As you all might be wondering from the title, 3 days is definitely not enough to completely explore this wonderful Himalayan Nation. I preferred to keep this trip short because of two reasons,
1. I did not have enough leaves
2. I was traveling with one year old baby, so having a long trip will be tiresome.
1. Bhutan is also called as Carbon Sink of the world- As it is the only nation which absorbs more carbon than it emits.
2. Bhutan believes in sustainable development. Bhutan has made constitutional amendments back in 1980s itself - long before the nations started to discuss about climate change.
3. Sustainable development - even if it means forgoing economic developmental opportunities. Bhutan is the only country that measures its progress through Gross National Happiness - Just like other countries measures its economic progress through GDP.
I could not resist more when I saw various airlines announcing Monsoon sale offers. I could travel from Chennai to Kolkata with just Rs.1000! I planned for a solo trip at first, but my parents were very desperate to visit a foreign nation having acquired a passport 6 months before (Anyways you dont need to have a passport to visit this beautiful country :P - Applicable only to citizens of SAARC nations)
Since it is a family trip, I had booked a cozy 2 Tier AC train ticket for travel from Sealdah to Hasimara. Hasimara is the available railway station to Bhutan border. Border town of Jaigon(India) and Pheuntsholing (Bhutan) was roughly around 20 Kms from here.
For return journey, I dont want it to be as lengthier as the onward trip. So I booked a flight from Bagdogra Airport (200Km from the border town) to Chennai, to avoid the 15 hrs train journey to reach Kolkata.
Unlike India, you cant find all hotels listings online. Bhutan is slightly underdeveloped than India and they started to adopt TV Internet only after 2000. Very few hotel listing that I managed to find online through travel websites are only expensive >3start hotels in Bhutan, costing around Rs.5000/ Night. Less expensive hotels are not listed in most of the travel websites. However, you can find all prominent hotels in the website www.bhutanhotels.bt and communicate through mail to confirm your booking.
What I did is contacted a Travels office in India, and asked them to book rooms appropriately along with booking their cab for trip.
Cab - Innova 6 seater - Rs.3200/day
Room @ Thimpu - Rs. 1200/day
I got a feeling that the taxi guy over charged us, as initially he quoted Rs.3000/day thinking that the trip was for more than 5 days. As the trip was brief, he charged us Rs.200 extra per day.
All set - two way flight tickets, onward train tickets, Taxi and Hotel rooms - Its time to enjoy the Land of Thunder Dragon
Why Thunder Dragon? - Even I am not pretty sure. But from what I can get from online source - It is one of the place in Himalayan range that receives thundering heavy rain. If this is the case, then I should say that I had taken a huge risk of visiting The Land of Thunder Dragon while it was thundering with immense rain. It was raining heavily such that even the Bhutan officer at the Bhutan Immigration office said "You are traveling at the wrong time.. Travel at your own risk" before approving my permit. Those works kept thundering at the back of my head during entire span of my 3 days stay in Bhutan.
Meandering through Kolkata was not so easy task with lots of people criss crossing the road, No wonder this part of the world is one of the densely populate. A simple travel from Sealdah railway station to Howrah railway station took around 1hr and 15 min to cover a distance of only 4kms.
We boarded our train at 8:30PM Kolkata and it had started raining incessaantly. It started at night of 10th August at Kolkata and it continued along with us till Bhutan till 12th August afternoon.
Our confortable train journey ended at Hasimara at 12:30 PM next day, delayed by 2hrs. Our taxi guy picked us at Hasimara.
Taxi Driver himself took care of filling the forms submitting it at the immigration office. All you need to carry for Permit into Bhutan is,
1. Passport/Voter ID - Original and Xerox
2. Passport size photo - 2
It took around 1hr for us at immigration office as it was not crowded and the counter was readily available.
Travel from Jaigon/Pheuntsholing to Thimpu is just 150Kms but it takes more than 5hrs to reach. Also, travel to Thimpu can be gruelling and tiresome as it is in mountainous terrain. Travel can cause nausea sensation, so I advise everyone to be ready for that.
We left Pheuntsholing after all the formalities at 4:30PM and we reached Thimpu only at 10:15PM. We stayed at Hotel Dechen in Thimpu booked by our Taxi drive. Hotel room was decent and good enough for a family stay.
1. I did not have enough leaves
2. I was traveling with one year old baby, so having a long trip will be tiresome.
How it all started?
I had recently been to Srilanka and wanted to visit Bhutan ever since. I read a lot of fascinating stories and facts about Bhutan which tempted me more to visit this place,1. Bhutan is also called as Carbon Sink of the world- As it is the only nation which absorbs more carbon than it emits.
2. Bhutan believes in sustainable development. Bhutan has made constitutional amendments back in 1980s itself - long before the nations started to discuss about climate change.
3. Sustainable development - even if it means forgoing economic developmental opportunities. Bhutan is the only country that measures its progress through Gross National Happiness - Just like other countries measures its economic progress through GDP.
Planning for Trip - Advance arrangements
Since it is a family trip, I had booked a cozy 2 Tier AC train ticket for travel from Sealdah to Hasimara. Hasimara is the available railway station to Bhutan border. Border town of Jaigon(India) and Pheuntsholing (Bhutan) was roughly around 20 Kms from here.
For return journey, I dont want it to be as lengthier as the onward trip. So I booked a flight from Bagdogra Airport (200Km from the border town) to Chennai, to avoid the 15 hrs train journey to reach Kolkata.
Unlike India, you cant find all hotels listings online. Bhutan is slightly underdeveloped than India and they started to adopt TV Internet only after 2000. Very few hotel listing that I managed to find online through travel websites are only expensive >3start hotels in Bhutan, costing around Rs.5000/ Night. Less expensive hotels are not listed in most of the travel websites. However, you can find all prominent hotels in the website www.bhutanhotels.bt and communicate through mail to confirm your booking.
What I did is contacted a Travels office in India, and asked them to book rooms appropriately along with booking their cab for trip.
Cab - Innova 6 seater - Rs.3200/day
Room @ Thimpu - Rs. 1200/day
I got a feeling that the taxi guy over charged us, as initially he quoted Rs.3000/day thinking that the trip was for more than 5 days. As the trip was brief, he charged us Rs.200 extra per day.
Traveling to Bhutan
Why Thunder Dragon? - Even I am not pretty sure. But from what I can get from online source - It is one of the place in Himalayan range that receives thundering heavy rain. If this is the case, then I should say that I had taken a huge risk of visiting The Land of Thunder Dragon while it was thundering with immense rain. It was raining heavily such that even the Bhutan officer at the Bhutan Immigration office said "You are traveling at the wrong time.. Travel at your own risk" before approving my permit. Those works kept thundering at the back of my head during entire span of my 3 days stay in Bhutan.
Meandering through Kolkata was not so easy task with lots of people criss crossing the road, No wonder this part of the world is one of the densely populate. A simple travel from Sealdah railway station to Howrah railway station took around 1hr and 15 min to cover a distance of only 4kms.
We boarded our train at 8:30PM Kolkata and it had started raining incessaantly. It started at night of 10th August at Kolkata and it continued along with us till Bhutan till 12th August afternoon.
Our confortable train journey ended at Hasimara at 12:30 PM next day, delayed by 2hrs. Our taxi guy picked us at Hasimara.
Taxi Driver himself took care of filling the forms submitting it at the immigration office. All you need to carry for Permit into Bhutan is,
1. Passport/Voter ID - Original and Xerox
2. Passport size photo - 2
It took around 1hr for us at immigration office as it was not crowded and the counter was readily available.
Travel from Jaigon/Pheuntsholing to Thimpu is just 150Kms but it takes more than 5hrs to reach. Also, travel to Thimpu can be gruelling and tiresome as it is in mountainous terrain. Travel can cause nausea sensation, so I advise everyone to be ready for that.
We left Pheuntsholing after all the formalities at 4:30PM and we reached Thimpu only at 10:15PM. We stayed at Hotel Dechen in Thimpu booked by our Taxi drive. Hotel room was decent and good enough for a family stay.
Sightseeing inside Bhutan
Unlike other tourist destination, there is not much commercial attractions in Bhutan, and that is the speciality of this country. We have visited just two places in span of 3 days - Thimpu and Paro.
Return Journey
We started early at 2PM from Part to reach Jaigon, because of possible delays due to landslides. We reached Jaigon at 8:00PM delayed by 45mins because of landslides in couple of places. After overnight stay at Jaigon, we started at 9AM from Jaigon to reach Bagdogra Airport at 2PM, well in advance for our flight to Chennai at 4PM.
We also witnessed Bangladesh border with India enroute to Bagdogra airport. It is just few Km away from Siliguri.
