On Top of the World

Except for several thousand jealous young ladies, every person in this country is bursting with joy! Yesterday, our beloved king His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck annouced in parliament that he will be married this October! None of the fuss over William and Kate comes close to the happiness here. It has quite been the cure for my feverish malaise.

That said, I am currently heading West to big Thimphu to visit the hospital there and hopefully have diagnosed what made me so sick. I want to be better safe than sorry that it wasn't something that could relapse and smash me. I am currently in beautiful Bumtang beginning Day 2 of the two-day journey. This is one of my favourite places in Bhutan. It is high up and chilly. I'm writing this all wrapped up in wool blankets hardly believing that I'm such a short distance from the sweaty Mongar jungle where yesterday a hornbill flew over my head. (He was magnificent!)

I drove for the first lag with engineers working on the incredible airports project. Bhutan is quadrupling its number of airports in a single go. There is one being constructed in the South, one here in Bumtang, and one near Natalie's place in Trashigang. Come July, a sick Trashiyangtse teacher will be able to get to the Thimphu hospital in three hours instead of three days! We had such an amazing drive, though, that I doubt I'd ever choose to fly it. We listened to science programs on the radio and stopped to see the five colours of rhododendrons that bloom below Bhutan's highest pass:

For today's lag, I have the pleasure of driving with BCF staff Meena and Nima.