Thimpu and visit around the Town

Next day I went to the permit office in Thimpu to register my arrival and to apply for permits to visit Paro, Punakha and Wangdue Phodrang, the names of towns in Bhutan. All the people I met were dressed in the traditional Bhutanese attire, in the office, on the roads, in restaurants.

Another thing I realized, if we want to go around places in Bhutan, we need to hire a taxi, there are no other means of public transport going around the city. Most of the people had their own vehicles, else were walking. So I called up the taxi driver who bought me to Thimpu, a happy go lucky guy, negotiated a good deal and he was to drive me around Bhutan for the next couple of days. We visited some museums (named Memorial Chorten), National Library, some temples called Dzongs, one to mention is named Tashichho Dzong which also houses the secretariat building and the central monk body. Its open to visitors only during festival time so I could only see it from the outside.

Later we drove to a top of a small  hill from where you can get a beautiful view of the Thimpu valley. On the way back stopped at the zoo where you can see the National Animal of Bhutan �" Takin.

At the end of the Thimpu valley lies a very old Dzong named Simtokha Dzong and now houses the school for Buddhist studies. It also has a hospital which has both Allopathic and Traditional medicines. The rich herbal medicines abundant in this small Kingdom is prepared here. The hospital also imparts the art of herbal medicine to would be practitioners.

The scenery during the monsoon was really breathtaking and at one place we stopped I had dozed off listening to the sound of insects and birds. Finally evening came and we drove back to the town, had dinner and called it a day around 8pm.