Road Trip- Bhutan 2011

Find below some of the pictures that were taken during the road trip while vacationing in Bhutan at the beginning of this year. Cheers

We started from the capital city Thimphu and the weather was perfect. Our destination for that day was Sarpang, which is in the south central side of Bhutan. Sarpang is 230 kms away from Thimphu, which would translate to about 7 hours journey on Bhutanese roads. However, it took us about 9 hours because of the terrible road conditions at Wangdue Phodrang. More than 40 kms of road has been damaged by the heavy machineries and trucks that ply on the road that transport stuff to the site of Punatsangchu Hydro Power Station. 

On the way we stopped at Dochula to take pictures. The place looked beautiful due to snow that had fallen just the night before....lucky us. 

Miami Bitch!!! haha...this was taken on the 2nd day of our road trip at Sarpang. It was my birthday and I know I was on a road trip but, it wasn't too bad because we were attending a wedding ceremony of one of our friends. So we partied all day followed by crashing into another wedding party in the evening. 

Day 3: This pic was taken at Sarpang when we were on our way to Samdrup Jongkhar via Gelephu and several Indian towns. We started pretty early~ around 6.15 am because we had to reach Gelephu by 7 am to line up in queue to be escorted by the Indian Army. Since there is no road network inside the country that connects Gelephu and SJ, Bhutanese travellers have to travel via Assam (India). The Indian Army escorts the Bhutanese travellers due to the militant problems. We reached Gelephu at around 7 and had to wait till 8 am when we finally started moving again.

Day 4: Pic taken on the way to Tashigang

Day 4- Typical road in Bhutan. Winding and Narrow and the massive drop/ cliff on one side as the cherry on the top. However, it's way more fun driving on Bhutanese roads than any North American road.

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Day 4: Some silly road safety sign. I like it tho!!

Day 5- We went to Rangjung and visited a monastery and look what we stumbled upon. I couldn't help myself but take pictures of this cute lil puppy.

Day 5- Chorten Kora, one of the most visited places in eastern Bhutan.

Day 5. Some Random Chhorten on the way to Mongar....our final destination for the day. The road from  Tashigang to Mongar was simply unreal. Most of the time it followed the river and we also came across some passes. We stayed in Mongar for two days.

Day 7 was by far the best day of our trip. We were on our way to Bumthang and on the way we had to pass Thrumshingla and as you can see from the pics how beautiful that place is.

Heaven on Earth?

The winding road through the Black Mountain Range

Bumthang Valley

Sunset at Bumthang

Day 8- Mae-bar tsho (Burning Lake)

Some prayer flags

And finally we reached Trongsa. The fortress in the picture is called the 'Trongsa Dzong' and it is the biggest dzong in Bhutan. Our destination for the day was Wangdue Phodrang. It was almost 9 pm by the time we reached our hotel.

Day 9: On the last day of our road trip we went to Punakha and took some picture. The picture above is that of the Punakha Dzong.