Bhutan Dry Season

It's true that it doesn't rain in the dry season in Bhutan - it snows instead.

Trek Day 1 starts gently enough with visit to National Museum, notable above all for its entire floor devoted to the stamp collection. Bhutan seems to have marked every last British royal occasion on its stamps but very few of its own. Guide-in-chief (Chencho) looks slightly cross when we get out as assistant-guide (Kinley) has overrun by an hour, which means we're going to find the ascent ahead tougher. Day 1 is almost all uphill - Paro is at 7,000 feet, the museum 8,000 and we end the day camping at over 11,000. We're supported by 18 mules, 7 cooks/horsemen and 2 guides, which seems a bit excessive for 9 of us, but there is nothing at all between Paro and Thimpu (the capital about 50-60km away, to which we are walking) - apart from mountains obviously.

The snow at night is accompanied by cobalt-blue skies during most of the days (at least that's what I remember - the photos don't seem always to show it...) with clouds billowing in seas of white below us as much as above at this height. We get great views of the eastern Himalayas behind the Bhutan 'hills', though we're still talking 5,000m for most of those. The route is very definitely up and down, with no one on it (we met one trekking couple in 5 days) and overall personally (as a complete novice) a great challenge - one that would however have been improved no end however by ending up at a nice pub with good beer and food and a warm bed each day. Oh well. Highest point was 4,210m (about 14,000 feet) on the second last day, which was marked by walking into a snowstorm down from it to our campsite just above Thimpu - questions about whether we we are nearly there yet being met with an enigmatic 'not exactly' from Chencho (i.e. No).