We spent our first day and night in Thimpu sightseeing. The next day we were off to Punaka - a town about 3 hours east of Thimpu on the National Highway. There is only one road that runs east to west in the country. It is mostly 1 1/2 lanes but is one lane in a lot of places and becomes a full two lanes in others. It is always under construction as parts of the road always wash away during the monsoon season. When this happens, all traffic to the less populated eastern part of the country stops until they can get a temporary road replacement in place. I didn't see this but I read that there are metal temporary roads they put in place over the mudslide so that some traffic can get through until they can do a more permanent road repair. I was glad we didn't experience one of those. I had heard the drive was a bit nerve wracking with long cliffs and no guard rails. But it wasn't too bad. The road was dry, the drivers drove slow and carefully and there actually were a few guard rails in several spots. The road was very high at some places though and you didn't really want to look down!
We drove over a beautiful pass on a very clear day so we had some quite amazing views of the Himalayan mountains. Anna was very, very sad that we couldn't reach the snow to play in it. I don't know how many miles away the mountains were but they were very far away (and far up!) and playing in the snow was not in the cards for Anna that day. But there were lots of fun places on the pass to play so the kids were able to run around and stretch their legs (and poor Mere got a thorn or a splinter grabbing something). At the time, we didn't realize how fortunate we were to be here on a clear day. On our way back, it was too overcast to see any of the mountains and some tourists miss the view completely. We feel so blessed we didn't miss that amazing scenery!
I don't quite understand how it works but by my bad memory and calculations it seems like the tree line in Bhutan is much higher than in the U.S. The pass was over 10,000 feet - which I'm pretty sure is *way* over the tree line in the eastern U.S. and seems like it should be higher than out West as well. Maybe since Bhutan is a more temperate climate (milder winters?). In any case, we were at almost 11,000 feet and were most definitely not at or very near the tree line as there were lots of big and strong trees where we were.
One of those big mountains that you can see is the tallest mountain in Bhutan (and the tallest unclimbed mountain in the whole world) at over 24,000 feet (!!!). Jake and I climbed Mt. Whitney (tallest mountain in Lower 48 of U.S. and that was a paltry 14,000 feet - yikes, what a huge difference.). Bhutan does not allow climbers on it. I couldn't quite get from our guide if it was for religious reasons or due to the border uncertainty/ tension with Tibet (on the other side of the mountain) - or maybe both. Our guide did tell us that they allowed a Japanese climbing team on the mountain in the '90s but they did not summit.
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| Jake and Anna taking in the view - 24,000 feet peaks in the distance |
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| Meredith running towards the mountains |
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| Taking it all in. |
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| At over 10,000 feet admiring the 24,000 peaks! |
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| Lots of very steep stairs in Bhutan! |
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| Anna likes the prayer flags and the views of the snow |
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| Beautiful rhododendrons in bloom at the pass |
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