Finally Free

After setting a time for lunch with the hotel staff, I made my way to my room, where I, being an expert in the operation of lights now, deftly placed my key into its receptacle, and the lights switched on.

Rather pleased with myself, I set about inspecting the room, which, although not as fancy as the one in Bangkok, was still quite nice; far nicer than I expected, certainly. I had visions of places with peeling paint and stained bathtubs, all put into my head by the words of the doctor at the travel clinic I visited back home: "So you're staying in hotels, not hostels, right? Well that's good, but, I mean, they won't be.... you know... Well anyways, you're going to need malaria pills, and you are definitely going to need to get a Vivaxim injection for typhoid and Hep A..."

But no, the place was nice. T.V. with 15 or so channels, a bed with cozy blankets, and a stocked-up minibar. There was even a balcony with a view of all of Paro valley.

After I had showered and changed I headed over to the hotel restaurant, where the waiter asked me if my guide was going to be eating with me. I said that I assumed he was, so I told the waiter I would wait for him to show up. I was already 10 minutes late, so I was a bit concerned by the fact that he hadn't shown up yet.

About 10 minutes later, the waiter returned and asked me if I wanted to just start eating, and I said that I supposed so. I was getting pretty hungry, having only had my 6:00 breakfast at the airport so far today. He hurried off to the kitchen, and returned a few minutes later with one of those round serving trays filled completely with food. Everything on it was for me.

There was garden salad, rice, fried potatoes with some kind of seasoning on them, some kind of beef dish with noodles, butter fried asparagus, and some other vegetable medley, and tea that was refilled every time my cup got low. As the waiter placed the last dish on the table, he told me that my guide was in the kitchen, eating in there. I told him to relay to Tashi that he was welcome to come and eat with me, but he never did. So I sat there alone, just staring out the window at Paro valley down below, loving every single dish they had brought me, and being stunned by the beauty of everything around me.

I ate as much as I could, but it was hopeless. They had brought me enough food to feed at least three people. And once I had eaten as much as I dared (knowing that I would be doing some walking shortly), the waiter brought me fresh banana for desert. Apparently the climate in some parts of the country are suitable for growing things we typically associate with southern climates, like mangos, oranges, and of course, bananas.

After lunch, I found Tashi downstairs, and we headed to the car, joined up with our driver, and headed off to Drugyal Dzong (dzong means fortress), a 350 year old stronghold Tashi told me was built to commemorate Bhutan's victory over the Tibetans. Much of it burned down in the middle of the 20th century, but the stone foundation is all still there.

After that, we went over the the museum. It is inside an old watchtower, which was definitely not built for people my size. Most of the time I was at least slightly bent over, and when we were on the top floor with the sloping roof, or in the basement, I was almost bent double at some points. From there we walked to the dzong that the watchtower was built help protect. The dzong is now used for administrative purposes for the Paro area, as well as as a monastery. No cameras allowed inside the monastery part, unfortunately.

As we were walking around the dzong, Tashi and I got to talking about sports in Bhutan, and he told me that by far the most popular one is archery, which almost everyone participates in. The rules vary depending on what the participants agree upon, but the one constant is that the targets are 120 meters away - longer than a regulation size soccer field. We went to the local range to watch some people play, and I was astounded by how small the targets were. They are probably about the same size as a dinner plate. The fact that anyone manages to hit the thing astounds me, but sure enough, in the 15 minutes we watched, there were 8 shots that were planted on the targetboard.

After this, we headed back to the hotel and had dinner, and took it easy for the rest of the night. We were going up to the Tiger's Nest the next day, and needed to be well-rested for that.