Hike and Festival

4th Oct 2011
Up early this morning ready for breakfast and a hike. Feeling a lot better.
We had a short hike this morning up to the Gangtey Monastery. The hike was made all the more interesting at the start when we had to cross some bogy ground, some of the groups footwear was not up to the task in hand.
This area of Bhutan is a reserve for the Black-necked cranes, they fly over the Himalayas from Tibet to winter here. They will not start arriving until the end of October.
Once out of the bog the path went through a wooded area and running just above our path was another with children on their way to school on it. Once they saw us they kept shouting down to us "hello" and "good bye". Once the paths got closer together they came to see us to ask where we were going. They also had their photos taken with us. In Bhutan lots of children ask you to take their photo, Unlike children in other countries they are not after money, all they want is to be able to see the photo on the camera afterwards. After that they say "thank you sir" and off they go.
Once out of the woods a short up hill section brought us to the
Monastery.
After a short visit to the monastery we headed off to Wangdi for lunch along the bump road again. This was a three hour drive and we made only one stop for the toilet since we were in a hurry to get to the Wangdi Dzong for the festival. The festival was attended by lots of local people all in National Dress. I watched some of the festival dancing/play not really understanding what was going on, but judging by the laughter of the locals it was very funny.
After a while I came down from one of the viewing galleries to mingle with the local crowd, lots of children asked to have their photos taken and posed very nicely. I also videoed some of the children with the screen turned around so that they could see themselves. On leaving the Dzong four young girls asked me to take their photo. They also gave me their school address and asked if I could send them the photos. I don't think they understand that you can print more than one photo from each picture. They asked me to take four photos one for each of them.
After the festival we headed off to our next hotel, Meri Punsum Resort, near Punakha. We will be here for two nights. Again the standard of the hotel is very high. As I write this blogg I do think we may be plagued with one of the things you hear about Bhutanese dogs, they sleep all day and bark all night!

Phil