This tour will be led by Joe Englander
Day 1: Arrival to Paro, drive to Thimphu
Day 2: Thimphu Valley sightseeing
Day 3: Drive to Wangdi. Punakha Valley sightseeing
Day 4: Drive to Bumthang
Day 5: Bumthang Valley sightseeing
Day 6: Drive to Mongar
Day 7: Mongar Festival
Day 8: Mongar Festival and drive to Trashigang Festival
Day 9: Trashigang Festival
Day 10: Trashigang Festival
Day 11: Trashigang Festival. After lunch, drive to Mongar
Day 12: Drive to Bumthang
Day 13: Bumthang Valley sightseeing. After lunch, drive to Trongsa
Day 14: Visit Trongsa Dzong and drive to Wangdi via Gantay Gompa
Day 15: Drive to Paro via Thimphu
Day 16: Hike to Taksang Monastery (Tiger's Nest Monastery)
Day 17: Departure
This will be a photographic and cultural tour of a remote and wonderful dreamland that its own people call Kingdom of the Clouds. Until recently, as one of the most remote cultural islands in the world, the kingdom of Bhutan allowed only 2,500 foreign visitors into their country each year. This number has dramatically increased within the past year. Road building was prohibited by law until the ’60s; foreigners were not admitted until the ’70s. Now there is even a short section of 4-lane paved road. But in many ways conditions are still the same: the single cross-country road is in a constant state of construction; the number of foreigners admitted is still restricted but now mainly due to the lack of accommodations. Both lack of access and restricted access have allowed this tiny country to maintain its traditional identity. This is the last of the Himalayan Buddhist countries. The entire country is an ”endangered species.” Unlike neighboring Nepal, which is littered with the detritus of tourists and trekkers, by limiting access and clinging to traditional values the Bhutanese have, to a large extent, managed to preserve the model of Shangri La that their country embodies. The recent introduction of TV, the Internet, and cell phones are quickly changing Bhutan!
Your photography tour will encompass two unique festivals with colorful handmade masks, complicated dances, and beautifully embroidered silk robes. Religious festivals such this are typically the only moments of rest and celebration punctuating the agricultural calendar year. With 90 percent of the population engaged in agriculture, Bhutan remains a rural country almost devoid of industry and mechanization. The beauty of the pastoral landscape can seem unreal to photographers from the industrialized world: houses with brightly decorated window frames and shingled roofs, patchworks of green and golden paddy fields, plots of tawny buckwheat, oak forests, covered bridges, fences of intricately woven bamboo, a man leaning on a wooden rail trampling his harvest, a woman weaving in the open air, a baby laced into a horse’s saddle bag, yaks browsing in a grove of giant rhododendron, and colorful prayer flags everywhere. You will be able to photograph the people and their elaborate Dzongs, hand-built multi-story houses, terraced hillsides, and mountains—this is the Himalayas, after all.
This will not be a trek. You will not stay in tents. Nor will it be a race across the entire country; the roads are arduous. Distances are measured in switchbacks and time, not miles; sometimes traveling only 100 kilometers can require an entire day.
You don’t need to be athletic, but you need to be able to carry your own cameras and walk through markets and villages where there may not be roads. Where there are roads, you will travel by luxury SUVs or comfortable passenger vans and stay in government-approved tourist- class hotels, resorts, or guesthouses.
Once in Bhutan, your trip will be the best possible in an emerging country. Almost all of your expenses—meals, transportation, lodging, translators, guides, the government’s daily tariff, and taxes—are covered. Dates are ”in-country” and do not include days for international transportation to Bangkok. Flights to and from Bhutan are not included in tour prices.
Dates: Nov 7-23, 2010
Cost: $8600.00
Includes: English-speaking Bhutanese guide, accommodations in government-approved tourist-class hotels with private en-suite rooms, meals and transportation, visa and tourist fees, and applicable taxes. Flights to and from Bhutan are not included. Typical airfare roundtrip from Bangkok is $800; tickets are obtained with visas, both of which we will facilitate for you.
Contact us for registration information.