Bhutan - Nov 2011

Tiger's Nest

For our 10th Anniversary trip, we wanted something really special.  We loved our trip to Nepal six years ago, so we did some research on similar places.  We finally settled on Bhutan, "The Land of the Thunder Dragon" which while not well known, is quite famous for being listed in some places as one of the happiest country in the world, and measures Gross National Happiness instead of GDP.  What's not to love?

Accommodation:
Hyatt Bangkok - Back again!  We loved this hotel last time (free on points!) so we came again.  This time the general manager of the Hyatt in Denver had arranged for us to get an upgrade - so we showed up to a wonderful suite (room 1722).  

Amankora - Aman resorts owns five lodges in Bhutan and we went to four of them.  We found the hotels after looking on the Backroads web site and found that several of their overnights were at Aman.  The hotel coordinates the entire trip (including a guide and a driver) and is all-inclusive.  After we had booked this trip, we "test drove" Aman at their Jackson Hole location - which was glorious.  The rooms are mostly the same with a large bedroom and bathroom made completely of wood and decorated in a minimalist style.  The showers are our second favorite (the first being at a safari camp in Namibia) - the water comes from the ceiling and falls down on you like rain.  The architecture is in keeping with the local area -- using wood, colors, and stones as each valley does.  The service is exceptional - with more than a 6 to 1 staff to guest ratio, they are totally dedicated to customer service.  

• Punakha - The main house of the lodge belonged to the royal family and became part of the Aman hotel in 2005.  The style of the building is traditional for the area with carved wood and colorful paintings on the outside.  In the main house is a dining room on the first floor and reading / lounge rooms for guests on the second floor.  There are only 8 rooms here.  

Aman Punakha

• Bumthang - The structure of this lodge is more modern with tall, white stone walls.  There is a large dining room with a long table that seats all of the guests.  While there are 16 rooms at this hotel, only two of them (including us) were being used so we had our meals at smaller tables in the large lounge room.  Outside, there is a fire pit that they lit at night where had a drink and gazed at the stars.  One of the evenings, they had a cultural dance where the local women came and sang.  After 3 dances, they encouraged audience participation so we got up and did a few dances with them (the steps were rather basic).  Keith looked like he was in pain as he is not a fan of cultural dances!

Aman Bumthang

• Gangtey -This lodge is perched on a hill overlooking the wide valley.  It is largely made of light wood with tall glass windows in the lounge/dining room to soak in the views.

Aman Gangtey

• Paro -This lodge is the largest of the chain in Bhutan with 24 rooms.  It is outside of town with great views of the surrounding mountains.  The building is stone and wood and the style is similar to the other hotels.

Aman Paro

Activities:
Getting There
Our flight schedule was Raleigh to Chicago to Hong Kong to Bangkok (with a two night stay in Bangkok to get time zone adjusted) and then on to Bhutan.  It was quite an adventure just trying to get there.  The level of service you get with airlines these days is up there with the IRS and certainly takes some patience and a good attitude.  At the airport in Raleigh, the American Airlines agent was having trouble getting our boarding passes to print as her printer kept jamming.  While we had our tickets to Chicago, she could not get any of the remaining legs to print.  Her solution to this was to have us wait until we got to Chicago to have one of the agents there do it for us.  We suggested that she step to another computer to do it but somehow that did not seem like something she could do.  We then suggested that we have another agent at the desk do it and her response was "well, I guess you could try that".  Interestingly, she was the one assigned to the First Class check-in line - nothing like putting up the best for your best customers.  So, we stepped aside and sure enough the next agent was able to help us.

We arrived at the gate to find that we were in Zone 4 for boarding but since Keith has Gold status, we should have been in Zone 1.  Since we were carrying on our luggage (as we vowed after our trip to Thailand when my luggage was lost to never check on again), we were nervous about getting our bags on the plane.  Keith asked the agent at the gate if she could reprint it and while she could clearly see in the system that he was Gold, her response was "there is nothing I can do, the system will not allow it".  He even suggested to her that she write Gold on the ticket but that was not acceptable either; nor would she just let us board with Zone 1 by remembering our faces.  We had visions of the movie Meet the Parents when the agent would not let Ben Stiller board until his zone was called even though there was no one left in the gate area.  To top it off, one of the agents was being a luggage nazi and pulling aside anyone who had luggage that looked a little larger.  Thankfully, she was preoccupied chastising someone so she did not notice us when we slipped by.

We had about a 5 hour layover in Chicago so we went over to the international terminal to relax to a nice lunch and a glass of wine.  When we arrived there, we found out that their was only a small food court so our leisurely, romantic lunch consisted of a gyro and a small pizza from Uno's.  Once at the gate, the agent walked over to us and decided to weigh our luggage.  She told us that it was too heavy and would need to be checked -- you can imagine the fear in our eyes as she said this as we knew that fate would not be on our side.  What we could not understand is that she did not weigh anyone else's luggage.  So, skeptically and begrudgingly, we gave up our luggage (as if we really had a choice) and hoped for the best.

On the plane from Chicago to Hong Kong, the person who was sitting behind us reeked of alcohol.  The flight attendant came over and asked if he had taken a glass of champagne from business class.  As he sheepishly handed over the glass, he spilled it everywhere making the smell even worse.  The flight attendant then told him that they could not serve him any alcohol on the trip.  Before we could even take off, he threw up about four times in the sickness bags.  The guy who was sitting next to him found another seat and so as appalled as we were, we realized that this was a smart move on his part as the drunk guy now had a whole row to himself!

When we finally got to Bangkok, we stood at the luggage carousel biting our nails with visions that our bags were in Alabama.  Much to our (happy!) surprise, both of our luggage showed up.  So, we quickly went on to catch a taxi to our hotel.  The cab driver, driving a hot pink cab, had not shut the trunk properly and so we laughed that it would be funny if we lost our bags to the highways of Bangkok after all this time!  Thankfully, the travel gods were on our side and we (and our bags) arrived at the hotel safely.  At this point, we got to the hotel at about 1am Bangkok time which for us was noon so you can imagine that our sleep clock was quite messed up.  So, wide awake, we decided to order a bottle of wine and relax to email and reading our Kindles.

Bangkok

Dinner at Sirocco

We arrived in Bangkok in the middle of the massive flooding - we could see the flooding as we flew in and there were sandbags all over the central business district in case the water went higher.  The goal of our time in the city was really just to get time zone adjusted and give us wiggle room in case we had problems with flights.  So, we mostly spent the day in the hotel: breakfast in the club lounge, watching Bad Teacher and Cars2 on the iPad, and having a Thai massage at the hotel spa (which was totally relaxing).  We had dinner at the famous Sirocco restaurant (see description below).

Bhutan - Punakha
It was a 4:15 am alarm that work us up to get to the airport for our flight to Bhutan.  We were met at the Drukair check in by an Aman representative who had already arranged to get us good seats on the flight.  A quick shot through security put us at the gate nice and early.  The biggest surprise was that as we pulled away from the gate, the captain started explaining that the flight was to Dhaka.  We exchanged a look of panic, quickly referred to the airplane magazine, and eventually figured out that we had a stop through Bangladesh.  The flight was quite easy and we ended up in Paro at about 11am.

Outside security we met our guide Namgay and driver Sonam who would be with us for the whole trip.  It was a 4 hour drive to Punakha, but we stopped via the Aman in Thimphu (the capital of Bhutan) to have lunch.  Before heading out, we stopped by the bank to change some money - the bank did not seem to have a single computer and was something out of a western movie.  The guide pointed out a few sights along the way, including the Fort in Thimphu, a bronze statue of Buddha standing over 100 feet tall and a temple built by Bhutan's Iron Bridge Builder.  The drive took us via Dochu La pass, though with the rain and clouds we could not see anything.  The roads were windy so we both opted for a nap for the rest of the way.

We arrived at our hotel around 4:30 pm and relaxed in our room for a couple of hours, reading, before we went to dinner in the hotel.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had set up a table for the two of us in a private room with flower petals on the table that spelled out "Happy Anniversary".  So, we had a romantic dinner, enjoying Bhutanese cuisine (curries) and a nice salmon dish.  We retreated to our room to sleep and within minutes, 3 hotel staff were at our door with an anniversary cake for us to share.  Since we were both stuffed, we saved it to graze upon the following day.

One of the highlights of Punakha was visiting the famous Punakha Dzong on the banks of a river.  It is half administrative and half temple, and supposedly contains the remains of Bhutan's first ruler Shabdrung Nawang Namgyal.  It is also the winter residence of the monastic order's leader and his entourage of monks.  The painting on the temple wall included the story of Buddha which our guide interpreted for us.

Punakha Dzong

Local Farmers

Other highlights of our time in Punakha included a hike to the Khamsum Yuelley Namgyal Chorten temple (built 7 years ago by one of the queens - the king has 4 wives, all sisters), a walk through a village to a fertility temple (Chime Lhakhang) built by the divine madman (who claimed that he was powerful based on the size of his genitalia), visiting a nunnery (Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup Lhankhang) which was built by the father of the 4 Queens (where we actually saw the father who was visiting that day) and visiting a monastic school.  We also had a picnic lunch high above the valley, biked down a steep windy road and cycled along the river back to our hotel.  At the fertility temple, we were 'blessed' by what is claimed to be a remnant of the madman's genitalia (really just a 10 inch carved wooden stick) and since we do not want children, we were blessed to have a long and happy life (which we would claim can be accomplished by not having children).

Punakha Fertility Temple

Bhutan - Bumthang
The drive to Bumthang was quite long - it was supposed to take about 8 hours but at one point we had to wait 1.5 hours for the road construction crew to finish their work so it took us about 10 hours to get to the hotel.  We stopped along the way to stretch our legs by taking in some of the views as well as visiting a few of the sights, including the Trongsa Dzong which is the ancestral home to Bhutan's monarch and is now inhabited by many monks.

Trongsa Dzong

Given the long drive, we decided that we did not want to be in a car the next day so we hiked and biked all day visiting the sights around Jakar which is the town in the Bumthang valley where we stayed.  Along the way, we visited several temples including Jambay Lhakhang (built in 659), Kurjey Lhakhang (where there is a body print of Guru Rinpoche), Kurjey Drupchu and Tamshing Lhakhang (where there is a 25 kg suit of chain armor that you wear while walking around the temple 3 times to forgive all of your sins - Keith did it and is still not absolved of all of his indiscretions).  We ended the temple excursion with a tour of the rather small Panda Brewery, owned by a Swiss guy, where they make a great weissbier (only ~75,000 bottles a year).  It was fascinating as everything they do there is manual, from the bottling to the labeling and packing.

Kurjey Lhakhang

Villagers Hoisting Prayer Flag

The following day we explored the nearby Tang valley which is quite beautiful with surrounding mountains and hills.  We hiked up a hill and visited the Ugen Chhoeling Palace which is now a museum containing artifacts of local traditions and how the people live.  After we hiked down, we had a nice picnic lunch along the bank of the river and then we stopped by to see the Mebar Tsho (known as the burning lake) which is where scriptural treasures from Guru Rinpoche were discovered.  It is considered one of the many important sights in Bhutan and thus was adorned with prayer flags and small ornaments.  On our drive to the burning lake, we stopped by a local village to watch them hoist up a prayer flag which is about 75 feet tall.  There were about 15-20 men from the village trying to get the flag up, each with their own opinion on how to best accomplish this feat.  It was fascinating to watch as they used wooden blanks and ropes to try to steady the flag as they slowly pushed it up.  Our guide told us that it is quite dangerous as often the flag will fall down, snap in half or pop out of the ground where they are trying to secure it.  Since the process can take up to 3 hours, we couldn't stay to see if the mission was accomplished.  On our way back to the hotel, we walked around the Jakar Dzong which is a large white fort, perched on a hill overlooking the town.

Tang Valley

Bhutan - Gangtey
The drive to Gangtey took about 5 hours but took longer with a few stops along the way.  In Trongsa, we visited a museum which used to be the watchtower for the dzong.  We also stopped to have a picnic lunch on the grounds of one of the stuppas - we relaxed, read and watched a few of the elderly woman from the village saying their prayers as they walked around the stuppa 108 times (this number is significant in  Buddhism).

Longtey Hike in Gangtey

This valley is known for the black neck cranes that migrate there every winter from Tibet.  We had a wonderful day exploring the valley by going on the 5 hour Longtey hike, starting at in the Longtey farming village and crossing over a pass with great views of the valley below.  Along the walk, we saw some of the cranes although not close enough for pictures.  We also got to witness some of the farming practices up close as we hiked through some of the villages.  We ended the hike at the crane information center which was not very informative.

Gangtey Valley

Potato Shed Dinner

We had quite a treat for our evening meal as we enjoyed a very romantic dinner in the potato shed - we know it doesn't sound romantic but it truly was.  The shed is made of stone and inside, it was lit up with about 75 candles.  There was a table with bench seating along with blankets and hot water bottles if we got cold.  We were served with local bread, dumplings and a 6 course Bhutanese curry dinner, followed by desert.  The meal was very flavorful and the experience unforgettable!

Bhutan - Paro
It took us about 6 hours to get to Paro from Gangtey, stopping again at the Dochu La pass, this time with amazing visibility.  Near the top of the pass is the Dochu La Hotel, where we used a private room for lunch and used the powerful binoculars to see the mountains in the distance, including the highest peak in the country -- Gangkhar Puensum at 7541 meters.  Less than a kilometer from the pass is a set of 108 chortens that were built in 2005.  

Gangkhar Puensum Mountain from Dochu La Pass

Paro valley is probably the most beautiful as you are closest to the Himalayan mountains so you can get some stunning views.  It is also famous for the location of its most visited site -- Tiger's Nest (also known as Taktsang Palphug Monastery). We got up early to hike Tiger's Nest which takes about 4 hours in total round trip.  The hike was steep in some places but not too difficult.  When you get closer to the top, there are 723 steps to take to get to the final point.  Along the way, you see different views of the temple and get amazed that they could build a structure like this on a steep cliff.  The temple was originally built in the 1600's but it burned down in 1998 so the villagers were required to help in the rebuild which took 4 years to do.  Inside the temple are large, bronze statues of Buddha and Guru Rinpoche as well as the cave where the guru supposedly meditated for 3 months after flying across Bhutan on his tiger to subdue the demon of the valley.  The cave is only opened once a year for people to see so we only got to see the top of it.

Tiger's Nest

Paro Dzong

Following the hike up to Tiger's Nest, we visited the Paro Dzong and the Kyichu Lhakhang temple, which is said to have been built on the same day as the oldest temple in Bumthang along with 106 other temples that were built in 659 on the same day in Bhutan, Tibet and Nepal by King Songtsen Gampo.

In the evening, we enjoyed a 'hot stone bath', accompanied with champagne, followed by a one hour massage.  The hot stone baths are popular and involves a square tub that is cordoned off on one end where they roll in red, hot stones that is used to heat the water.  The also put some herbs in the water, said to help you heal.  It was definitely a fun experience and worth doing once.

The highlight of the valley and the trip was our 6.5 hour hike starting at Chelela Pass (at 3988 meters), hiking up to about 5,000 meters to one of two sky burial sites for the valley.  The views of the surrounding Himalayan mountains were stunning and probably the best views we've ever had on a day hike.  You could see 360 degree around and we even saw a mountain in India.  We ran into a few other guides from the hotel and hiked part of the way with them.

Chelela Pass Hike

Sky Burial Site

At the sky burial site, there was an 8 year old who had been placed there the day before but fortunately, one of the guides ahead of us saw it first and with the warning, we chose to hike around it and not take a peek.  Sky burials are common in Bhutan, mainly for children younger than a year old as it is considered the best way to bury someone.  For the sky burial, the deceased is tied up, spread eagle, on the mountain and is left for the vultures to eat.  If the vultures do not come within a few days, the caretaker then spreads butter and flour on the body to entice the vultures.  The fact that there was an older child up there was unusual and surprising for the guides.  The rest of the hike took us across a few more 'hill tops' (as they are only mountains once you hit over 6K in meters) and then down through the forest to one of the valleys where we were picked up by our driver.

Thailand, London, and Home

Dinner at Vertigo

Our flight home stopped via Bagdogra India - arriving in Bangkok at about 5 pm.  We quickly passed through immigration, picked up our bags, and then headed into town to have dinner at the Vertigo restaurant atop the Banyan Tree Hotel.  It was quite the ride to town, with a taxi driver who was either super tired or a little drunk (or both).  We made it to the hotel just in time for our 7 pm reservation - though Keith had to do a quick change in the hotel restroom so he was presentable.  We were back to the airport by 9:30 pm, in plenty of time for our flight to London.

We both slept well on the flight to London, where we arrived at 5:30 am.  We headed out through customs as we were to meet our friend Charlie at 6:20 am - alas we never saw him as he had slept in!  We headed back into the terminal and caught our direct flight to Raleigh, where John picked us up from the airport to get to the house by 5 pm. 

Observations:
Geography/Scenery - The area reminds us of a mix of Switzerland (with rugged snow-capped mountains and cute farm houses with beautiful paintings on the walls) and Peru (with deep, steep, lush valleys and sheep and yak dotting the hillside).  We were amazed at how clean everything is - we were expecting to see some of the trash and dirt that you find in Nepal or India.  On the steep hills, they have created terraces for farming which makes the hillside even more beautiful.  

Culture - The country still practices many of their traditions.  The people are required to wear their customary clothing (Gho for men and Kira for women) when they are visiting the temples and ancient sights and many of them wear this on a daily basis.  The main source of income is farming and thus many of the families still live together as three generations to help with the crops.  Buddhism is the only religion practiced and it is deeply rooted in their daily lives, praying and visiting the temples to make their offerings.  Prayer flags surround all historical and religious sights and tall white prayer flags are seen on the hillside to commemorate the deceased.

Route - Bumthang airport is due to open in Dec '11.  Once it does, we think the best option would be to fly into Paro and immediately fly to Bumthang, then work your way back to Paro via the road.  This would eliminate ~12 hours of driving.  

Restaurants:
Sirocco - Perched on top of the 64th floor of the Lebua Hotel in Bangkok, this restaurant is listed as one of the top 10 rooftop restaurants in the world and with good reason.  It has stunning 360 degree views of the city of Bangkok and the food is amazing.  The restaurant became ever more famous with the scene in Hangover II when the actors were at the rooftop restaurant meeting with the crime figure, Kingsley.  We kicked off the evening with a drink at the Sky Bar and then sat down for dinner.  Keith started with the pork belly appetizer and had the Waguu beef for an entree.  Shawna started with the Alaskan crab and ravioli appetizer and had the scallops and crab ravioli for an entree.  We shared the molten chocolate cake with a scoop of cinnamon ice cream for dessert.  Both of our meals were really tasty - we highly recommend going here!

Amankora - All of our meals while in Bhutan were at the lodges (or picnics provided by the lodges) as the meals and drinks were included.  Every meal had a choice of either Bhuttanese food or Western food so we switched between the two throughout.  Bhuttanese food is mainly rice with a variety of curries.  Chili peppers is a common ingredient and thus the food has a nice spice to it.  The Western options included grilled fish, beef or some type of pasta.  All of the food was very tasty.

Vertigo - On our way home, we had a 8 hour layover in Bangkok so we opted to head into the city for one last dinner.  This restaurant is located on the 61st floor of the Banyan Tree hotel.  We thought this was a more romantic venue than Sirocco - with the top somewhat reminiscent of a boat.  While the menu did not seem totally creative, the food was excellent: we started with the Lobster Spring Rolls and a Mediterranean Salad, shared the beef ribs for our entree, and had a wonderful mango dessert.

For more photos of this trip:

Thailand - Dec/Jan 2008

Sukhothai

Thailand was the first trip we decided to take over the Christmas holidays: work is slow at this time of year so it is easier to get away.  It is also the first time we decided to try a fancy-pants resort, recommended by David, a work colleague of Keith's. 

Accommodations:

Hyatt (Bangkok) - This hotel is perfectly central to what we needed in Bangkok.  It is a very standard business hotel (and because it was free on points it is hard to beat!).  The best part is the concierge lounge where they offer complimentary appetizers and drinks.  We turned this into our complimentary dinner - many trips back to the buffet and lots of rounds of wine.  I am sure that the waiters were turning their noses up at us!

Tharaburi Resort (Sukhothai) - Very quaint, with the rooms decked with teak beds and the shower partly outdoors with candles and orchids.

dusitD2 (Chiang Mai) - The hotel is quite a swanky place: while not too expensive it has a cool vibe to it.  The concierge button on the phone is called the "desires" button.  We clearly did not fit in! 

Banyan Tree (Phuket) -  Wow - this place is incredible.  It is the first report we have stayed at where you get your own villa.  The tsunami had only hit the area a year earlier, but there was no sign of it here. 

Banyon Tree Hotel - Phuket

Activities:

Bangkok
After almost 30 hours of travel, we arrived in Bangkok on Dec. 23rd close to midnight.  We mostly relaxed at the Hyatt for two nights and didn't really see much of Bangkok at all since we were both jet lagged.  We did, however, go to the Mandarin Oriental, famous for it's exceptional service, for the Christmas Eve buffet.  We were quite surprised at how Americanized it was.  It was funny to hear the Thai people singing Christmas carols -- it reminded Shawna of the movie "The Christmas Story" when the family ate at the Chinese restaurant on Christmas day and sang "Deck the halls with bows of horry - fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra".  There was even a Santa Claus -- a gay Thai guy dressed as Santa, dancing to "Dancing Queen" and chasing after the little boys.  The meal was really good, we sat outside along the river with stunning views, and the entertainment was 'entertaining'.

The other thing we had to do in Bangkok was shop for clothes for Shawna.  The airline had lost her suitcase - we eventually found that they had put the wrong tag on it, taking the bag to Arkansas instead of Bangkok (we only got the suitcase once we returned home).  Since Shawna had nothing with her, she had to buy some clothes -- talk about a downer when you have to try on clothes in a country where everyone is a size 0 or 2.  Of course Keith's level of patience with shopping did not help things either!

Sukhothai

Sukhothai

The first leg of our trip took us to Sukhothai for one night where we saw some really old temples dating back to 13th century when Thailand separated itself from the Khmer.  As Americans do, we say the whole park in about 2 hours. 

Chaing Mai
We then flew to Chiang Mai and stayed one night before we started our 3 day hike.  We mostly spent the afternoon walking around the market where there were all sorts of souvenirs from colorful scarves to carved wooden trinkets to beautiful candles.  

The following day, we drove about two hours to get to the start of our hike.  Along the way we stopped to see an old cave discovered by Burmese monks.  With us on the hike was our guide, Mr. Kan, who spoke reasonably good English and who liked to refer to himself in the third person.  We were also accompanied by a local guide who did not speak much English but knew how to find our way through the jungle -- which is a really good thing since there were no sign posts showing the way.  When we started out, we were a little worried when Mr. Kan pulled out a rather large machete -- it didn't calm Shawna's fears much when he told us it was for the snakes! 

Hike

We hiked for about three hours through a thick bamboo forest.  It was really beautiful and serene.  The only person we ran into was an old man who lived in the forest by himself -- he seemed reasonably nice but we were told later that he is a little crazy since he got in a motorcycle accident and injured his head.  Our first night was spent in a village with the Karen tribe.  Our five star accommodation consisted of a one room house made of bamboo on stilts and a thin mattress on the floor -- we had the house all to ourselves -- all 300 square feet.  The owners were very nice to set up a mosquito tent for us.  Of course the toilets were the usual squat toilets in a small enclosure to the side of the house -- this one even had the shower in the same place.  Keith was excited that he could shower and go to the bathroom at the same time!  It was an interesting juxtaposition to the resort where we stayed in Phuket.  Our guide cooked us a really yummy meal of chicken curry and stir fried vegetables -- we were amazed at how well we eat on these remote hikes.  Since there is not much to do after it gets dark, we read using our head torches and went to sleep around 8pm.  This was also a good thing as we had our wake up call at 2am by the roosters who then woke up the pigs who then woke up the dogs -- an animal orchestra was playing until 6am.

Elephant Taxi

On the second day, we hiked for about 5 hours -- through corn fields and the jungle.  Our guide gave Keith the nickname "Mr. Long Legs" since he could more easily scramble over logs and rocks.  The guide, like many of the people here, is only a couple of inches taller than Shawna.  We had a wonderful lunch eating stir fried noodles in bamboo cups right next to a waterfall.  For the last hour of the hike, we rode on a 45 year old elephant to the village where we spent the second night.  We had to climb up the back of the elephant to sit on the top and just as Shawna started to climb his hind leg, the elephant let out a big one -- Keith was even impressed!  The ride was fun after you got used to being up so high.  The village where we slept is part of the Palong tribe -- it is quite a metropolis with about 140 residents.  The accommodation was equally as impressive but this time we stayed in the same house as the family -- so, we not only were awakened by the animals but also the family snoring.  Our dinner was very good -- similar to the night before but using different spices and coconut milk for the curry.  Before retiring to some more reading, we walked around the village -- there is no electricity in the village but was quite impressed to see that one house had a large satellite dish out front.  It was also interesting to see the locals in their colorful garments talking on their cell phones.

Accommodaton on Hike

The last day, we only hiked about an hour and then drove to a place where we rode on a bamboo raft for an hour down the Ping River.  We also went to see the Long Neck tribe where the women wear gold rings around their neck which extends their neck.  Never quite got the real story as to why this tradition started.  The tribe descends from Burma, only a few miles over the mountains.  Our last stop was to see a beautiful orchid and butterfly garden.

After the trek, we checked back into the hotel in Chiang Mai where we spent a couple more days.  We toured the city and saw several old wats (temples).  There were so many Thai people making their "New Year's Wishes" at the temples, donating money, lighting candles, and floating flowers in holy water - I guess their tradition is different than ours of eating black eyed peas!   We also took a tour outside of the city to the oldest temple in the region and to a local tribe village that grows opium for "tourist reasons"! 

Temple in Chiang Mai

We had to go to a mall to buy Shawna a bathing suit -- what an interesting experience -- it was quite the sensory overload.  In addition to the stores, there were tons of video games and entertainment venues such as a karaoke place where you can rent out a room with a couch, sing karaoke and tape yourself.  We did not partake in the karaoke but we did, however, go to two movies (I Am Legend and National Treasure, both Keith's selections) which were in English with Thai subtitles.  The major difference in the movies were the Thai commercials in between the previews and the homage to the King where everyone stood up to a video and song about the King right before the movie began.

Temple in Chiang Mai

Phuket
The last leg of the trip was to spend a few days in paradise at the Banyan Tree.  We spent our time doing almost nothing... wake up, sit by the pool and read, have a late breakfast, sit by the pool some more, work out, have a massage, have dinner, go to bed...next day, wake up, sit by the pool and read...you get the picture!  The resort is spectacular -- there are no words to describe it.  Each room is it's own house...some of them have their own pools (not ours).  Other than walking around the beach and the lagoon area (where there are about 6 hotels all owned by the same company), we pretty much stayed at our hotel.  The dinners were fabulous, ranging from a seafood buffet, to Thai, to fresh seafood, and to a French/Vietnamese.  Dinners were always preceded by two mojitos each while sitting near the pool.  We will be forever in search of mojitos that were as good as these.   We each got two massages on separate days -- they were both the strongest massages we have ever had.  For such small women, they surely do have strong hands!   

Restaurants:

Mandarin Oriental Bangkok - This hotel has an amazing location on the river.  We were here for the Christmas Eve buffet which was fantastic

Mandarin Oriental Chiang Mai - We spent our New Year's Eve enjoying the buffet dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Chiang Mai, possibly the most beautiful hotel we have ever seen.  We regretted not going earlier in the day to see it during daylight.  The dinner was much better and more extensive than the one in Bangkok and the entertainment was much nicer - in fact this is the best buffet either of us has ever seen.  In addition to traditional dance, there was a band that played mostly American songs and we each got to light a crepe paper hot air balloon that sent our wishes for the New Year off into the sky.

For more photos of this trip:

Nepal - Oct 2005

Keith was switching jobs at Aimco and asked if he could take a few extra weeks for a trip of a lifetime - and to our incredibly happy surprise, the answer was yes!  So, with some hurried last-minute planning and some just-in-time immunizations, we headed off to Nepal for a month to hike the 200 mile Annapurna circuit. 

Accommodations:

Yak and Yeti (Kathmandu) - Very nice hotel with older architecture.

Tea House on Trek

Tea Houses (Annapurna Circuit) - We have to say that the lodging was way better than expected.  We got our own room each night and a few nights we even got our own bathroom.  The rooms were pretty sparse (two single beds with a table between) but mostly very clean.  We quickly got used to aiming in the squat toilets and we got hot showers most of the time!  Surprisingly, we slept rather well (probably b/c we were so beat from the walking) except for the few nights we spent at high altitude!

Activities:


Kathmandu

Our flight took us through Bangkok, though we had no time for anything but a quick overnight to catch our connecting flight to Kathmandu.  The time change from Bangkok to Kathmandu was 1:45 - the first time in our life we had not seen fully rounded hours.  When we arrive in Kathmandu, we checked into our hotel in the late afternoon and then took a walk around the old town.  Aside from trying not to get run over by the myriad of bicycles, motorcycles and cars, we enjoyed the sights (and smells) of the area.  There is no shortage of trekking companies and pashmina clothing stores.  And to top it all, we found a Barnes & Noble (not really, the name is Barnes and Noble Book Store - quite clever we thought). After a nice dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pass out. 

Temple in Kathmandu

The next day was spent sorting out our plans for the next month.  With over 450 trekking companies to choose from, we picked a company that was recommended by our hotel.  The odd thing is that it turned out to be the same company that some other friends of ours (Mia and Byron whose wedding we attended in Sweden only a few weeks earlier) were using while they were there on their honeymoon.  We had a yummy Thai dinner that night with Mia and Byron -- nothing like having other people crash your honeymoon!

The next day we toured around Kathmandu.  We saw a few Buddhist and Hindu temples and also got to watch a cremation ceremony.  After the bodies are cremated, the ashes and remains are thrown into the river -- I guess this is one reason why we only drink water out of a bottle!  We spun many prayer wheels that day so hopefully some good blessings came everyone's way! 

Prior to leaving for the trek, we did a one hour flight around Everest and the surrounding mountains -- quite stunning!

Annapurna Circuit
The trek details: 19 days, 200 miles, approx. 27,000 feet total ascent and 28,000 feet total descent, reached highest elevation of 18,000 feet, 40 meals that included rice, no meat, no Diet Coke, 2 Maoist shakedowns, about 1000 goats and 2000 donkeys, 74 uses of a squat toilet, one bus ride with chickens and sheep, one day of rain, and saw approx. 10 mountains over 23,000 feet -- all without ever getting sick or injured, not even a blister!  We had an amazing time; one of the coolest things we've ever done.  We had a guide and a porter (who carried both of our backpacks -- made us feel like total wimps) -- they were both extremely nice and were a big help!  Some highlights:

Trails and Scenery 

Scenery on Trek

We hiked through quite a bit of varied terrain, starting with mossy green trees with rolling rice paddy fields, to rocky terrain similar to the Colorado Rockies, to desert-like valleys.  We passed many marijuana fields -- apparently it is not illegal there!  As we got higher, we saw the snow-capped peaks of the Annapurna mountains -- Keith kept asking if Shawna wanted to climb one -- of course, she was not interested in any climbing that involved freezing weather and ice axes!  The trail was remarkably well kept -- often quite wide -- there were only a few places where we had to cross a landslide with the trail being a bit washed out.  I wouldn't say the route was always the most obvious so was glad to have a guide to show us the way.  Aside from trekkers, we often had to share the trail with donkeys transporting goods and sheep being led to the local festivals (for either sacrificing or food) -- of course, this meant you had to look down more than up to avoid the animal poop along the way.

More Scenery on Trek

Villages and Local People 

Village on Trek

Throughout the trek, we passed through many villages -- the housing varied from thatched roofs, timber, mud and stone.  In some of the villages, we visited the local temples and monasteries which were quite amazing given how remote some of these places are.  A few days before the Pass, we visited a monk who "blessed" us for the Pass -- of course, we got these blessings along with a string necklace for a "small" donation to the monastery.  It was quite interesting to see how different the people looked in each village -- showing influences from Tibet, India, and the Far East.  In one of the villages, there was a "projector hall" where we treated ourselves to a movie (Seven Years in Tibet -- Keith thought he had not seen it but then remembered the movie towards the end) -- the hall was a mud house with yak fur covered bench seats and black curtains to block the light.  We were the only two there so we had to pay the "3-person minimum" which equaled about $4.50 total!  The movie projector stopped about 5 times (I guess we were taking all of the town's power) and they had to fast forward to the spot where we left off each time -- making a 1.5 hour movie about 2.5 hours long.  In another village, there were hot springs -- Keith went in but I chose to only dip my feet since there were many sweaty hikers (mostly European men in banana hammocks) sitting in the pools.


Food  

Prayer Wheel

The food was quite tasty but grew tired of the options towards the end.  Every menu was mostly the same, offering various choices of soup, fried rice, potato dishes (including Rosti), fried noodles, spaghetti and the local favorite of dhal bhat (lentils with rice).  Some places got a bit creative by offering pizza, lasagna or burritos -- none of which even closely resembled what these taste like in the US.  Dessert was rather limited but usually included apple pie or pudding -- our favorite was the "Mars Roll" which was a Mars bar deep fried like a Spring Roll -- nothing like taking something fattening and adding more fat to it.  It's a good thing we discovered it towards the end of the trip, otherwise we may not have lost some of the weight that we did.  We stayed away from meat the entire time to improve our odds of not getting sick -- a gamble well worth taking.  Surprisingly, we didn't really miss it!  The best part about the food was the menus themselves -- they were all printed with the words "Approved by the Menu Subcommittee" (whoever that is) and often had many funny misspellings (like Franch Fryes).  Some of the items within a category on the menu were also odd, like listing fried potatoes under the room charges and including vegetable moussaka under Mexican dishes. 


Meeting the Maoists
The Maoists conveniently called a cease fire during the peak tourist season so to stay busy, they stopped the trekkers along the trail to ask for a "donation" -- of course, there was no choice in the matter nor was there room for bargaining!  So we paid our dues but luckily, they gave us a receipt so that the next time that we ran into them, we could show our receipt so that we did not have to pay twice.  The funny thing is that all the local people and even the trekkers knew exactly when and where they would run into the Maoists but the police did not seem to know about this.  I would have to say our encounters were rather friendly but I guess to be expected when you are about to dish out money. 


The Pass 
The highest altitude we hiked was to Thorung La Pass which is over 18K feet.  They do a really good job of acclimatizing you by the way they split up the days leading up to the Pass.  We had to hike very slow the day of the Pass and felt quite dizzy -- but once we got up there, we felt fine.  The views were amazing!  We heard afterwards of a few people getting pretty sick with one person being helicoptered out with severe altitude sickness.

Thorung La Pass

Pokhara
The trek ended in Pokhara where we spent two nights -- mostly relaxing but we also did some sight seeing.  Pokhara is a very cute town with a large lake surrounded by the Annapurna mountains.  After doing laundry and catching up on what happened in the world while we were trekking, we explored the town and spent some time rowing on the lake.  We also got our first dose of meat again -- fortunately our bodies did not reject it!  All in all, it was an amazing trek and we are so happy we did it! 

Chitwan National Park

Chitwan National
Park

After the trek, we had one more week in Nepal which was fairly tame and relaxing compared to the prior few weeks.  We spent a couple of days in Chitwan National Park where everyone goes to see wildlife.  After doing a safari in Africa, the wildlife in no way compares; however, we did get to do/see some interesting things.  We took an ox cart to a local village to see how they harvest rice -- we think we could have walked faster as the ox went about 1 mile per hour.  We also took a canoe ride in the park -- mainly saw many birds (including a kingfisher) and several crocodile.  We visited the elephant breeding center and pet some of the baby elephants -- they are quite hairy and wrinkly little buggers but cute nonetheless!  The highlight was an elephant safari where we rode elephants (4 people on top) through the park.  We got the biggest elephant which weighed about 5 tons so was happy that he did not decide to sit on us.  While on this safari, we saw a few types of deer and a rhino -- the rhino was not too happy when 8 elephants surrounded him!

Kathmandu

Durbar Square

We spent our final two days back in Kathmandu where we caught up on some souvenir shopping, visited Durbar Square (where many of the old temples are).  We ran into several people that we met along the trek and also had dinner again with Mia and Byron who had completed their Everest Base Camp trek. Their trek was a couple of days longer than ours but far fewer showers! Despite that, we are committed to return to Nepal and do the Everest hike some day.

After 5 flights and about 25 hours of actual flying, we made it home safely.  Because of the time zone difference, we didn't sleep well and were wrecked all weekend long.  Of course, our first purchase when we arrived on US soil in Los Angeles was a Starbucks!

Restaurants: 

• Third Eye - Our first meal in Kathmandu was supposed to be one of the more expensive restaurants in town -- the entrees priced at around $4 so I don't think we broke the bank account here.  The meal was fantastic -- north Indian food.
• Yin Yang - Thai restaurant in Kathmandu where we went to with Mia and Byron.
• Roadhouse Cafe - Great pizza joint in Kathmandu.

For more photos of this trip: