4/23 -- Drive to Bhutan

The first hour was driving east through Darjeeling again, and then more mountain roads with a waterfall here and there. We made a pitstop at a local market and I bought some spicy chili powder for 15 cents. I am eager to try it at home, but I think I will start small.... We got rained on, but fortunately, we were in the bus. Unfortunately, it made photography from the bus pretty worthless. When we got to the Coronation  Bridge (started in 1937 in honor of an English king), we got out and walked across it.  There were monkeys around and we were advised to be mindful of our possessions, but the monkeys were not at all aggressive. They have learned to line the roads however, because so many people feed them.

The only cemetary we saw any where.

Local market

Coronation Bridge

Hopeful Macaque

Stylized Tiger statue that looked like dragon.

Realistic tiger statue on the other side

We reached the low lands and the road straightened out considerably. We stopped for lunch at a stylish restaurant with lovely gardens and had a chance to walk around them before getting back on the bus. Jim found a bunch of odd-looking flowers that had apparently fallen off a tree, but we could see no flowers left on the tree to verify.

Interesting tree flower -- no idea what tree, but it reminded me
of Australian varieties.

In the gardens at the restaurant: Chimi, our trip leader; Enup,
the guide for India and Sikkim; Sujay, a logistics person who
came along to assess how the tour went and if tweaks were
needed. This tour is new this year and this was only the 4th one.

Finally, we arrived in Phuentsholing on the border. Crossing out of India took an hour  because we were behind another group entering, there was only one clerk, and the computers were down so everything had to be done by hand. Chimi encouraged us to walk across the border instead of riding, and we did.  As soon as we arrived on the Bhutan side, the difference was dramatic. The volume of traffic and people dwindled, traffic police yelled at you for trying to cross a street outside of a crosswalk, and cars actually STOPPED when you stepped into a crosswalk.

Entry gate to Bhutan. Very typical of the architecture we
saw everywhere.

We walked around a bit, past an important temple, Zangtho Pelri Lhakhang, which was under construction so we could not go in. We drove about 3 miles out of town to our hotel which is quite new and maybe not ready for prime time as most of us were unable to get hot water, and the room wifi had been turned off. It looked very palatial though, and the bed was softer than anything in India resulting in our best night's sleep on the trip.

Temple

Sunset

Our palatial hotel room. Unfortunately, it looked better than
if worked: Wifi needed to be rebooted, there was no hot
water, and the electric plugs seemed child-proof by default
and nearly Lynn-proof as well.