Sharing the main road with delivery trucks and other traffic.
The infrastructure of roads and facilities is the biggest challenge to the growth of the tourist economy in Bhutan. Airports are limited and I learned that Druk (Dragon) Air only owns two planes. Only Druk air pilots are allowed to fly in and out of the main airport in Paro. There is a reason for this: on approach, the pilots have to fly low between the mountains and then turn in order to land on a single air strip that lays in the narrow valley of the capital city. There may also be an economic reason which would be having control of the business that brings tourists in and out of Bhutan. Our group was delayed for several hours on our departure from the country because of maintenance work that needed to be done on one of the planes before it could leave the airport. Basically, only the number of tourists carried on two planes are able to go in and out of Bhutan on any given day unless the trips are short. Our flight stopped in Sri Lanka on its way to Bangkok, but with the maintenance delay, getting to Bangkok turned out to be an all-day affair.
National roads — the ones that get you back and forth across the country — are very limited. There is only one main artery for traveling east to west, and roads mainly exist in the central region of the country. There are no roads going into the high Himalayas, and roads are more limited toward the agricultural south. The roads are paved, but very narrow and twisting across high mountain passes. There is continual maintenance being done on the roads, which are not new, so that in many places they are under construction. It is not unusual to find stretches of gravel, or places where the safety barriers have crumbled away.
Country farmhouse set in mountain pass scenery.
Most of the vehicles on the roads are small buses, whether tour buses as we were traveling in or small buses functioning as public transportation for the population at large. These small buses seem to be amazingly agile on the twisty roads, and I have to commend the drivers who could negotiate these difficult passes between delivery trucks and repair machinery. I have to admit that some of the views made me dizzy, and I preferred to sit in the middle of the bus rather than at the window. When the bus took a particularly sharp turn, I found myself instinctively swaying to the side away from the edge and closing my eyes, taking a deep breath and hoping for the best!
Scenery was spectacular. In one long day, we crossed over three mountain passes. On the way, we saw small farms, yaks loose on the road, countless temples, shrines and ’stupas’, people working in their fields, small villages. We were on our way to Bumthang — a bit further east than most tours to Bhutan go. We were staying in the country close to two weeks so we had the extra time to spend visiting some sights located a bit further out of the ‘most traveled’ route.
Merry Christmas to All!