Day minus 1 (and counting...)
I
am already dreading the morning.
The
alarm is set for 0315 and the taxi booked for 4 am. Druk Air changed our flight from a lovely non
stopper, albeit leaving BKK at 4 something, to a one stopper leaving at 6.50am.
This has necessitated a further night in Bangkok. originally as check in is at least two
hours before departure, we thought that we could have had a late check out and
hung about at Suvanabhumi Airport until we could actually board with the first
flight.
We
are booked into the R Penjor Lodge in Thimphu for four nights and from there
the world, in the form of Bhutan, is our oyster.
Now
its is morning, Day 2. Day 1 was excellent aside from the very early rise and
absolute maniacal taxi driver from the Aspen Hotel in Bangkok to the airport at around 4 in the
morning. He drove at expressway speeds on the suburban streets. We were hanging
on for dear life I can tell you.
Once
at the airport we headed straight to the Druk Air check in counter which is at
Row W, way down the far end of the Departures Hall, it would be at Row Z if there were one! Our hearts dropped as we realised the
knot of eager checker inners were in fact at our check in counter.
Talk
about baggage, I was convinced our plane would be needing a trailer!!! People
had boxes labelled,'Genuine Toyota Spare Parts.' I kid you not, one man had a
full windscreen for a Toyota Prado along with many, many other boxes of bits and
pieces. Then there were the
professional shoppers who had at least 3 trolleys a piece and who had to keep
leaving the queue for that one more little thing so as the queue moved their
co-shoppers had to shuffle up and down their road trains of stuff pushing each
trolley just a little bit closer to check in!!! Rice cookers, curry cookers,
flat screen TVs, laptop computers and sundry other electrical and household items. It must be
a pretty pricey way to source these things as the Druk Air person told us that
excess baggage was THB 175, or 5 or 6 dollars per kilo. I guess it must make good
economic sense as our flight, KB 141, certainly had hundreds of kilos of excess
stuff.
The
flight was fortunately uneventful enough and we landed at Paro after the
carnival ride like approach to the landing strip there. Glad to be back onTerra Firma
we completed our arrival procedures and contracted a taxi to take us to
Thimphu. I am glad Karma had told us the regular price as we knew our man was
trying to overcharge us by a couple of hundred but he was happy enough to
accept our offer of 1,000 ngultrums, or about 15 dollars for the 45 km trip.
The
Bhutanese currency is pegged to the Indian Rupee and is currently languishing
in the doldrums of foreign exchange. For us the silver lining is that we are
getting around Nu 60 to the Aussie dollar whereas a year ago it was less that
50.
The
sweet smell of the pine trees was my first real physical impression of being back in
Bhutan. As we motored toward Thimphu the waft of pine needles cleared our heads
and allowed us to see the surrounding countryside more sharply. It felt GREAT
to be back. The houses, the temples the impossibly placed prayer flags, the
Tata trucks, the dogs, the people, the roadside fruit and veggie sellers, the
man and boy walking two cows along the side of the road and on and on.
Suddenly,
or so it seemed, we were in the capital, Thimphu. We had seen some pretty major
housing development just before getting to the main urban area so Thimphu is
growing and developing apace along with most other major Asian cities. We felt
it an extremely good omen when a parking space opened up directly in front of
our hotel and we parted company with our by now, new friend, Gopal, and
promised we would call if we needed his taxi services again.
We
were warmly greeted by the owner of the hotel who had reserved us the best room
in the house with a great view over the main street of town. The traffic is
consistent but quite slow moving so manoeuvring across the street is not too
daunting, the cars sometimes even stop at pedestrian crossings unlike in many
other places where drivers seem to have no idea just what those funny white
lines on the road are for.
After
checking in and catching up we headed out into the fray to start on our list of
things to do. New Kira for Vicky, check, find tailor for new blouse and jacket,
check, new sim card for the phone, check, new data stick for mobile internet
connection, check, lunch and a breather, check, new Gho for me, check! OMG we
are doing so much and accomplishing tasks left right and centre!
After
the floor attendant of the hotel finished 'making water' in our room (not quite
as biological as it sounds, more a plumbing solution really...) we were able to
wash off the dust of travel, refresh and once more head out in the now cool
Thimphu evening for a spot of dinner and bottle of their finest Druk 11.
Welcome back.hoping you will be teaching there again.
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