Druk Yul: Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon

D managed to sneak in a short break from his work in India and take a cultural tour of Druk Yul: Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon aka Bhutan.

While he has offered to do a guest post about his experiences one of these days, I am not holding my breath, considering the 10,000 things he has lined up that are much higher priority for him :)


Not being much of a souvenirs person himself, I had to specifically ask him to get back something for those of us who wished we were there but weren't. Kids got a simple and practical T-shirt each, a size bigger so they can grow into it.

D got himself a traditional Bhutanese outfit, Gho, which he loved modeling for us but was reluctant to be pictured in.

I could be persuasive at times, as long as I have justifiable reasons and D is in a reasonable mood :)

It seems comfortable, has a belt and socks to go with it. When going to dzongs and such, apparently a sash is worn over the outfit, the color of the sash determines one's station in society.

Knowing my eagerness for experimenting and my unbridled passion for World Cuisine, he usually comes back from trips with cookbooks loaded with local flavors. I find that quite thoughtful and sweet.

Traditional Bhutanese Food Fair cookbook featuring recipes from various regions of the kingdom, plus a Nepalese cookbook featuring simple recipes from the neighboring country are my newest. And, am already excited about Ema Datsi turning out alright.

And, knowing my love for "artsy stuff" as he puts it, I got some stamps, handmade paper notepads, handmade paper notecards with pressed flowers and such, plus a short video that he managed to shoot that demonstrates how the handmade paper was made - De zo (Paper Making).



That is not all. Oh no, that is not all. While the kids got the well-recognized symbol of dragon in their tees, D decided that would be too blasé and would not aptly suit his wife... and, when he handed me this tee, I just burst out laughing, it was just too cute. While I am usually quite reserved, compared to D I am practically a chatterbox.



He visited Paro and Thimpu, and was particularly thrilled about going to the Tiger's Nest/Lair, which was a distant dream last year when he showed it to me on the web and suggested how wonderful it would be to build something like that for our home, while the practical moi sat there thinking, hmmm... would be lovely view but what about the hike each way to get supplies and take kids to school...



He visited many Dzongs, spun many prayer wheels, explored the Folk Heritage Museum in Thimpu, saw masks being carved, hand-made paper being made, and generally spent the few short days absorbing the local culture and foods as best as possible with a wonderful and friendly guide, Chhimi, who presented his country with quiet dignity.



In addition to the exotic images above, the ones that got my heart racing were the pictures of the Centenary Farmer's Market in Thimpu where villagers from the valley and other nearby places come to sell their agricultural products.



The Institute of Zorig Chusum, of 13 Traditional Arts & Crafts seemed like an interesting place. Images/videos of masks being carved, quilting/embroidery in progress, paper-making, weaving and ornament-making were quite fascinating to see.



Tashichhoedzong, "Fortress of the glorious religion" houses the throne room of His Majesty the King. The imposing 2-story Buddha statue was quite a sight, in the photos at least. Apparently, there was an Archery competition that D managed to see during his short visit, with the King's brother being in the audience.



Ooh, and the Takin Reserve... (more about it soon)
The story behind the Takin, Bhutan's national animal, was interesting.

According to legend, when the great saint Lama Drukpa Kunley (called "the divine madman") visited Bhutan in the 15th century, a large congregation of devotees gathered around the country to witness his magical powers. The people urged the lama to perform a miracle. However, the saint, in his usual unorthodox and outrageous way, demanded that he first be served a whole cow and a goat for lunch. He devoured these with relish and left only bones. After letting out a large and satisfied burp, he took the goat's head and stuck it onto the bones of the cow. And then with a snap of his fingers, he commanded the strange beast to rise up and graze on the mountainside. To the astonishment of the people the animal arose and ran up to the meadows to graze. This animal came to be known as the dong gyem tsey (takin) and to this day, these animals can be seen grazing on the mountainsides of Bhutan...-- Wikipedia

Takin Reserve...



While I couldn't be there, I guess the images and stories D brought back makes me feel like I took the tour myself.

I know many would scoff at the stereotypical tourist seeing everything through camera lens instead of enjoying it straight-up, but, I say Bah! to them... 'coz, if D had not taken the trouble to capture the sights through his unique perspective, I would have missed out on what, to me, at this point, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity...

Read more...

Two Weeks in Alpine Europe Part V: Rhine Valley

Google Map of our recent vacation

(Continued from previous post...)

Part five in this series covers our brief vacation in Rhine Valley, and the visit to Berlin. We stayed with my friend A in Berlin, and with my aunt in Darmstadt.

DAY 8: Woke up and relaxed in Darmstadt at my aunt's house in the morning. We got back from Switzerland and returned the rental car the previous night, so, we decided to take the ICE train (Inter City Express) from Frankfurt to Berlin.

I was impressed with the train systems and the train stations in Germany, and throughout Europe. And, Berlin Hauptbahnhof was huge - quite like an airport with shops and such.

Arrived in Berlin about dinner time. A, my friend, (we were room-mates and became good friends at the International House in Indianapolis, about 10 years ago), greeted us at the station and took us to her home. She presented us a nice warm meal of Spargel and potatoes. Ana seemed to take to the place well - she went into A's kids' room and made herself at home!! Helped herself to their toys and generally shoo-ed me and D away so she can play in peace!

DAY 9: Went to the Berlin Zoo to visit Knut, among other residents... Ana was not too thrilled, and somehow circumstances arranged themselves to force me and Ana to take it easy... so, D went around town on his own.

DAY 10: Ana and I had to back out of the adventure, so D went about exploring Berlin to his heart's content. I had already visited the usual spots like Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, Unter din Linden, Victory Tower, Alexander Platz, Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag and such about 8 or 9 years ago. I found the modernization of Berlin pretty interesting. The street names have of course changed since I was there last...

D being camera-phobic, he did not get *any* picture of his tour of Berlin. I just managed a few at the Zoo and that's about all we clicked of Berlin this time.

DAY 11: Bid adieu to A and her lovely family, The Erdmanns, hopped on the IC this time (not the ICE) and headed back to Darmstadt.

Baby hated the train ride up and down. She did not want to stay put. She took a short hour-long nap on the 4+ hrs ride. I had a few mini puzzles, her dolls and two little pixi-series German baby books (Drachenfrühstück and Der Klein Eisbär) handy, but after about 20 reads, she wanted something more.

It was quite challenging to travel this leg with Ana in a restless and cranky mood. I don't blame her though. She was uprooted, without much warning, from her usual daycare routine and shunted around for nearly 10 days not seeing anything familiar and comforting except her mommy and daddy... but, she was pretty good overall.

Arrived around tea time at Darmstadt and relaxed at my aunt's house. Then, headed out to Darmstadt's own Schloß-graben Fest. It was a fun fest, with lots of music, eats, drinks and shops.

DAY 12: Decided to make a day trip to the Rhine Valley. Took the train from Darmstadt to Mainz and switched trains to get to Bingen. We took the boat ride (castle tour) and got off at Rudesheim to explore this quaint wine town.

Rüdesheim was incredibly pretty with all the vineyards. We took the kabinenbahn (cabin rope-car) to the top. Relaxed a bit. Baby was extremely tired and napping tight, so we just let her sleep in her stroller and walked around to see all that we wanted to see.

We had lunch and late-afternoon tea in Rüdesheim. Lunch was alright, not spectacular, D as usual tried some local delicacies recommended by our waitress. I opted to share vegetarisch Brazilian beans and rice with Baby (tut-tut indeed! where is my adventurous spirit regarding trying new foods?!)

We finally bade good-bye to the beautiful Rhine Valley and hopped trains to get back to Darmstadt and pack for the flight back home the next day.

One day of flying out, one day of flying back home, plus 12 days visiting beautiful places makes a memorable Two Weeks Vacation we never thought we'd be able to pull off with a toddler in tow :-)

Two Weeks in Alpine Europe Part IV: Switzerland

Google Map of our recent vacation

(Continued from previous post...)

Part four in this post covers our brief vacation in Switzerland. We stayed in Interlaken and made day trips to places of interest. We decided to find parks and fun activities for Baby as well.

DAY 5: Evening: We headed out of Schaan, Liechtenstein, and drove to Interlaken and checked into a fairly cheap hostel on Hauptstrasse that has private rooms for groups. Rested the night and decided to explore the Berner Oberland region.



DAY 6: Went to Grindelwald, walked around and enjoyed the scenery, the cows, the rolling hills, the not-so-far-off Alps.

Then, we headed over to Lauterbrunnen. Walked around drinking in the beauty of the region, the Lauterbrunnen church, the waterfalls... then rode the bus to Trümmelbach falls.



The glacial water melts and flows from mountain peaks, crashing through rocks and carving its path downward at the Trummelbach Falls. We took a tunnel lift (like miners used) up and into the mountain, and followed the waterfall on its roaring and powerful journey down. There are man-made tunnels and pathways to view the falls, and some strategic lights help realize their awesome force. Baby seemed to love this even though initially I feared she might get terrified by all the noise and force of the waterfalls. And she wanted to ride again in the tunnel lift!

We had a simple lunch of pretzels, bread, cheese, apricot cake, danish and some coffee. Then decided to let Baby have some fun at a nearby park. She loved the wooden horses, the tree house, the swings and didn't want to get back in the car to drive back to Interlaken.

We made a conscious decision of not taking the Jungfraubahn up to JungfrauJoch - The Top of Europe, with all its tourist attractions. The train ticket price was way more than we had budgeted :-(

It is impossible to do justice to the stunning beauty of the Lauterbrunnen valley using mere words and pictures... the U-shaped valley is apparently the world’s deepest with about 70 waterfalls, it is simply spectacular.

Next time (whenever that is), D and I decided we would stay in Lauterbrunnen rather than Interlaken or Grindelwald and explore the Berner Oberland at a more leisurely pace, chatting with cows, sampling local cheese and such. Most of these areas are car-free but allow parking near train stations so one can get around fine. And, next time, we are going to visit off-season when the prices are dramatically lower compared to the summer prices we saw!

We reluctantly waved good-bye to the Lauterbrunnen valley and went over to Lake Thun. It was gorgeous and serene, reminded me of Slocan Valley in B.C., Canada. We let Baby loose at a kids' play area, full of kids of all ages squealing and having fun. Had some coffee and rested a bit enjoying the scenery while Baby played on.

As it was getting close to dinner time, we headed back to our hostel in Interlaken. Freshend up and walked across on Hauptstrasse to get some dinner. I had Swiss Rösti and D had some local dish (the name eludes me now) and baby had some pomme frites type kids' meal.

Then we walked around town a bit and hit the sack wonderfully exhausted.

DAY 7: I went out to window shop and ended up getting some little souvenirs, couldn't resist - how can I not get cowbell souvenirs from Switzerland??! Anyway, then, we were curious about the Mystery Spot and wanted to check it out, but, as we got closer, it was clearly closed and under construction, so, Mystery Spot shall remain a mystery for us.

Then, we headed to the beautiful city of Bern. We hit the city right about lunch time, so parked the car in Old Town and walked on Kramgasse, featuring many "Baroque façades stuck on to the medieval arcaded buildings early in the eighteenth century", as the brochures describe it.

At no. 49, Kramgasse, was the Einstein House, "the apartment and workplace of the famous scientist, who developed his Theory of Relativity in 1905 while working in the Bern Patent Office, having graduated fom the Zürich Institute of Technology a few years before", as the brochures eloquently put it.

Kramgasse has many fancy and beautiful fountains, and an armored bear holding the standard of the city’s founder, Berchtold von Zähringen (dating from 1535). We got some late lunch and coffee... it was getting close to tea time when we decided to head back to Darmstadt as the car was due back at the rental by 8p.m or so that evening.


On our way to Darmstadt from Bern, we stopped at this rest stop. Now, rest stops are rest stops, right? Wrong! Not this one. It had plush bathroom, wonderful art on the wall, large buffet/salad bar type food place, a terrace to sit out and have some drinks... plus, here's what I really appreciated: a gorgeous, roomy, well-kept changing station for Baby. It had a wide "table" along the wall, plush with a soft bed, and a cuddly alligator toy, with of course the mandatory sanitary paper roll to place over the bed, and some diapers, wipes etc. (Of course, I am too picky so I use my own for my baby...) And the rest stop also had a little pet food and water set out at the entrance!

We reached Darmstadt on time to return the car and spend the night at my aunt's before heading out for the next leg of our vacation.

(To be continued...)

Two Weeks in Alpine Europe Part III: Neuschwanstein and Schaan

Google Map of our recent vacation

(Continued from previous post...)

DAY 5: Waved good-bye to beautiful Mösern and hit the road towards Neuschwanstein Scloß.

Being in the neighborhood, we didn't want to miss this big tourist attraction so we took the castle tour, had some food, gave Baby a breather and let her play in the park there.



We decided to take this day easy as we had done a lot the previous day. From Neuschwanstein we wanted to head straight to Switzerland, but, couldn't help stopping by Liechtenstein. As we were passing through anyway and it was just about tea time, we ausgang-ed into Schaan from the Autobahn.

It was either Vaduz or Schaan and we just happened to go to Schaan and as our luck would have it there was some sort of street fest there. Baby had fun meeting new friends there, listening to live music, and playing while we sipped some beer/coffee and snacked on some local delicacies (can't remember the names now, though)...

If only baby was a bit older, she would have made a bunch of penpals - even from Liechtenstein, a fairly small doubly landlocked Alpine country!

We spent a lot of time just catching our breath and enjoying the weather and mingling in Schaan that we almost lost track of time. We were still pretty far away from our destination for the night: Interlaken, Switzerland.

(To be continued...)

Two Weeks In Alpine Europe Part II: Austria

Google Map of our recent vacation

(Continued from previous post...)

Our next destination was the Karwendel range of the Alps spanning Austrian Tyrol and Bavaria, wedged between the Seefeld valley, the Isar valley, the Achensee and the Inn valley. Many of the peaks can be reached by fairly good paths, and the more difficult ones are marked as well, for the adventurous ones traveling without a baby in tow:-)



We were in and out of Austria and Germany while covering this region. The area was incredibly pretty, the weather was perfectly sunny and warm (at least at the valley, was pretty cold at the top at about 2500+ m).

DAY 3: Evening, head out to Seefeld, in the federal state of Tyrol, Austria, destination: Mösern.

Arrived around seven at Mösererhof lodge, settled in and headed out to walk around the town and find a place to sample local food.

Habhof Restaurant was close to Mösererhof and the waiter was very friendly even though we barely spoke German. D and I brushed up our German enough to ask for little things though, and they seemed to appreciate that. Plus a handy English-German/German-English dictionary is invaluable in such small towns :-) And, to our advantage, my aunt, a German resident living and working in Germany, graciously accompanied us, so, we managed just fine...

Habhof menu was good, we had some interesting spread. Bärlauch, (Ramsons) one of the special herbs of the region was in season. We tasted it in a simple potato soup which we had as a starter - even Baby liked a lot.

We had some dinner and headed back to the lodge to get some restful sleep.

DAY 4: Had breakfast at Mösererhof, then headed out early to take the Karwendelbahn rope-car to the top, walked in the 500m tunnel to the Dammkar area, saw some enthusiastic skiers taking off on the longest ski run in Germany.

Got back down and headed out to Leutasch, Tyrol in the Seefeld valley, Austria, to the LeutaschKlamm (Gorge), to take the Spirit of the Gorge trail.

Unfortunately, my camera batteries gave up and i didn't have new ones handy (nor did i get a chance to recharge the other set of batteries I had); so I couldn't get pictures of this "scary" walk - but the pictures in this link shows the trail we walked on - on the lead was Ana squealing with delight and running ahead while her altitude-phobic vertigo-prone mom was clutching the rails and crawling along just to see what all the fuss was about:-)



It was gorgeous! The narrow bridge across the klamm (gorge) froze me on my tracks for a bit - reminded me of Indiana Jones' Leap of Faith in The Last Crusade, but, I made it :-)

Then, we drove back to Mittenwald to pause for a simple lunch of bread, cheese, danish, pretzels, ice cream and coffee.

From Mittenwald, we decided to check out Swarovski Kristalwelten in Wattens. I am not a jewellery-enthusiast and I didn't own a single Swarovski crystal until then. My skeptical mind was tamed by the beauty of the place both inside and outside, more outside than inside. As this site explains, it is not a tour of the factory, but more a gallery for exhibiting artists' works. Thankfully we had Baby's stroller and she blissfully slept through this Swarovski Kristalwelten tour, and woke up just in time to play in the park outside while I looked for some stimulating and restorative caffeine...

They have a store as well, of course, and much to Baby and D's impatience, I *had* to stop in and look. D ended up buying just a small token gift for me priced at less than two fancy coffees, and looks incredibly elegant and simple, just my style ;-)

Then, we drove to Innsbruck and decided to just explore the town a bit, getting as close to Zentrum as possible. Found a parking spot about 4 tram stops away from Old Town Central Square, right next to a Bang & Olufsen store!

We hopped on a tram to explore the Old Town and to find some supplies for the night as we didn't feel like splurging on a restaurant meal again. Spotted Sillpark and found an Interspar there and got some bread and local cheese and beer, some fruits and yogurt for the Baby and headed back to Mösererhof Lodge to rest for the night.

DAY 5: Waved good-bye to beautiful Mösern and hit the road towards Neuschwanstein Schloß.

(To be continued...)

Two Weeks In Alpine Europe Part I: Bavaria

Google Map of our recent vacation

This post is Part 1 of four (or five) that I want to write to jot down the highlights of our recent vacation. After recording just the top level details, I hope to post my impressions on and off separately. Click on the map above to check out the google map of the spots we explored in this trip.

DAY 1: Arrive in Franfurt, pick up the fully computerized BMW with a GPS navigation system (more on the car in a later post), drive to Darmstadt and relax at aunt's home. Have dinner, and head out to downtown Darmstadt to get some supplies for the road trip.

DAY 2: Head out south towards Blackforest region, Bavaria. Pass through Gunzburg to visit Legoland (which was unfortunately closed, even though their website claimed it is open).

Stopped at around Augsburg to let baby out for some fresh air and to stretch our legs. Continued on to Dasing. Stopped at Dasing, got some coffee, some food. Baby met some boisterous goats and some sweet and shy bunnies near the Baumarkt. Had a lot of fun.

Drove along further to Herrsching am Ammersee. Took the ferry ride on Lake Ammersee. Baby had her own little steering wheel to "drive" the boat and made a friend on the boat. After a relaxing boat ride, stopped to have wonderful ice cream with interesting fruit liqueurs; Baby had a mickey mouse ice cream with no sugar added - it was on the kids menu.



Drove further on to Seefeld, Bavaria to visit with The Schneiders family, stay the night and enjoy their hospitality.

Vacation Part I: Bavaria

DAY 3: Being Father's Day and a public holiday, The Schneiders' family were gracious enough to have Ana home while D and I took the S-bahn to Munich.

It was a rainy day. We headed straight to the Deutsches Museum. Spent about 4 hours at the Museum seeing various sections, but, I particularly enjoyed the musical instruments section. Just outside the museum was the Space Walk thing - a giant round cage on a long arm-of-sorts - you climb in and walk and keep walking - the cage rotates and you go up and around - hard to describe - but I wisely stayed back and let D try it :-)

Then, we walked over to the Ratskeller at Marienplatz for some Bavarian lunch. D tried the 7 Schnapps Wursts and I tried the Schweiz Rösti. He had the fairly strong MaiBock and I had the "ladies size" Wheat beer. I really liked the MaiBock though...

A visit to Munich is not complete for D without stopping at the Hofbrauhaus... he wanted to be in Munich for the Oktoberfest, but, maybe next year...

Now, I really wanted to get a dirndl for baby and me, but, they were so darn expensive I just had to take a deep breath and walk away... but, we did end up getting a doll wearing a traditional-looking drindl. We named her Olga (i know... how original?! ) and she became baby's new friend, along with a lederhosen-clad yodelling teddy bear we christened Martin. Baby loved undressing Olga and have me dress her back again :-)




Then, we waved good-bye to The Schneiders, and proceeded from Seefeld, Bavaria to Seefeld, Tyrol, Austria, destination: Mösern
(To be continued...)

The Land of Rajas, Sultans, Sadhus and Fakirs

One of two silver water pots in City Palace, Jaipur, India.

My little 5-year-old desktop keeps complaining about low disk space the rate at which I've been adding digital photos.

It has enough disk space, D insists.

But how much is enough, really?

I run the Disk Cleanup; I empty the Recycle Bin; I zip my files; I put them on portable media; I upload them to photo sharing sites; I use Firefox; Knowing D uses IE, I delete the Temporary Internet files...

Anyway, in an attempt to "clean-up" my junk from the desktop, I was sorting through my photos and came across some that I had almost forgotten about: photos from our trip to India last year.



Jaipur-Agra trip 2006

It has been a year since we took that vacation.

I am longing for another trip. There are so many corners of India we have not explored yet.

But, we want to go somewhere we've never been to before. I am not sure we can afford it; but, I am definitely getting the itch to travel again... to get away.

We are quite a few months away from taking a vacation - deadlines to meet at work and such. But, just thinking about the wide open world for us to explore makes me giddy, like a schoolgirl :)