Around South Asia: Part Three
In which I explored the capital city
04.11.2025: Tour Day2, City1
Good morning from Thimphu! I woke up at 06:30am, got ready and had paratha breakfast at 08:30am with Shilpa and Shradha, Pooja and Sapana Guled. No luggage hassle today. The bus started at 9am and we drove towards the Buddha Point. The bus dropped us at the entrance gate at 09:45am.
Buddha Dordema Statue
Perched at an altitude of 8200ft on Kuenselphodrang, the Shakyamuni Buddha is one of the tallest sitting statues in the world. It’s a bronze statue gilded in gold, built to commemorate the 60th birth anniversary of Bhutan’s fourth king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck. We climbed a floor to reach the open area around the statue. There were tall statues pillared on the whole area.
There was a long table of offerings to the main statue. We climbed a floor again to go inside the assembly hall. There are 125k miniature buddhas spread across the hall. The repetition of Buddha images reflects the boundless nature of compassion and wisdom. The center of the hall holds the main deity Shakyamuni Buddha. The Kuenselphodrang complex hosted the Jabzhi Dhoechog ritual dedicated to removal of negativity, as a part of the Global Peace Festival.
We celebrated the birthday of Asmita Chavan, with Kitkat for her and munch for all of us.
We spent time in this complex till 11:30am and then drove towards the next sightseeing in 15mins.
Simply Bhutan
It is an interactive living museum offering an immersive experience of Bhutanese culture and daily life. We were welcomed in the first room with the arra shots (local rice spirit). The room depicted wooden artwork. Next section included a traditional dance which is performed before laying the foundation of houses.
Our guide then elaborated on the musical instruments and also played the birthday song on cimbalom. She explained on the Divine Madman and the phallus garden.
We would be visiting the fertility temple on this tour. More on this in coming post. We entered the kitchen displaying the wooden vessels, couple bowls, butter container sippa, etc.
The entrance doors of houses display corn and chillis hangings. We saw an artist carving the wood with his legs. There was a shop of souvenirs. We attended the show at 12:30pm in which two Bhutanese songs were performed and guests could join in the third song. The audience was welcomed with butter tea and rice dish. Each table had a dried rice bamboo bowl, which tasted good.
Post the show, we passed by the doors and prayer wheels for archery section. It’s the national sport of Bhutan.
All of us tried our luck with bow and arrows and some did hit the target. There was a smaller buddha statue in the vicinity of the archery ground.
We left the venue at 1pm and drove towards the next sightseeing in 15mins.
Royal Takin Preserve
It is a wildlife sanctuary in the Motithang district, dedicated to preserve the takin, bhutan’s national animal. Folklore say that the Divine Madman ate a cow and goat, kept the skeleton of cow’s body with goat’s skull, performed a magic and takin was created. We walked uphill to reach the sanctuary. Tenzing briefed us on the story. We had 30mins to explore the area.
I watched a herd of takins grazing and few reindeers. The environment was quiet and cool. Even then I had a severe headache. We were back to bus by quarter to 2pm and drove to our lunch restaurant Lemontree located near Changlimithang ground. As I mentioned yesterday, the Global Peace Festival was in full swing with chants going in the air. I had lunch after 2pm, my favorite noodles and gulaab jamun.
Post lunch we were given free time till 4pm for shopping. I started strolling around the Clock Tower Square with Soniya and Pranali.
The sun was shining too much so I joined Roopali, Ashwini, Divya sitting on the podium. Then we started window shopping across the lane. I joined Shilpa and Shradha for the Korean shop. I get bored with the shopping thing. Finally, we drove towards the next sightseeing at 04:30pm.
National Library & Archives
Established under the patronage of Her Majesty Ashi Phuntso Choden, the library is housed in traditional Bhutanese style building. It contains ancient manuscripts, woodblock prints, and religious texts written in Dzongkha (local language) and Tibetan. We were given time to explore only the ground floor. The library has the copy of worlds largest published book on Bhutan.
We were back to hotel by 05:30pm and had momos with tea.
Pravin briefed on tomorrow’s program and about river rafting.
I had dinner at 8pm with Soniya, strolled around the hotel for a while and then went to our room. I got the bag ready for tomorrow and dozed off. People say room-mates do not matter; you just have to share a night. I say it matters a lot for your mental health on tour. We cut a slice of time from our busy lives for a tour and expect the time to be peaceful. Setting boundaries is what matters. I have been grateful to God so far for 5 out of 7 good roommate experiences. From the 2 not so good experience, I learnt how to respond than react.
