A Wow Moment

Monday 5th November.

Druk Air (Bhutan's state airline) is a strange beast. Created only 20 years ago, it has a handy monopoly over all flights into Bhutan's one airport at Paro (second 'city' of Bhutan - pop. about 50,000). The planes are all shiny new Airbuses and the service is immaculate, but there appear to be no Bhutanese, or Nepalese, or indeed anyone Asian at all on the flight from Kathmandu. So Druk Air is in fact an entirely tourist-focused operation, but to be fair it does it very well (apart from the very odd cream cheese sandwiches served as refreshments).

And although the flight is the shortest of the16 I'm taking on this trip (45 mins), I'd place bets it's going to turn out the most memorable. It's cloudy and hazy in Kathmandu, with the surrounding hills barely visible, and we're just entertaining ourselves with a further 15 minute adjustment to watches, when suddenly out of nowhere we're through the clouds, into the clearest of blue skies and the Himalayas are sitting there right alongside us (as the Captain mentions we're at 22,000 feet...). A stunning moment and Everest appears shortly afterwards, familiar from all the photos you've seen of it (see my addition to the set).

Paro airport is according to the guidebooks the most difficult airport to land at in the world (as well to know this before the captain makes a lurching dive to the left to get down into the valley...), but it's also probably the most attractive, built to look like the other highly decorative buildings of Bhutan.

Immediate impressions:
- Neat and ordered and quiet (major contrast to trip so far)
- Alpine (like Slovenia in particular?)
- More prosperous - buildings are solid and although it's largely rural and clearly not rich, the country doesn't seem poor either
- Chinese/Tibetan influenced - in looks, language, religion and food, although clearly it's India with whom the major links exist (lots of migrant workers, currency fixed to the rupee 1:1, same cars and trucks etc.)