Bhutan - The Lost Shangri-La

natasha chanda acharya

Oh, shut up, Somnath! I will never hear the end of the wild horses! FYI, wiki says: The Kiang (Equus kiang), also written khyang, is a large mammal belonging to the horse family. So there!!! I wasn't that far off the truth. And before I die, even if it is the last thing i do, I swear I will get deer pictures from Ladakh!

somnath

...........

and you’ll bring another winky i men wiki link that will explain yes, these goats are from deer family. He he…

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PeakXV

Yup - and as we say here in Canada - That's A Real Bargoon!

Okay Okay, $100.00/day and I'm in like Flynn - & that's my final offer.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

machadinha

Great post, Natasha. Couple more visa and entry details for Indian passport holders were discussed here: Legal & cheap way into Bhutan?

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Bhaswaran

Excellent post Natasha. I am planning for Bhutan in the future and this will help me a lot.

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natasha chanda acharya

Thank you, Bhasvaran, machadinha, edwardseco.
And Somnath, have you finished reading YET?

zed

very interesting and informative account of your trip. thank you for posting this. i'm in the process of planning a bhutan trip, and your thread already has me rethinking a few things.

if you were to travel beyond thimpu and paro into the not-so-urban bhutan, how hard is it to arrange accomodation without reservations in advance? what about permits?

did you use any particular book/resource to plan your trip? i'm curious as to what the best way is. until i read your post, i was under the impression bhutan had just one TV set. :-\

natasha chanda acharya

Hi Zed, thank you.

I'd only planned to go to Punakha and Wangdeu. You can get the permit for these places in Thimphu immigration office. Your hotel manager can help with this. My plan was to cover Punakha and Wangdeu in a day trip. Thimphu to Punakha is appoximately 77 KM and Punakha to Wangdeu is some 15 KM. So I planed to go out early in the day and return to Thimphu for the night. I doubt Punakha has any accomodation, but Wangdeu will definitely have some local hotels, nothing plush, but as I've written in my post, even the standard fare there is quite comfortable. And I doubt reservation is required in terms of availability. You can get more info from the hotel phone number I have given, or from Bhutan Information Centre (I don't have that no.). There is very little information on Bhutan on the net. All the info that I got before my trip was from http://www.kingdomofbhutan.com/ I think it is the more famous of the travel agencies in operation. You need not book through them, but you will get a good idea of the places and what they have to offer from this site. Hope you have a good trip. Come back and tell us all about it.

FYI: The first thing the bell boy at our hotel said when we entered out room and saw a TV was - "The cable hasn't been working since morning!" He was quite distressed about it as I imagine the rest of the local people were. TV is definitely an integral part of their lives now.

capt_mahajan

Natasha, great post.

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nadreg

Natasha, I've moved this article to the Articles section. Wonderfully written and extremely informative.

I'd love to annotate it with some of your pics, though. Would you mind sending some of them to me, or uploading them onto IM?

Thanks!

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PRIYA

As usual, Natasha brings her journey's to life with great descriptions, narrative and photos.

Excellent!!!

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nadreg

Thanks for the pics, Natasha. I've moved them to the article.

kristinm

Can you just explain that again slowly for the very stupid? Do you have to pay $200/day when you get your visa? How does it included everything? Are you meant to spend that..how do they know you have?

dumb_bacchus

2:16 AM. About 12 hours back a thought struck me - to travel to Bhutan on my bike. So I log into IM, maybe to write a post and check people's view, but to my surprise I see this article. If it was some other day, I would have said "Nicely written", but I guess now I would "Thanks for helping me dream on!"

PeakXV

The $200.00/day($165.00 offseason ??) is the upfront daily admission fee( X number of days in your visit) that includes your food, accommodation, land transport within Bhutan, guides/porters services, pack animals for treks, & cultural programs. I believe the vias is $20.00.

Too be honest it's not too bad a deal for, by the majority of accounts, a trip of a lifetime (especially if you are the outdoors/energetic type) .... unless you are one who takes issue with any of these two-tiered tariff schemes based solely on your nationality/passport designation/fate or are specifically interested in a frugal shopping vacation.

I understand that Bhutan, as a rule, is nevertheless expensive for the average Indian ... but can somebody reveal -what a budget-travelling Indian National might pay per day there - for the record?