Day 11: Phobjikha

Day 11: Phobjikha

Weather:  High 20s to low 30s overnight (our room stays toasty), warming up to high 50s mid-day

Quote of the Day:  Do you call this a trek, a hike, a stroll, or something else

THB is going to make this a short post (HURRAY) because he’s working on a parallel post, the Pictorial Pop Quiz, that includes most of what happened today.

What's not covered with pics:

- DB went to meditation, THB worked on the blog and Into The Silence

- Dinner: THB has shiitake soup (very nice) and spicy (not saucy) chicken over rice; DB has pumpkin with toppings and mild fish on top of a tomato and garbanzo bean based tangine and we share a very good appetizer: stuffed chapati. Ice cream for THB, dense chocolate cake for DB (too intense to finish, even with THB helping). Order and drink half a bottle of French sauvignon blanc, the other half saved for tomorrow night $50/bottle.

One other couple dining at same time as us (between 6:15 and 7:30)

Note: how dim is the dining room? they bring small flashlights with the menus.  

In fact, THB is just going on with more pics:

First stop of the day: a local monastery

Tashi leads the way downhill to the town of  Phobjikha, about 90 minutes worth; comfortable weather, cool to warm; and enough to see to keep us entertained even if the "forest" is fairly dull

Barberries (a rare seasoning that THB has used a few times in Mediterranean dishes 

the GG Lodge looking back up the valley; our room is on the 2nd floor on the far left of the building on left

Lichen

Hey, it's ivy just like we get at home

One way to cross a marsh

the stream is clear enough you can see the trash on the bottom

Utility box, same-same as before

Our snack

Just outside the black-necked crane conservation station

The tire is soft, sitting on the bench is an odd experience until reaching equilibrium

Tashi in front of an unnamed hotel where we get a 7 dish "set" menu

It's after one, the place is just us, no other customers

The local specialty, potatoes; potatoes are easily the top produce grown around here. Best dish: lightly cooked broccoli. 

THB and DB try to explain to Tashi that this is not-so-fondly-remembered food from our childhood

How to snooker the tourists: slip a 200 rupee note into your change instead of the local currency, the nu. Turns out the nu is tied to the rupee and a 1 nu = 1 rupee, so THB wasn't snookered (they play a lot of snooker here, who knew?). And there are Bhutanese who go to India frequently on buying trips and Indians won't take nus, plus the stuff for sale is cheaper in India than Bhutan, so this 200 rupee note is actually sought after here. Not snookered, given a bit of boost...ah, the mysterious East.