2 October 2014 – Day 6 ( Punakha )
In life, every minute counts, especially in the context of
sleep. Getting up as late as possible to catch a 8 AM bus, we caught a shared
cab (40 Nu per person) to the bus stand, reaching at 7:40 AM. With time to kill
as the bus was being loaded up, we drank the watery tea being sold there
considering we were facing single digit temperatures that early in the morning.
We watched as the bus filled up with
another motley crew of personalities, unique in their own way chatting up with
their neighbours. We let the driver know we needed to get off at Punakha since
ours wasn’t the last stop. Dochu la Pass
The Thimphu – Punakha highway also hosts Dochula Pass at 10,200 feet. It is recognised by the 108 chortens (Victory memorials) built by the eldest Queen mother in memory of the Bhutanese soldiers who lost their lives in the war of 2003 where the King emerged victorious in defeating the Assamese militants who had set up base in Bhutan’s forests to attack in India. The Operation All Clear was a huge success for the Royal Bhutan Army especially since it was the first ever operation conducted by them since their existence.
Better late than never
The next rule I learnt about Bhutan public transport over
the cumulative experience of the trip is: “We will get you there, don’t ask
when.” There was a massive roadworks project on through various times in the
day and we made it just in time to be the first vehicle stopped for the 08:30
AM to 10:15 AM slot. We got out to stretch our legs and watched folks literally
get into picnic mode on the roadside.Initially we thought it was a huge traffic jam, but then noticed no one else seemed surprised by the halt as they got off and found space in the clearings of the forest nearby. We finally reached Punakha around 1 PM (It is a 90 km drive and roughly 3 hour drive without breaks). There are two stops, the Punakha town, and then the bus can be stopped at the dzong too. Fellow passengers asked us to remain seated at the town stop and asked the driver to stop at the dzong.
The Palace of Great Happiness
I won’t lie but more than
Taktsang, photographs of Punakha dzong had entranced me and it was a mind
numbing moment to be finally visually that scene for real. It is located at the
confluence of two rivers (Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu – Father and Mother) which
becomes the Puna Sang Chhu and finally hits the Brahmaputra in India! This is
the second largest and second oldest dzongs in the country and mind-blowingly majestic
man made creation in a mind-blowingly majestic natural location. We bumped into a German pair of ladies and their Bhutanese guide for the third time in our trip so far and they recognised us too and a silent nod sealed our friendship acknowledging that we were undergoing a similar physical and cultural journey. Post this, we consciously noted that our itinerary seemed in line with a professional one because we now sighted two – three different groups in all the tourist attractions. Since they had to pay the tourist tax, they ended up having their own tour vehicles and stayed in fancier places so we never spotted them rest of the time. Visiting the local areas or/and market area would be a bullet item in their itinerary whilst it was a way of living for us.
No way back
Figuring we were done with the
dzong, we also found out there are no buses till next day morning heading back
to Thimphu. The taxi guys at the dzong car park mentioned they were all booked
but one of them was ready to drop us to Punakha town at 40 Nu per person
stating we’d find longer distance cabs to Thimphu from there. Once we reached
Punakha town, though hungry, our first instinct was to get back to Thimphu.
There were about 25 other locals who wanted to go back too but none of the cab drivers wanted to go to Thimphu. We waited about 20 minutes before we decided it was a hopeless situation and we might as well as eat something but as luck should have it, none of the restaurants in the small town of 5 buildings were open. We were told 250 Nu is the usual rate to get back to Thimphu, that when one driver finally agreed at 400 Nu, Sash and I just jumped at the offer. Being stranded in a town with no food didn’t sound very appealing. We just got out of the town around an upwards inclined hairpin bend when we were stopped again. The road restoration work had new timings effective today and we had just hit the 3:30 PM one.
Luck! Karma! You call it whatever name, we took the opportunity to roam around and lucky that we were at an altitude because we got a wider look of the valley below. We walked into a small outlet where a family was chilling watching the celebrations at Thimphu. The youngest daughter came up to us and with her broken hindi (yes hindi) told us the kitchen was closed but they could get us ema datsi and puri (Since we made an involuntary face when she mentioned rice). The meal cost us 150 Nu. Their washroom was again the eastern style.
Mother Nature's fury
Our driver turned out to be a rebel in the making as he drove
rashly averaging 65 kph on these hills around hairpin bends. I was shocked as
he passed comments which I ll presume from his body language and from the
disgusted reactions of the young girls / women walking past weren’t regular
how-do-you-dos. We heard a rumble a bit far out which I ignored till a few
minutes later, we stopped behind another car in the darkness. We were the first
witnesses to a landslide which are pretty common out there. Shrill winds
blowing though, pitch black views and you could hear pebbles still sliding down
the sheer drop on our left.
I calculated about 300 feet drop (elementary Newtonian + Doppler physics with a lot of assumptions).
The eeriness of the jungle didn’t make matters any better. I knew our driver had lost it when he suggested we walk over the landslide and hike to Thimphu. A few more cars had piled up behind us and they all were talking about how nasty the landslide was and lucky that no one had been injured. We were already considering our options of going back to Punakha town and figuring out what to do when a buzz of excitement filled the air. The cars started moving, making way for a bulldozer. The operator would be a great video game player as he cleared an entire one way lane with clockwork efficiency even as his bulldozer seemed to almost topple over every time it sunk its teeth into a big chunk of the debris and threw it over down the cliff of no return followed by thundering thuds at the bottom which echoed louder in the ridges around. In another 45 minutes, we were off to Thimphu.
Fancy dinner to pamper ourselves
He dropped us off at the taxi stand as he said the city would be too crowded. (I should invite him to Bengaluru for a drive). It had been a long and tiring day and trudging back uphill against the cold blasts of wind tempted us to pamper ourselves to a nice warm dinner at Chula on the northern end of Norzin Lam. This is an upscale Indian restaurant where the bill came upto 600 Nu. We finally reached home to find our host entertaining three Bhutanese women over drinks and a screening of Wall-E. We were too tired to take up on his invitation and called it a night.
Key Points
I calculated about 300 feet drop (elementary Newtonian + Doppler physics with a lot of assumptions).
The eeriness of the jungle didn’t make matters any better. I knew our driver had lost it when he suggested we walk over the landslide and hike to Thimphu. A few more cars had piled up behind us and they all were talking about how nasty the landslide was and lucky that no one had been injured. We were already considering our options of going back to Punakha town and figuring out what to do when a buzz of excitement filled the air. The cars started moving, making way for a bulldozer. The operator would be a great video game player as he cleared an entire one way lane with clockwork efficiency even as his bulldozer seemed to almost topple over every time it sunk its teeth into a big chunk of the debris and threw it over down the cliff of no return followed by thundering thuds at the bottom which echoed louder in the ridges around. In another 45 minutes, we were off to Thimphu.
Fancy dinner to pamper ourselves
He dropped us off at the taxi stand as he said the city would be too crowded. (I should invite him to Bengaluru for a drive). It had been a long and tiring day and trudging back uphill against the cold blasts of wind tempted us to pamper ourselves to a nice warm dinner at Chula on the northern end of Norzin Lam. This is an upscale Indian restaurant where the bill came upto 600 Nu. We finally reached home to find our host entertaining three Bhutanese women over drinks and a screening of Wall-E. We were too tired to take up on his invitation and called it a night.
Key Points
Most tourist attractions / dzongs are open to public only till 5 PM
The best vantage point shot of Punakha Dzong is 3 minutes before you reach / 3 minutes after you leave.
Buses are extremely punctual at starting time, ending time is another story.
Thimphu - Punakha - 90 km, 3 hours drive , passes Dochu la Pass.
One way cab is usually 250 Nu per person,
Chula restaurant ($$$) - 600 Nu for a meal for two. Norzin Lam (North)
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