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Ride Across Bhutan.
Nov. 12-26, 2000. Bhutan.

On December 2, 2000, I returned to the USA from my incredible cycling adventure in Bhutan and Thailand. I left the USA on November 8th and arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal, about midday on December 10th. My trip from Los Angeles to Kathmandu was aboard Thai Airlines and that was very enjoyable considering the length of the flight and being in coach. They pamper you and give you excellent service.

I had gone to Kathmandu to connect with my son, Brent, who was spending a semester overseas in Nepal but it turned out that he was on a trek in the mountains when I arrived so we missed connections. Kathmandu is extremely poluted and there is a very high rate of poverty in the city. Other than that it is an extremely vibrant and busy place with thousands of shops, restaurants, bars and street hustlers selling everything one might desire. I met my friend Kristen Dietter at the Malla Hotel which was a five star hotel on the edge of the Thamel district. She was with the guides from a river trip that she had just completed on the Karnali River in Western Nepal. Enjoyed some great food and company with this group for the couple of nights that we remained in Kathmandu. Spent one day touring the Buddhist and Hindu temples of the Kathmandu area, a very worthwhile experience.

On Monday morning, November 13th, Kristen and I went to the Kathmandu airport to catch the Durk Airlines flight to Paro, Bhutan, where we would meet the rest of our cycling group and begin our pedaling journey across Bhutan. Durk is the national airline of Bhutan and at present they have only one jet that holds 70 passengers and has four jet engines. Once we arrived in Paro I understood why the small jet needed so many engines. The Paro airport, which is the only airport in Bhutan, is in a valley surrounded by very high mountains and they obviously need the extra power to successfully take off from there. Our travel group consisted of seven British, two Canadians, and three Americans plus the British guide and the Bhutanese guide and drivers. We cleared customs and loaded our bikes and luggage on top of a bus and headed for "The Eye of the Tiger Hotel". It was mid-afternoon when we arrived and we immediately took off on a two hour hike to visit one of the Buddhist world's most venerated pilgrimage sites, Taktsang Monastery, the so called "tiger's lair". The monastery clings to a black cliff and is most difficult to get to. We arrived at a viewpoint just opposite the temples where we had tea and took photos before returning down the trail as darkness fell. It was a great way to begin. We returned to the hotel and unpacked the bikes and re-assembled them before having a late dinner and hitting the sack.

We rose at 6:30 AM to pack and begin our first day of cycling. After a great breakfast we took off down the Paro Valley toward Thimphu. As we rode down the valley we could hear the Buddhist monks chanting in the distance. We stopped at the National Museum, a beautiful old round monastery sitting high above the valley, and got an insight into Bhutan's history. As we left the museum, my friend Lisa and I had a close call with a jeep as we were riding on the right side of the road instead of the left and narrowly missed a head-on collision on a curve. From that point on we were very diligent about staying on the left side of the road. We rode along the Thimphu River valley toward the capital city of Thimphu. The valley consisted of a mixture of rice fields and conifer forests with a large river meandering down it. We arrived in Thimphu mid-afternoon after a 47 mile ride with about 1500 feet of climbing for the day. Thimphu is the only large settlement in Bhutan and is the capital at an altitude of 8036 feet. We had time for some shopping and then a hearty dinner before turning in. The food consisted of rice and a potato dish, usually eggs of some sort, vegetable casseroles, and chicken or yak but the Bhutanese do not eat much meat. The national dish of Bhutan is chile and cheese, but the chiles are small red and much hotter than any we get here.

We took off the next morning along a river valley and on to our first big climb of just over 2000 feet in 14 miles. We arrived arrived at the summit of Dochu La (10,200') where we had lunch and were able to view some incredible mountains although the Himalayas were hidden in the clouds that day. The temperature was in the low 40's as we began a 5500' decent into the Punakha Valley. We ended the day having ridden 50 plus miles with 2800 feet of climbing and 6100 feet of decents. In the evening we visited the Punakha Dzong built in 1637 and the winter home to 1000 Buddhist monks. It lies at the junction of the Mo and Po Rivers and is truly magnificent. The evening was fairly mild and we had an outdoor picnic complete with a large bonfire.

We took off at 8 the next morning and rode about 10 miles down the valley before beginning "the climb that lasted forever". The first 5000' was on relatively good road before it turned to dirt and rocks for the last 2000' . We ended the day in the Valley of the Black Necked Cranes after riding 48 miles and climbing 7200 feet and decending about 2500 feet. The altitude was 9850 feet and quite cold so we all crowded around one small wood stove and drank tea and beer. The next morning we were able to see about 200 cranes in the valley where they spend the winter. They had just arrived a week or so earlier from Tibet where they spend the summer. They are very large and magnificent birds.

 

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This segment teammate, Slate Stern, trains for North Pole adventure