A way to honor one's ancestors

One of the interesting things about Bhutan is the way ancestors are remembered. After someone dies, they are usually cremated. Not all of the body is consumed during cremation. The bits and pieces left over are gathered and pulverized, mixed with clay, and molded into these figurines, which are then painted and left in holy places in the mountains. Usually they are placed under rock overhangs to protect them from weathering.

This particular site is along the trail to Tiger's Nest, a monastery clinging to a cliff at 10,500 feet.

Made it to Thimphu today

We left Paro and drove some interesting mountain roads to Thimphu. We'll be here just one night, but we packed a lot of sites into today's schedule. The first place we visited was a giant statue of Buddha that overlooks the city.











Jon Miller brought along a GoPro drone to shoot video of sites we visit. This created quite a stir.








Thimphu is the capital of Bhutan and has about 15% of the country's population of 700,000. It's not as chaotic as Kathmandu, and certainly a lot cleaner, but I think I prefer the more rural setting of Paro. There's a lot of construction going on, which means a lot of noise and dust. We're staying at the Jamolhari hotel, which is adjacent to a building undergoing renovation. Fortunately, the work crews quit before bedtime.

I  had a chance to do a money exchange at a bank in Thimphu. The currency exchange for US dollars is about 60 Bhutanese dollars to one American dollar. I've bought just a few things here - some textiles (we visited a weaving center), prayer flags, postcards, and a birding book. I've been very interested in the birds here, and I brought along my 100-400 lens to help me figure out what birds I've seen. I have a lot of new life birds on this trip so far, including this yellow-billed blue magpie.

I enjoyed photographing the women at the weaving center. I have so many cool photos to process, so this is just a small taste of what I'm seeing while in Bhutan.

Bhutan is beautiful

We left Kathmandu yesterday morning. Drukair was our airline for a flight to Paro, Bhutan. This is an interesting airport in that in order to reach the runway, the pilot navigates several turns within a long valley. This lovely country is in the eastern Himalayas, and much of the country represents the foothills of these majestic mountains. Steve and I were sitting on the wrong side of the plane during this flight. We barely got glimpses of the high peaks, including Mount Everest. The day was sunny, too, which made for some excellent photos by our companions.

We're staying at a very nice hotel in Paro - The Drukhen. The rooms are spacious, the staff is wonderful, and the ambience is peaceful. We have a good view of the valley and airport, plus the Dzong and museum on the other side of the valley.

We visited the museum and the Dzong (monastery/government building) yesterday and then walked around Paro for awhile. Today we hiked up to Tiger's Nest - a monastery built on a cliff. The hike is pretty strenuous - about 3000 feet up from the parking lot and perhaps 4 or 4.5 miles away. The monastery is at 10,000 feet elevation, which makes the climb even more challenging. It's worth every step of the hike to get there. The scenery is breathtaking. Here's a photo from the trail to give you an idea.

There is a restaurant up about halfway to the monastery where we had tea. Jon Miller brought out his small GoPro drone set-up and wowed the locals. I can't wait to see the video recording.

I did a lot of botanizing and some birding along the trail. I also managed to get through this hike without any blisters - a nice change of pace. We had rain, we had hail, and we had some chilling winds in the afternoon, but seeing the monastery and different altars dedicated to the different Buddhas, the monastery grounds, and the views of the valley from the cliff were well worth the hike and the weather issues. We're heading to somewhere new tomorrow.