We arose early as usual and set off after coffee and biscuits. The idea was to get through the big landslide south of town before traffic built up and there would be delays. We were only a short ways out of town when we came around a bend and saw the big landslide scar across the canyon. We drove around and started through an area of very narrow road with pretty scary views straight down 2000 feet! Fortunately we didn't meet anyone coming the other way as I don't I know what we would have done!
Looking down as we crossed the landslide
We continued through an endless construction area where India is putting in a hydroelectric plant on the Mangde Chhu River. 
Bob in a water pipe
There were 12' high steel pipes with walls about 1" thick distributed along the road that are going to be installed somehow to concentrate the flow downhill for the plant. All this construction and road widening has to impact the local population pretty negatively, I would think, to say nothing of tourism -one of Bhutan's main sources of income.
Our van drove on through lovely farming areas with terraces of buckwheat and veggies. We came to a rushing river where we met our crew who had breakfast set out on the table. [
High above us were half a dozen huge flat pancake shaped bee hives - we were warned to eat our sweets before the bees got active in the morning sunlight. Wangdi, our driver, spends his time while we are birding, by reading his Bhuddist prayer book and whittling. I noticed that he had made and attached to the front of the car a wooden phallus! After we left the dangerous slide area behind, he had removed it! I guess it had served it's purpose of warding off the evil spirits of the road!
We spent the rest of the day driving along the Mangde Chhu and then turned off on the road to Shemgang. All the other traffic went on the new by-pass so we had the road to ourselves. We saw a lot of new birds while walking along the road in the warm humid afternoon.
At 5 PM we reached our campground at about 5700' on a sloping green hillside. We sat in our folding chairs drinking beer and eating fresh popcorn that our crew produced. For dinner we had mushroom pizza, mashed potatoes, cabbage with mayo sauce, beef curry and a couple of other dishes.
The Cocktail Hour
After a day of partly cloudy skies, the clouds closed in and thunder and lightening and pouring rain started. We turned in about 8:30. We bought head lamps for this trip which are working out really well!! I'm sitting on my bed in the tent in the dark, typing this wth the aid of the hands-free lamp!
We have two more consecutive nights of camping and it will be interesting to see how we handle the hot days, cool evenings and lack of washing facilities!
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