Tue, May 3 - Completing the Loop!

The Sun rises through Prayer Flags

The "Wakey, Wakey!" call didn't happen until 5 AM this morning - after our snacks we walked a ways down hill and birded a bit before returning for breakfast at the campsite.  Across the street was a small hotel which had a moth-observing sheet next to it that some scientists had used the previous evening.  David met them and the gentleman turned out to be the author of "Butterflies of India" which we have been using the past three weeks, and a woman who is writing a book on the moths of India.  Bob and I went down and saw a great variety of beautiful moths still clinging to the sheet.  The mystery is why nocturnal moths are so attracted to lights in general and to an illuminated sheet like this one?

We packed up our gear from our last camp site of the trip - they have all been quite enjoyable, largely due to our great crew who also seem to have quite a bit of fun traveling around and camping.

Our Entomologist Friends

At 7:30 we drove off north towards Thimphu.  There was fairly heavy truck traffic carrying supplies in from India.  We found ourselves stuck behind a truck that slowed down on the uphill, staying in the middle of the road and not allowing us to pass, unlike most drivers here, and then sped up on the downslopes - a really cowboy jerk of a truck driver!  We drove through a large town of Damphu, and just turned a corner to see our pal hurling himself between a stationary truck and a wall!  

The Guilty Truck on the Left

There were no injuries bur our pal's truck was little squashed.  The laws of Bhutan states that if one has a traffic accident, both parties wait until the police arrive.  We couldn't edge our way by and so had to wait, also!  Amazingly no one got angry or shouted.  Everyone, including our cowboy, waited around for 30 minutes until the police arrived.  Thank God we were near a town or it could have been hours.  The cops took photos, made measurements, and sent the innocent truck on its way and we resumed our trip.

We entered the canyon of the Puna Tsang Chhu river, and encountered the huge hydroelectric project that India is building in this river and on several others.  For 30 miles we saw dormitories, machine shops, supply yards - just massive installations of equipment and personnel that seem destined to impact Bhutan's bucolic atmosphere permanently.  India seems determined to take a lot out of Bhutan with little long term benefit for the country.

Some Hydroelectric Project Buildings

A Dzong on the Puna Tsang Chhu

We passed the turnoff to Thimphu and continued on to Paro arriving about  5:30.  We had until seven to shower and relax and then joined the others and met the owner of the company David uses to travel here and were able to express our gratitude to him for his wonderful crew that has taken such good care of us!

 We were scheduled to fly out to Bangkok tomorrow at 11:30 AM, but that has been changed to 6 PM.  Fortunately we are not leaving Bangkok until noon on Thursday - so we'll see how that works out!   Since we have all day here, we will get up at 4, as usual (!) and drive up to where we had our snowy breakfast on that mountain pass so many weeks ago!