TRAVELLING THROUGH BHUTAN - PHOBJIKHA

on our way

Last month, people in Thimphu had a very long holidays (Tshechu holidays combined with the weekend) so to make the most of it, my husband and I went to Phobjikha under Wangdue Phodrang with his office friends. It is a really beautiful place where (globally threatened) black necked cranes visits during the winters to roost. We went there on Wednesday (19th September, 2018) and we stayed at a Homestay: a very traditional house and like any homestay we were welcomed by a very warm elderly lady into her home. We chose a package where she home cooked all of our meals (even packed it whenever we decided to go out for lunch). The house was a very traditional one and all of us were in the first floor while the family members lived in the ground floor. It was a beautiful house with (newly partitioned) smaller rooms and a common sitting area in the center. Everyone picked their respective room-mates and we were given welcome tea by the host :)

In the left end there was the chorten and right end there was our homestay

After we were all settled and done with our tea and snacks, we went exploring the place. It was a wonderful place with an amazing view. We went for a long walk to a beautiful place with a chorten which was opposite to our homestay. The view was honestly breathtaking and the weather was just perfect, not too hot not too cold, just perfect! That night, we had the dinner and we stayed up late chatting with our group and stayed up late enjoying the night. 

The next day, after the breakfast, the lady packed our lunch and we all went to meet Mr. Karma, the injured black necked crane who cannot fly due to injury in it's left wing, therefore RSPN has made a shack for it and is looked after by them (More about Karma). After that we all went to a really long drive through the place and every view was as breathtaking, I wont mind settling there you know, it was that beautiful. Later on our way back we decided to find a place to have our packed lunch and we did find this amazing flat area (bigger than soccer field) but few moments after our arrival it started to rain so we only had our tea there and decided to have our lunch back at home, and sadly we stayed home after that due to rain, but it was fun interacting with the house members and spending time with our group. 

Hopeful of the next day, we decided to take a short hike up to Gangtey Lhakhang and walk back to our house, it was nice to take the old trail upto the Lhakhang. It was a busy place since Gangtey tshechu was just few days away, we had not brought our gho and kira so we decided not to go inside the lhakhang. And then ofcourse it started to rain again (not heavily though). We walked through a farm road (in a different direction), the locals there assured us that it will lead us to the chorten we went on the first day. So our group took the walk in the rain, it was nice (wet but nice) haha. The farm road took us from the middle of a village and it was almost like in a jungle, a beautiful jungle. We finally reached above the chorten we visited last time and we headed home from there. 

View from the end of our hike

Sadly for me and my husband, we had to leave that day, the rest of the group were going to stay back for another day. They were even going to have hot stone bath that evening (so envious). Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience that felt like a reset button both for me and my husband. We had the time to unwind and enjoy the nature and just relax. It was such a wonderful experience that we all decided to do something similar next year and I am already looking forward to it.