Bhutan has always been a special place to me ever since I started reading up about it for my first visit.
I am the guy with the jacket & beanie in case you want to put a face to the voice in your head 🙂.
This is the second time I am visiting this magical Himalayan kingdom covered in trees, rivers, monasteries & fortresses. No wonder it has the ‘Happiest Country in Asia’ title.
When me and my childhood friend Niranjan were brainstorming our new year plans, we stumbled upon the idea of taking a small group of adventurers along with us to celebrate New year on an epic road trip to Bhutan. Â We started working on it and it took more than a month to chalk out the entire adventure. When we started promoting it on his trekking group and other social media channels, we wanted to take only 9 people along with us but we were floored by the responses we received and the excitement of people to join us. Long story short we ended up taking a total of 33 people divided into 3 different groups. We also organized a ‘vacation briefing’ meetup to give them a brief overview about the vacation.
Here is my story on the whole journey which was a memorable experience to say the least. We had to adjust the itinerary (Rebook hotels, shift tiger’s nest to last etc) Â to accommodate the flight delay due to fog in Delhi on December 27th which shifted our departure to 28th.
PC : Soheil Taraporewala at Bangalore International Airport.
Day 2 : Paro Dzong & Market. Authentic Pizza in Paro – Must try.
P.C : Rajiv Krishnaswamy.
The Majestic Paro Dzong at night.
Photo credit Kishore Prahalad.
A walk to remember from Paro Market to our stay at holiday home, Paro
Day 3 : Drive to Thimphu.
Thimphu Square, Bike Ride to Chele La Pass.
Day 4 : Drive to Punakha via Dochula Pass, Chimi Lhakhang
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New year Party celebration with cultural dance performance.
Day 5 : The Majestic Punakha Dzong, Suspension Bridge & Drive to Paro via Thimphu, Buddha Dordenma, Paro Market revisited for shopping,
Day 6 : Trek to Tiger’s Nest, drive to Phuntsholing.
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And Finally. Thanks to Kishore Prahallad for most of the pictures above. I hope you enjoyed my pic-story.