Monday morning back in Paro and we were excited to be back at Green Valley to enjoy their breakfast, which includes the best French toast we have ever had. After breakfast, we headed toward the Rinpung Dzong, which was built as a fortress and is now a monastery. We learned when we got there that a guide is required to enter, so we waited for ten or fifteen minutes, and the next guide had a couple with him from England and he agreed to let us join them. Once we were inside, he pretty much stuck with them and we were free to roam. It’s a beautiful monastery.
We then walked back down the hill (a different route) and got some things done at the hotel before renewing my eSim card with Tashi cell to give us coverage for these last couple of days. Park 76 was a two-minute walk and that is where we went for a late lunch, early dinner. We had grilled chicken steaks, mashed potatoes, vegetables, popcorn, and a papaya salad. We picked up some water from the grocery store and then headed back to the hotel.
Tuesday was our last day in Bhutan. We are definitely not ready to leave. After breakfast, Sandy enjoyed her Starbucks time in the dining room overlooking the rice fields.
I went up to the room to watch the Bucs game. They lost to Baltimore, and they lost more than the game. Injuries to Mike Evans and to Chris Godwin will seemingly turn this promising season in the other direction. We lifted weights in the fitness center and then went to check on blood pressure and oxygen levels. Blood pressure has improved, but we’ll check again when we get to a lower elevation and our oxygen levels are ok – mine is a little low, but we are both feeling fine. We drop down to around 4,000 feet tomorrow from our current 7,500 feet. We made our one hour walk up to the Namgay Brewery and took a little different route. This one was along the river and right near the runway at the airport. We got lucky with our timing as a 737 came into land just about when we were by the runway. We enjoyed our last visit to the brewery with dark ales and red rice lagers, a burger and a veggie and cheese sandwich, potato wedges, nachos, and we played pool. Before we left, the manager gave us a tour of the brewery and then we taxied back to the city center. We very much enjoyed all of our visits to Namgay.
Back in town, we stopped by the shop to say goodbye to Martha, Sagar (our Tiger’s Nest guide), and mom. They are such a sweet family.
Haircut time for me and we found a shop who could get me in pretty quick. Next haircut should be back in Sarasota! Before returning to the hotel to get packed, we stopped at two more of our favorite spots – Mountain Café to try their chocolate chip cookies and then Brioche Café to try their Swiss Roll. We settled up with Tashi at the hotel, packed, and got to sleep early.
This morning’s alarm was 5am because the manager of the hotel was kind enough to take us to the airport at 6am. They gave us some fruit to take with us. Check-in was very easy. Like everything in Bhutan, the airport is beautiful, calm, and friendly. Our fight left right on time at 8:20am and Bhutan Airlines served us drinks, a muffin, egg salad sandwich, and peanuts for the short one-hour flight. We landed in Kathmandu and because we already had our visas from our first stint in Nepal, immigration was much easier. What was different was having to go through security to get to baggage claim. That took quite a bit of time, but we had plenty of time before our onward flight to Pokhara. Once we had our bags, we walked about ten minutes to the domestic terminal and scanned our bags through security to enter the terminal. Flights leave just about every hour to Pokhara, but they are delayed a significant percentage of the time. I asked at the desk if there was a chance to get on an earlier flight and we were quite fortunate – there was one boarding about ten minutes later and he thought we’d be able to make that and get our bags on the plane. Everything went smoothly and the flight was actually delayed due to air traffic. Wheels were up at 11:45am and we touched down in Pokhara at 12:09pm – one of the shorter flights we have ever been on. It certainly beat the seven-hour bus ride and was relatively inexpensive at around $100 each.
I think almost anywhere you go after Bhutan will be a bit of a shock to the system. As if it hasn’t been evident through other journal entries, Bhutan is one of the calmest places we have ever been. Thankfully, our next stop is here in Pokhara and not Kathmandu. Having said that, the taxi ride from the airport to our new home was a shock to the system – and that is even after having spent a month in Nepal before Bhutan. The noise, the chaos, the starts and stops. On top of that, the leader of the RSP (a political party in Nepal) was arrested recently on charges of embezzlement and there are large protests happening between his supporters and the victims of the fraud. Wow!
We dropped our stuff off at our apartment, which is about a 15-minute walk from the big lake in Pokhara, called Phewa Tal (or Phewa Lake).
Hungry, we went out to get lunch at an excellent vegetarian café called Ayurvedico (we had veggie and hummus sandwiches that reminded us of the sandwiches we used to get at John Dough Bakery in Sarasota quite a few years ago). On the way back, we picked up groceries – it’s nice to be back in an apartment where we can make some of the foods we like to eat. After getting settled, we walked down the hill to the tiny café at the main street where Sandy had chicken momos and I had pork chow mein. We will certainly miss Bhutan but it’s very hard to believe that we won’t go back.