Off to Bhutan and India on November 4, 2008

Some afterthoughts:

Most of the colored flags in Bhutan are prayer flags. They have prayers printed on them, and are flown at most places deemed sacred by the Bhutanese. They are found on bridges, choetens, dzongs, rivers, summits, and some out in the open field and hills.

While in Bhutan, I measured my blood pressure regularly, and found it escalated from an average (30 counts) of 120/80 to 175/100. I blamed this on the high salt content of their foods and on the elevation. I measured our group at the airport in India, and found everybody had high blood pressure including our trip leader who is very active on treks and tours. When I measured my blood pressure after several days at home, it was 107/55 - after I worked in my yard to sweep the leaves from my front yard.

The king's goal for his country is to keep the culture of his country intact while maintaining the environment prestine, and the people happy. Although TV is not yet common in Bhutan, a few places now have them. It would be a challenge to save the culture in its present form as they increase tourism and tv exposure to the younger generation.

I find their innocence and openness to be refreshing; I hope they never lose that.

CI: I have, along with many other folks on A2K, been following your journeys for quite a spell. This one, with your photos and narrative, was the best ever in my mind. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I have a tenuous but real relationship by marriage to a prince of one of those regions. I'm not kidding. From what I know of all that, the situation I speak of sounded like a multiple mess that had nothing to do with the people of that region except maybe bad stuff. So, this is not a brag, but an oddity.


On the other hand, rather more comedic, a female friend was woo'ed by an afganistani prince, back in the late sixties. I don't remember how they met. She was beautiful then, and not any kind of negative user.


I remember him being called onstage at some hollywood show - and being embarrassingly bad at being a good contestant. They didn't get along past one evening (oh, let me guess), and I assume she was just one more blonde to him.

Still, all these years later, I wonder how he is.

India's a bit less attractive this morning.
I've been in that Taj hotel, Mumbai (but only for a coffee)
Bad situation.

nice.

We stayed at several Taj hotels when I visited some years ago, but remember the Taj Palace in New Delhi best; my favorite. Their service was the very best I have ever experienced in all my travels. When I completed my photo album on India, I showed it to my physician, and on the first page was the picture of the Taj Palace. She pointed to it and said "that's where my sister got married!" Dr Bhargava is the best doctor I've had in my life, and she's still my doctor.

Here's the road map of Bhutan that shows the route of our itinerary, but the roads in Bhutan are never "straight" as shown on this map. Often times, we traveled hours from point a to point b with the actual distance traveled to be less than a few miles. We traveled on one lane roads with sharp curves where our driver had to squeeze through opposing trucks and other vehicles close to cliffs of 75 to 90 degrees looking straight down onto valleys and crevices created by the many waterfalls. Our driver used his horn often to warn oncoming vehicles at all the curves, never took chances, and drove slow enough to react to all the on-coming traffic - which were few and far between. Namgay was an excellent driver.