Paro, Bhutan
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
This was my 2nd last day in Bhutan. Visited the Festival again and sat through a number of lengthy dances eg 50 minutes. They are visually beautiful with the colourful costumes and masks but they tend to be slow moving and repetitive. Definitely will never be an MTV video or a Bollywood dance classic. But the crowd is fascinating--a mixture of true Bhutanese in their officially required national dress plus a wide variety of tourists from many corners of the globe. In the stands I was interacting with the young children around me, with fellow travelers and with a few Bhutanese adults with betel stained red teeth. This took up the entire morning. In the afternoon, after my usual over-eating at another delicious Bhutanese buffet at lunch, we visited another historic temple(I am all-templed out)and another fortress(I am all-fortressed-out). Then spent a leisurely 40 minutes wandering around downtown Paro. Tomorrow I face my last and biggest challenge---Tigers Nest Monastery - a two hour walk up a steep hill between 2300 and 2900 meters in altitude. I do not like walking up steep hills at the best of times but at this altitude it is a major huffer and puffer. Talk to you post-heartattack!!
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