Bhutan Budget Backpackers - Day 8 ( Bus Ride to Bumthang )

4 October 2014 – Day 8 (Bus Ride to Bumthang )

                             
Google Thimphu to Chamkhar Town, you get a 260 km drive over 8 hours. We took the bus which got us there in 12 hours which pretty explains this page in the blog entry. I may have mentioned this earlier but a bus ride is itself an experience in Bhutan, especially the opportunity to be so close to the regular folk and immerse into their day to day lives. We had booked our tickets earlier ( 355 Nu per head) so had picked seat numbers 3 and 4 which are right behind the driver in these 20 seaters giving us a bit of additional leg room. We decided to walk to the bus stand to generate some heat so early in the morning as we reached the bus stand by 6:45 to grab a cup of tea and jump onto our 7 o clock bus which started at 7:05 AM after dumping rice sacks, hay bales and what not on top of the bus.

DJ wale babu...

The driver put on his USB playing dzongkha songs with one extremely addictive one that went “taaktuk saafale ne” I thought the song was really long when this girl seated at the back started hollering at the driver and he changed the song. Soon I realised that his player had an issue and it would loop the song till he manually changed it and more often than not he’d forget till our DJ last bencher would holler out at him. She couldn’t take it after a while and the driver asked her to sit next to him and manage the player which she gladly did to the joy of everyone in the bus. This is the same route till Punakha and luckily we jumped the road restoration work for the day but karma made up for that with a tyre puncture right before that restaurant we had eaten at during our Punakha visit. The driver asked folks to grab some snacks there till he took the bus to a mechanic to change the tire.


Express Lunch

 We were off at 10 AM again and was a pretty uneventful driver except for the wonderful countryside sights till 12:30 PM when we stopped for lunch. Being Thursday a day when I eat only one meal, I decided to stick it out till dinner so Sash was the lone ranger. Everyone was having meat and rice combo, so Sash decided to play it safe with cup noodles. The speed at which the other 18 had their lunch is mind blowing. By the time Sash got to heat his noodles, and get to half way mark, the restaurant had already cleared out and yes, most of them had had second helpings of rice whilst we were there. In sum total of 25 minutes break, we were already on our way to our destination. 

Roadside sabzi mandi

A lot of temporary bus shelters started lining up in the landscape but these seemed to house young women selling bright red chillies, apples and corn by the kilo and there was huge demand in the bus for these goods. My guess being these are fresh off the local farms in the distance, probably cheaper than the markets themselves. We also picked up an elderly man and his daughter who had missed their bus to a spot another 8 hours away from our destination. The daughter decided to squeeze onto our two seater and turned out to be pretty pally.


Desi gupshup 

Once she figured we were from India, she mentioned she worked with the Revenue Services of Bhutan and their administrative schooling happens in New Delhi, India and she was here on short vacation in between a 20 month program. A number of folks got off at Wangdue district where we had to show our permit that allowed us to carry forward. There was another dzong here which was pretty popular till it got burnt down in a fire. You’ll be surprised the number of dzongs and the number of times they have been burnt down, in most cases attributed to the butter lamps placed in them. One thing I realised is thanks to satellite TV (dish TV and the types are pretty popular in urban centres) , these folks have good insight into Indian current affairs. For some reason, everyone I asked seemed to love Salman Khan! Also they were kicked about Kick which had been the flavour of the season then. Once in a while amongst those dzongkha songs our driver was playing, a hindi song from a bygone era would creep in.

Hunting lodges ( of a different kind ) 

 I shouldn’t forget to mention how social these drivers are as they form the life support system for couriers, post, people and news from town to town. They’d stop at random spots where someone would be waiting for them to pick up a bag of sack or a letter or even share some gossip. It was soon pitch dark and we wondered that when a city like Thimphu was dead by 7 ish, what we should expect in a village called Chamkhar. We finally reached the place at 7:30 PM and true to our expectations, the bus stand and the surroundings were dead like Chozum. 2-3 lodges around seemed to be our only hope. Charging 250 to 300 Nu for a 2 seater room, you can expect the conditions! We were about to give in to extremely uncomfortable and dirty lodgings when one of our fellow bus travellers had walked back to the bus stand and asked us if we needed help.

 I think he got his answer from our confused faces. He mentioned those lodges are dirty and would we prefer a good one. Our relieved faces smiled in unison and he highlighted two lodges , one which had opened up brand new and the other one was a very nice lady who ran it. Pointing us to both which were next to each other, we thanked him and figured out our plan. The brand new one had a weird smell to it and felt a bit claustrophobic so we decided to take the second one which charged 650 Nu for the night and was called Hotel Yeedzin Wangyel.

We decided to check out Sunnys restaurant but at 8 PM, they were closing for the day and only had their dinner to share with us which was beef momos. We walked down to find a Hotel Kinley had the concept of set menu consisting of rice, 1 gravy of choice, dal and buttermilk at 150 Nu per plate. We ordered a mixed veg sabzi and a kewa datsi between both of us. 

Key Points

Thimphu - Bumthang - 12 hours bus journey / 355 Nu per person (Book tickets atleast a day in advance) 

Seat Number 3 and 4 are usually the best upto 12 is not an issue, then gets bumpier a ride. 

Last bus leaves at 7 AM from Thimphu 

Hotel Yeedzin Wangyel - Chamkhar Town, Bumthang - 650 Nu - 2 beds + western attached ( a light weird smell the first time we took the room, then probably got used to it) 

Hotel Kinley - Set Menu ( rice + gravy + dal + buttermilk ) - 150 Nu. 

No tips need to be paid to the driver