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Bhutan - an opinionBen Woodbeck and Diana Finkel compare trekking in Bhutan with Nepal and India Bhutan is often portrayed as a Himalayan Shangri-la where the culture is intact and the trekking is fantastic. Sure it is picturesque, but for the trekker? Read on... See Our treks for our latest treks. In an email to Jamie: ... Diana and I both found Bhutan disappointing. The trekking, which the guidebooks say is tougher than in Nepal, was not. The culture, while more preserved, loses something in the preservation – like looking at something in a museum rather than a real, living thing. The government makes people dress in the national dress, after all, and this seems a bit authoritarian and that is just one example of the “benevolent” dictatorship that Bhutan lives under that, if you scratch the surface, isn’t quite so benevolent (consider it’s treatment of Nepalis, Hindus etc). The trek was beautiful, but nothing like the beauty in the Nepal/Tibet Himalaya – not even close. We did the Jomolhari trek – the 15 day long one, not the 7 day shorty that most people do - and there were two days that were quite spectacular, but still not quite as good as anything in Nepal. Because you have to have a Bhutanese guide who dictates pace, we often were finished trekking by noon and you have to stay in certain campsites dictated by the government. Disappointing. Cultural touring? Diana and I are not much for cultural touring anyways, more psyched to bump into culture on our way to a mountain or on a trek – so we found it sterile, structured and boring. Sterile, structured and boring describe the whole experience, in fact. There’s no freewheeling fun that you find in Nepal, no grittiness, and we missed that. Bhutan - a second opinionGlen and Jane, who have also trekked with us, had a rather better experience Jane says: We had such a different experience! I think so much of a trip depends on your guides. Glenn wanted to go to Bhutan as our first Himalayan adventure, rather than Nepal, because he'd heard that it was "like Nepal, but much less touristed and traveled - with first-growth old forests, etc. So in late 2000 we started looking around for someone to help us arrange a trip. We connected somehow with Jon Miceler (High Asia Exploratory Trips). We were planning on going on a trip with a small group in April 2001, but in March Jon called us to say that everyone else had backed out, and were we interested in being a group of 2? We said "sure", and the trip was on. The best thing Jon did for us was connect us to a WONDERFUL guide, Pelden (can't remember his last name) from a company, Lhomen Tours and Treks, that was established in 1991 when the King opened Bhutan to tourism. Pelden met us at the airport, and was with us the whole month we were in Bhutan. He arranged everything - in town, and on trek. He was friendly, open, interesting, flexible, and very experienced. He'd even been sent by the Bhutanese government to Austria on a mountain guide climbing course, and was a trainer for Bhutanese guides. Pelden and the other people we met through him really made our trip a wonderful and very cultural experience. We did some sightseeing in Paro, attended a festival, did the Chomolhari/Laya trek (20+ days). and then ended with a few more days touring (Punakha, Thimpu, etc.). He took us to a major temple that were being reconstructed after a flood, and we were able to meet and talk with the artists building the big statues and doing the wall paintings. The weather on trek was unseasonably snowy and rainy. Pelden knew so many of the local people - having done this trek many many times - and so we were invited in to people's homes to sit out the rain, visit, and enjoy butter tea and popcorn. My 54th birthday was celebrated in what Lonely Planet called "the muddiest campsite in the Himalayas" - at Koina - where Pelden had arranged to have out tent set up inside a storage room to keep us comfortable, and we drank rum and ate chocolate cake with the crew. Pelden had convinced his school friend Leky to leave the hotel business and come trekking as our cook - and we have never had such good food before. I ate thirds at dinners! Leky also had very sharp eyes - and he was the one who early one morning spotted a snow leopard, and the four of us stood and watched the leopard pacing the far off ridgeline for 30 minutes before it decided we weren't going away, so he or she disappeared over the ridge. We camped at the hot springs in Gasa with no other foreigners - and sat in the baths laughing and trying to talk with both old grandmothers and English-speaking 25-year old businessmen and housewives. We never felt "escorted" and restrained - on the contrary - it was a trip with what felt like lots of choices and possibilities, and Pelden shared so much with us about his life and the problems and realities of his country. When we got off trek and went to the capitol city Thimpu, Pelden took us to meet the Manager of the Lhomen Company. He said as we entered: "I am so glad to see you. The snow was so bad - other groups returned. We hoped you were okay". And we had been more than okay - we'd had a fantastic trip. So - our experiences were so different. We loved Bhutan. The part we saw was amazingly beautiful - and we would be very happy to return. If we ever do - we will go with the same company, and arrange locally through the internet with them. I don't know how much things have changed since 2001 - Bhutan has certainly become a much more popular destination. But I would hate to see people discouraged from going to Bhutan, so I am sharing our experiences to balance that. Maybe we were just incredibly lucky. |
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