Thimphu Markets and Hotel olathang

Previous page - Returning to Thimphu

 

Thimphu vegetable and fish market

After lunch Kinga took us to the Thimphu vegetable and fish market. It was interesting to look at all the unusual food items that we don’t have at home. I thought the market was one of the highlights of our trip. We saw strange fruits and vegies plus a lot of dried fish, some with sharp looking teeth in their mouths. Despite their small size they looked quite fierce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From there we crossed the road and visited the gift market.

We had decided to buy lots more of the little metal candle-holders that we had bought a few days ago. We thought they would make lovely gifts. We were able to purchase quite a lot of them at the gift market for less than half the price the lady charged us outside the Trongsa Dzong the other day. We think our gift buying is just about complete which is a relief.

 

 

Off to Paro

From the markets we went to Paro. On the way we passed UK bike riders. They had cameras attached to their helmets so I guess they were filming as they travelled. We came across a car accident with both parties arguing that they weren’t at fault.

 

On the journey we caught up with Karchung Wangchuk who owns Lhomen Tours. He had wanted to catch up with us and meet us properly. We had spent so much time online sending emails to him several months earlier. He met us on the side of the road and very kindly gave us each a white tee-shirt with the Lhomen Tours company picture on them. That was very thoughtful of him. We managed to get a few photos of the Paro airport where we landed in Bhutan six days earlier. 

 

Paro Dzong

We stopped at the Paro Dzong but I think we are now getting pretty much “dzonged out.”

This is the first dzong that visitors see when they land at Paro airport because it is built up on a nearby hill. The dzong was consecrated in 1646 on the foundations of a previous monastery built by Guru Rinpoche. It is now the administrative centre of the area as well as being a monastery. Parts of the movie "The Little Buddha" were filmed there.

 

Hotel Olathang

The next two nights will be spent at Hotel Olathang which is the oldest hotel in Paro. It is perched up on a hill so it is quite impressive there. We had twin rooms alongside each other. They had beautiful carved windows. It was great to slide them across and capture the lovely breeze flowing over the lawn area. The beds seemed short but that didn’t surprise us as we had encountered that before at other hotels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had lovely showers and decided to wear Karchung’s tee-shirts. Jeremy had a headache and was extremely tired so he chose not to come down for dinner. Before having dinner Ian and I headed down to the lounge and caught up with emails etc. using the hotel’s wi-fi.

Hotel Olathang has a huge restaurant plus conference rooms and much more. We had a delightful meal of tomato, cucumber, carrot, naan bread, chewy roast beef, potatoes, momos, Chinese vegetables and mixed vegetables. The service in the dining room was very attentive. We asked if we could take a small meal up to our son and they were very obliging, even bringing out foil to put over the food to keep it warm. Jeremy really appreciated the food. He said his headache was still bad but he felt better in general. We’ve seen dogs asleep on the large lawn area in front of our room so we wonder what sort of sleep we will get……

 

 

Next page - The long awaited climb to Tiger's Nest

 

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