 5 colors representing natural colors - blue (sky) white (clouds) red (fire) green (water) and yellow (earth).

Steps to the upper level leading to the National Museum at the top of the hill

Bhutan License place

Visit to a local home for lunch

Those are some steep stairs into the house we are havin lunch

Tashi showing us several rooms inside the home

The home has its own private Buddhist temple for the family to pray

Tapestry for the temple

Tashi showing us a locally hand made mask

We are guests for lunch and the mother of the family has prepared a delicious local meal for us to enjoy

Women in Bhutan working hard building a home

A Buddhist Monk built his home on both sides of a Monastery

Close up view of the Monastery and home on each side

Love this road sign

A gas station in Thimphu

Our hotel in Thimphu - Thimphu Tower

Thimphu is the only capital city in the world with no traffic lights

Traveling companions at the front entrance to the National Memorial (Stupa) Chorten.

The National Memorial (Stupa) Chorten was built in 1974 in memory of King Jigme Dorji Wahgchuch, the "Father of Modern Bhutan".

This multi-storied monment displays numerous paintings and statues that provide a rare insight into Buddhist philosophy

The worshippers walk in circles in prayer

View of the Stupa

Part of the ritual of prayer is laying down with hands in the air

The Bhutanese people are very proud people. You can see it in their faces walking in concert in circles around the Stupa praying

A prayer wheel is a cylindrical wheel on a spindle made from metal or wood. At the core of the cylinder is a "Life Tree". According to Buddhist tradition spinning such a wheel will have the same meritorious effect as orally reciting the prayers.

Buddha Dorderma Statue undergoing construction, 169 feet tall, making it one of the largest statues of Buddha in the world. Inside are 125,000 small Buddhas placed within the structure, each cast in Bronze.

View across Thimphu

Drivers waiting for their groups to return

Takin - the national animal of Bhutan

Zorig Chusum - traditional school of 13 arts and crafts.

National Institute for Zorig Chusum operates 4 to 6 year courses that provide instruction in Bhutan's 13 traditional Arts, Students specialise in painting, wood carving, embroidery and statue making.

Example of the students work

Creating clay statues

Embroidery

Painting

Gift shop across the road where works of students are for sale.

Young girl in gift shop

Young girl in gift shop with a mask on

Entrance to the National Library grounds

National Library of Bhutan

Decorations on the edges of the National Library buildling

Worlds largest book

King and first family many generations ago

Former King who recently abducated to his oldest son. Former King is shown with his 4 wives, all who are sisters from the same family. Also the brothers and sisters of the present new king and his cousins who could also be his half brothers and sisters. Gets confusing.

Inside the National Library of Bhutan

Ancient Bhuddist Manuscripts

More Ancient Manuscripts

Tashi explaining the Ancient Bhuddist Manuscript in his hand

Explaining the Bhuddist word Dzongs

Young girls coming from school and going home in the afternon. Note their uniforms.

Visiting a Paper factory in Thimphu

Paper making by hand literally

No mechanization - everything is done by hand

Neighbor furniture manufacturer nearby the pulp mill

City of Thimphu

Young female workers lifiting the wood pulp

Lifting by hand female workers

Name of the paper company

These were heavy pales of wood pulp. I tired to carry a bale a distance and it was dead weight.

Young boys going home after school. Note their uniforms.

A Toyota car show next to the hotel in the square. I saw none of these cars on the streets.

Hotel Thimphu Tower next to the square

Bhutanese citizens looking onto the square studing the new Toyotas and listening to the music

Local business on the main street in Thimphu, The capital of Bhutan

More businesses

The only traffic circle in the country and a policeman directing traffic in the country. Remember there are no traffic lights in the entire country of Bhutan.

View of the main street

Notice the wild dogs laying on the corner. Thousands and thousands of dogs roam free day and night. All night they bark and run. Day time they sleep. I made it my job to wake them all up in the day time as they kept me awake at night running in packs and packs of dogs barking all night long.

Downtown Thimphu

Local residents out walking in the early evening

Shopping center in Bhutan

Looking downtown Thimphu

The only person I saw the entire trip in Bhutan begging for money

Young boy befriending a 3 legged dog. Touching scene

Grocery Shop for locally grown vegetables and fruits

Locals enjoying the music and looking at the cars at the square

New King and Queen, celebrating the brith of their first child

Dining Room of the Thimphu Tower overlook the sqaure next door

The square next door

Young teenagers and monks enjoying the DJ music from the car show

Tshering Wangmo, the owner of the Thimphu Tower where we stayed. We had several meetings on hotel operations. She was interested to learn anything and everything about the hotel business after I had introduced myself to her.

Tashi Dorji, our country guide, and our driver Ghembo. What they are wearing is the traditional clothing worn by the majority of all men in the country of Bhutan. Inside the cloth flap you see from the neck to the waist at a 45 degree angle across the front chest area of the body is an area to put wallet, cell phone and anythng else they may need to carry. There are no pockets.

View of the mammoth Buddha Dordenma Statue from a distance

The Dochula Pass, located at 10,330 feet elevation, on the East road, in the snow covered Himalayas in Bhutan on the road from Thimphu to Punakha where 108 memorial Chortins or Stupas known as "Duk Wangal Chortins" have been built.

Buddhist Temple at Dochula Pass

A Chortin (in Tibet) or Stupa (in Bhutan) is a mount - like hemispherical structure containing relics that is used as a place of meditation.

Restaurant to the right, top the Buddhist Temeple and Chortin in foreground. Rest stop.

Dining Room at Dochula Pass

Turn out on the East Road. The main road from one end of Bhutan to the other is a one lane dirt road they are trying to make into two lane paved highway, They have a long way to go. The altitude reaches 10,330 feet at the pass to drive 100 miles it took almost 6 hours to reach our destination.

View of the countryside

We stopped at a road side market in the village of Lobeysa, Punakha

Catching a few zees in between customers

I looked for the drive through?

Local Fast Food restaurant in Bhutan

All locally grown

Local tourist shop

On closer examination I could not find out what the excitment or reason for all the Penis' or phallus were in the window for sale. You will later see them painted on the front of homes.

It is a 20 minute walk across the fields through the village of Sopsokha fromo the roadside to the small monastery at the top of the hill..

Door with character

Local home

Young girls playing with their dolls

I am not sure I would like this painted alongside the front door of my home

Up close of the painting at the front door

Walking through the village of Sopsokha

The well for the village

Going home from the field

Women working hard in the fields

Famous Red Rice fields that have medicinal values

Another shop with the same items in the window

Monastery Chimi Lhakhang (Lhakhang in Bhutanese languages means monastery or temple)

Punaka is the home of Chimi Lhakhang, a small Buddhist Temple with a very interesting story of how it was formed. It is known as the Temple of Fertility. What is with all the Phallus/Penis drawings around the Village? In founding the site it is said that Lam Drukpa Kuenley, known as the "Divine Mad Buddhist Monk" subdued a demoness by the name of Dochu La, with his "magic thunder bolt of wisdom" his penis. He also chased 2 other demonesses down that had terrorized the valley and turned them into a dog. He buried the dog under a mound, A chorten.

Drupka Kuenley was know as the "Mad Saint" or Divine Madman" for his unorthodox ways of teach Buddhism by bizare behavior, shocking and secual overtones. The overtones of his actions and antics were a deliberate method of provoking people to discard the preconceptions.

He is the Saint that advocated the use of these symbols seen in the village on walls, and through Bhutan have been intended to drive away the evil eye and malicious gossip. today he is the most revered and followed Saint in Bhutan. His symbol the phallus can be found all over Bhutan - even as door knockers - Go figure!

There are stories of tourists from the US and Europe who make pilgrimges to Chimi Lhakhang and promptly got pregnant within a year of their visit. Women come to the monastery seeking blessing of children will be hit on the head by the presiding Lama with a 10 inch wood and bone phallus used by the devine Mad Man hundreds of years ago.

Monastery on the hill

Children returning home from school through the rice fields

This photo is one of my favorites on the trip. A mother with her young children walking through the rice fiends on the way home from school.

Punatsangchhu Cottages in Wangduephodrang our home for two nights

Across the river from the hotel a new town has been built in recent years

Evening at the Cottages

View of the valley

Women building a home

View of the Punakha area Valley

Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup Lhakhanag nunnery

Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup Lhakhang nunnery is perched overlooking the Punakha and Wangduephodrang Valleys. The temple complex also houses a permanent higher learning and meditation centre of nuns where apart from religious training it provides life skill training such as tailoring, embroidery, statue making and thangka painting.

Mother and son meditating

Small homes where the nuns live

I have never seen a front door quite lilke this

Trim around the edge of the roof of the small home for nuns

Young nun in training

East road dirt single lane highway betwen Thimphu and Punakha in the distance

Home of the mother and father of the 4 former Queens that were sisters. They provided the funds for the nunery and live closeby

Punakha Dzong is built at the junction of the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu rivers in 1637 to serve as the administrative center of the region until 1955 when the Capital was moved to Thimphu.. Damaged by catastrophic fires and earthquakes the buildings have been fully restored.

The suspension bridge is 165 feet long. Unfortunately the bridge has been destroyed by the raging river and floods several times in history.

Punakha Dzong is also called the Palace of Great Happiness

Young Monks in residence bathing in the nearby river

Walking on the suspension bridge

The trees are Jacaranda in full bloom

Main entrance to the Dzong

There are three courtyards beautifully designed

The first courtyard is for administrative functions. The second courtyard houses the monastic quarters. The third courtyard is the tiemple where the remains are preserved of previous leaders.

Main courtyard

Nearby town where students are walking home

Young girls walking home after school

A new city has been erected across from The Cottages where we are staying

The air has been filled with smoke from fires from India that have been blowing in.

Remains of a nearby monastery destroyed by fire across the valley from Rincchengan Village.

We visited the old village of Rinchengang that could be several centuries old. It is built high on the hill near to the terrace rice fields worked by the residents.

Local residents. At first they did not want their photo taken. Definitely a very hard life esistence . I did and showed it to them. They smiled and then I took another and they agreed to it.

The village sits high up on surrounding hills.

Home sweet home for someone. Hundreds of years old too.

Rice fields from this village

Burning fields. There is already enough smoke in the air from the fires in India and they add more.

My room at the Cottages overlooking the river

Tashi hugging a tree..

Rhododendron

Ghembo our driver in Bhutan

Stopping for lunch outside of Paro

It is hard work in the rice fields

Monk feeding the stray dogs that bark all night at Kyichu Lhakhang Monastery

Elderly pilgrims constantly spinning the many prayer wheels at the Monastery

Kyichu Lhakhang reportedly built in AD 659, makes it one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Bhutan. It is believed to hold many spiritual treasures within the walls.

The tiny white speck in the middle of the photo near the top is Tigers Nest one of my Bucket list items for years.

Tigers Nest or Paro Taktsang is a prominent Himalayan sacred site and the temple complex. It is located cliffside of the upper Paro Valley in Bhutan.

Beginning of the trail at the bottom of the mountain

Part way up the mountain we see images of Tigers Nest.

Tigers Nest is perched seemingly impossibly on a cliff 3,000 feet above the valley. The Valley is 7,330 feet above sea level. Taktsang is a place of pilgrimage for locals and for visitors like us, a hike to the viewpoint opposite the monastery is thrill and mystical.

I had to pinch myself to make sure I was almost there.. only another 45 minutes up and down more hillside stairs at this point in the trip. When I finally made it to the highest point of Tigers Nest, upper right building, a monk was sitting there meditating with his eyes closed, I leaned out the window, over looking the valley below and screamed at the top of my lungs, "I MADE IT! He almost fell out the window. "

Jim, Dick Shelley, Marilyn and Peter

Woo hoo.. almost there

Once you get to the top of the mountain then you have to go down hundreds and hundreds of narrow stairs

Now it is stairs up again

More stairs

View of the valley below from vantage point along the stairs

Halfway point with a small stop for tea or coffee

View of the Paro Valley floor below

View of the many hundreds and hundreds of stairs at the top before you arrive at the destination

View of all the stairs going up and down from the top of the hill to get to the entrance of Tigers Nest on another side of the mountain.

View looking back up at Tigers Nest after the climb

A cold beer never tasted so good and so did the catered lunch at the bottom of the climb. Delicious. I built up one heck of an appetite.

This evening before dinner, at Tashi Phuntshok Hotel, we had local entertainment

We all got into the act too

Take off from Paro Airport

Airport below

Flying through a valley between two mountains out of Bhutan. What an incredible experience to have visited Bhutan. Bhutan is playing catch up with the rest of the world. Television and many of the items we take for granted are just being introduced into Bhutan. The people of Bhutan could not have been more hospitable. I made so many new friends during our stay in Bhutan. It is defintiely a hidaway from the busy world today. I leave with many wonderful memories of a beautiful country and friendly people.

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© 2025 Jim Schroder