After two weeks of Buddhism, we feel peaceful in our mind and fatter in our belly from the big plates of rice and curry. We have learned about 10 Bhutanese words and can't seem to enjoy dinner without spicyness.
Tourist visa in Bhutan requires that you travel with a guide and a driver. It does take the fun out of figuring things out on our own. At times, we are so well taken care of and provided with conveniences expected of foreign tourists that we lost the perspectives of the simple lifestyle here. It helps me to remember that we are in a country with one airline, which owns a total of three aeroplanes.
To my surprise, despite the countless rituals and traditions that are so important to them (e.g. it is sinful to go the counterclockwise around relics), Bhutanese are very easy going and not uptight. They definitely enjoy having guests very much as we have been invited to have tea and buttered rice crispy everywhere we run into people (e.g. one family celebrating new house built, one family having a ritual performed by the monks for the mother's recent death, one family just because we were there... etc)
Our favourite time was when we were in the farm house and chatted freely with the driver who usually don't say much. And our favourite hike was yesterday's hike.
Today, we flew away to Katmandu and the journey was well concluded with the overdued view of Himalaya. Mt. Everest stared straight at us from atop clouds and fog.
(Less than three weeks from home, two days ago when the weather was gloomy and we ended the day early because of rain, we had a small breakdown missing home and our cats. We learned something about ourselves.)
