Beautiful Bhutan - Part 2

Inside Bhutan after crossing gate

There are three ways of entering Bhutan from India. One is to fly directly to Paro which is the international airport. The other two ways are by road. One is to drive down from Guwahati, Assam. The other is to drive down from Bagdogra, West Bengal. The Guwahati route takes about 12 hours and the Bagdogra route takes about 5 hours. We chose to take the Bagdogra route as direct flight to Paro was expensive.

The peak tourist season in Bhutan coincides with summer vacation in India which is roughly from mid-April till early June.  During this time, it gets very crowded which makes everything expensive – whether it is hotels, cars or guides. So, it is advisable to go a bit early or after monsoon which is in September / October.

Day 1 of our tour was a direct flight to Bagdogra from Mumbai. It was a direct flight which took us about 2.5 hours. After landing at Bagdogra airport, we were picked up by a taxi (prearranged through a travel agent). This was a Swift Dezire AC car which was comfortable, and the roads too were excellent. On the way, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for tea. The place looked unclean, but the tea was excellent. 

From here, we drove directly to a border town called Jaigaon. Along the way, we saw miles & miles of tea estates almost as if it was a hill station. However, we came to know that although it was not at a high altitude, the weather & ground conditions were ideal to grow tea. So, it was a refreshing view for most of the second leg of our journey. Jaigaon is adjacent to the Bhutanese town called Phutensholing (pronounced as Phinsholing). On arrival, we were picked up by the travel agent’s guy and had to walk across the border gate to the Bhutan side while our driver drove over along with our baggage to the hotel. The hotel was less than 100 meters from the gate. This is some strange process which they follow, and I couldn’t understand the logic behind it.

Our room at Ga-Me-Ga

We were put up at a hotel called Ga-Me-Ga which was decent. The rooms were clean, AC worked well, and service was decent. The view from the hotel was not much to talk about. As it was already evening when we reached, we had a quick shower, finished evening prayers and then went for a walk around the hotel. As it was dark, most shops had already closed for the day. We saw a small park adjoining a Buddhist temple nearby where some locals as well as tourists were lazing around. We also found, to our delight, a pure veg restaurant serving South India dishes. We went in and had some milk – no dinner as it was Ekadashi.

After that we came back to our room and went to bed early as we were tired with all the travel done during the day. Thus ended Day 1 of our Bhutan trip.