• About Me
  • OTHER WORK

One Foot Out the Door

~ Adventure at Home and Away

One Foot Out the Door

Tag Archives: Himalayas

A Little More Bhutan

30 Tuesday Apr 2019

Posted by lexklein in Bhutan, Travel - General

≈ 69 Comments

Tags

Asia, Bhutan, Buddhism, happiness, hiking, Himalayas, kingdom, mountains, remote

I’m short on fully-formed thoughts about Bhutan. There’s no real story here, just some impressions that are as disjointed as my memories from this trip seem to be for some reason.

The flight into Paro. It’s a doozy. By some accounts, Paro is the third most dangerous airport in the world. On nearly every list, it’s one of the top ten scariest. I manage to get a window seat for the thrill of descending into that valley and twisting and turning to land on the runway at the bottom.

IMG_6250
IMG_6251

Are we gonna scrape?!

The prayer flags. I love a good mess of prayer flags. And by mess, I mean that joyful jumble of color, caught in the wind, sending good thoughts up into the universe. Added bonus when these vibrant supplications are attached to swinging suspension bridges, my favorite Himalayan mode of passage.

IMG_6368
IMG_6280

Church and state. Buddhism and its often cheerful monks are ever-present, a perennially appealing backdrop to life in the Himalaya, and they exist here in relative harmony with an elected government and a king (and his father), who are impressive stewards of all aspects of Bhutanese life. National happiness is a holistic goal here, with a balance always being sought among economic interests, environmental concerns, health, education, living standards, and psychological wellbeing and resilience. Noble ideals, seemingly well carried out.

Color and geometry. I’ve always been a sucker for Himalayan art and architecture in their native habitat. A mash-up of colors and shapes I would not abide at home makes me inexplicably happy in this part of the world.

IMG_6721
IMG_7003
IMG_6432


Animals, animals everywhere. Temple cats, bridge and courtyard dogs, and a few stray cows to boot. Most are well-fed, and all are secure enough to sleep just about anywhere.

The landscapes. I went to Bhutan for the mountains and the trails that lead up through those elevated rocks and trees. I may not have gotten the trek I signed up for, but I got plenty of altitude, exercise, and other views. I could/should do a whole post on our day hike to the Tiger’s Nest alone; people find it fascinating, and it was a fulfilling day with a very special prize at the end. But … maybe some other day!

IMG_6419
IMG_6632

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

The Weather and I: Bhutan Edition

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by lexklein in Bhutan, Travel - General

≈ 84 Comments

Tags

Asia, Bhutan, disappointment, hiking, Himalayas, trekking, weather

As I’ve recounted a number of times (especially here and here), the weather and I have a troubled relationship. Occasionally, we are the happiest of companions in everyday life and moments of adventure, but too often we are at odds, and the likelihood of weather-related disappointment seems to rise with the remoteness of my destination. Drop me into a place I’ve dreamed of for years, somewhere that costs thousands of dollars and double-digit hours to reach, and the tease of a few days of sunshine inevitably morphs into unseasonable cold or precipitation or both.

A long-awaited high-altitude trek in Bhutan was no exception. My pre-trip materials listed daytime temperatures in the 50s to 70s, ideal weather for some steep hiking in the Himalaya and sleeping in our tents above 12,000 feet for several nights. As the trip neared, however, my weather app showed numbers that were half the predicted temperatures, and I tossed an extra gaiter, a second pair of gloves, and a third layer of clothing into my duffel.

In our first few days exploring the capital, Thimphu, and warming our legs up on a few day hikes at 8-10,000 feet, we all breathed a sigh of relief as the cloud, shower, and snowflake symbols on our phones each morning proved totally inaccurate. As the days went on, we laughed, carefree and blissfully ignorant, at the crazy disconnect between what we were seeing with our own eyes and what the forecasters were suggesting. Our trek would be fine! The weather app clearly didn’t work in Bhutan. All of the prognostications were wrong!

Until they weren’t. We started a drive into the remote Haa Valley to begin the trekking and camping portion of our trip, and only an hour or so into our ascent to Chele La, a pass at 13,000+ feet, we were on slushy roads and enveloped in mist and rain, then sleet and snow. We slowed to a crawl – thank god, as I was terrified on the one-lane road with two-way traffic, switchbacking up and down the S-curves with no guardrails – and finally reached our small lodge for the night before the trek began.

We learned the next morning that the weather wouldn’t just make our trek miserable; it would cause the entire thing to be cancelled. I was crushed. Seriously heartbroken. I’d come to Bhutan for two main reasons – to hike to the Tiger’s Nest (a very successful foray – stay tuned for that) and to trek and sleep among Himalayan peaks like Chomolhari, Kanchenjunga, and Jichu Drake. Beyond that, my hiking mates and I had specifically come prepared for the possibility or rain and snow, so when we were told the horses and porters and guide were not up for the trek, we were doubly dismayed.

The next day’s eagerly-anticipated trip on foot became, instead, a slow and bone-jarring drive back east, past Paro and on to Thimphu again, where lower elevations might mean better weather. A frigid, wet night of camping along the Wang Chhu river did not initially bear this out, but our luck returned briefly in the morning, when the rain ceased and the sun came out for a solid day of hiking above the Punakha valley, a verdant expanse of pine forests overlooking lime green and yellow rice paddies below.  A little extra consolation was a chance to see Punakha Dzong, an impressive fortress at the Y of two rivers, site of the original capital of Bhutan.

My spirits rose. Surely we would wake to another balmy day in the valley, get in one more good, long day of replacement hiking, and finally be able to at least see Chomolhari and the string of mountains visible from Dochu La, the pass on the high road we would retrace as we returned to Paro yet again. We celebrated in our dining tent with beer, wine, and numerous rounds of 505, the Bhutanese card game we had learned from our guide the night before. My unrelenting (some might say unreasonable) optimism filled me with a bubbly buoyancy; our group’s courteous reaction to disappointment and our lack of anger and complaint were being rewarded. I’m prone to karmic explanations in everyday life, and being in Bhutan, coached daily on Buddhist precepts by our guide, had reinforced the idea that we get what we deserve.

A crack of thunder in the early hours of the next morning shattered that notion. Seconds later, a torrent of water lashed my tent, and I leapt to close the ventilation flaps. The rays of hope that had lulled me to sleep were as obscured as the plastic window out the front of my clammy abode. I stared past fat droplets of water to a low-hanging mist and abandoned any thoughts of an adequate hike again that day. We packed up the camp, walked desultorily on a short muddy path to a small temple (another in a string of temples that became poor substitutes for outdoor exertion) , and clambered into the van for the return trip over socked-in Dochu La. In ten days in Bhutan, I never once laid eyes on the high peaks I had come to see, never hiked a full, long day to collapse contentedly into my tent, ready to get up the next day, and push forward again, and again, over the 14,000-foot passes and through the rhododendron forests, high meadows, and rarefied air that I crave for years until I can get back to the Himalaya. It had been 6 1/2 years, and for all I knew, it could be 6 1/2 more before I’d get back to this part of the world.

The weather and I will always knock heads, it seems, but perhaps our guide, Sonam, was right when he said that karma does not mean good or bad luck; rather, karma simply takes us where we are meant to go or be, and in our case, this was perhaps the Punakha Valley, one of the most compelling landscapes in Bhutan and one that we were sorry we were going to miss because of our far-western trekking route. Maybe we needed to be present on the prayer flag-draped suspension bridge where one of our group members scattered the ashes of her late husband.

Or bonding with five new friends in a dripping tent, united in our shared frustration. Perhaps we were meant to visit the Sunday produce market in tiny Haa, a town and valley that only opened to outsiders in 2001, or the home and farm of our guide, where we ate breakfast and played darts with his elderly father in the yard.

Maybe we were just supposed to learn not to cast blame for decisions we might not have made ourselves, or to see that other treasures exist outside of the places we expected to find them. Maybe all I was meant to learn was that if the weather is the biggest of my problems, I am a pretty lucky gal!

More on Bhutan’s many charms in upcoming posts.

 

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Wild Ride on the Roof of the World

15 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by lexklein in Tibet, Travel - General

≈ 49 Comments

Tags

base camp, driving, EBC, Everest, Friendship Highway, Himalayas, Lhasa, Tibet

We are nearing Day Zero, the day we drive away from one house and start the move to another, so I’m posting an entry from my blog’s earliest days today. The perspective from atop the world, almost literally, does my mind good at this bittersweet time.

***

Driving in countries around the world is always an adventure. From the careening traffic on the autobahn and the peripherique, to the stop-and-go progress on a Scottish Highlands road full of sheep, to the heart-attack cliffs with no guardrails in mountains the world over, there is always a story about our international brothers’ driving habits. Penjo, our driver on the Friendship Highway – the route across the Tibetan Plateau (the “Roof of the World”) from Tibet to Nepal – was no exception.

Tibet 2011 - Lex 192

We left Lhasa early one morning for a cross-country adventure in a 4WD Mitsubishi SUV. A few hours out of Lhasa, we experienced the first of many so-called “pee breaks” which were really designed for our guide, Pasang, and our driver, Penjo, to take a smoking break. Timed passage on the road also meant that if we were going to arrive at a checkpoint too early, we had to either slow down or stop and wait until the time was OK. (This happened at every checkpoint since the law, meant to slow drivers down, really seemed to signify “drive as fast as humanly possible and then stop and wait until enough time has passed.”) Even using this finely-tuned strategy, Penjo managed to get a speeding ticket as we approached Shigatse, a hellhole (at least at that time) we discovered we should have been in no hurry to reach anyway.

Tibet & China June 2011 435

Getting to our hotel and dinner in Shigatse was like a barrel race as we were stymied by street after street under construction. We drove in circles through an apocalyptic landscape, a bombed-out scene of heavy construction equipment and vehicle-swallowing holes in the powdery streets. Penjo showed some serious moxie by driving on sidewalks, down one-way streets, in front of bulldozers, and through numerous barricades. Shigatse is a dusty town by nature, and all this earth-moving and car maneuvering left a deep coat of grime on the Pajero and a sneeze-inducing mass of dust in our nostrils.

The next day, after lunch in Tingri, we turned off onto a dirt road for the next three hours. This was a true washboard road, with constant ridges and bumps, along with switchbacks, steep climbs and descents, and barely two lanes across. Penjo did not disappoint, spending large periods of time on the oncoming traffic side of the road and squealing to dustcloud-raising stops in the loose gravel, precipitously close to various drop-offs, as he attempted to pass large trucks, SUVs and, really, any moving vehicle, beast, or human on the road. Penjo finally slowed down and the air finally cleared as we crossed our third and final high pass for the day at 17,500 feet, with a view of the entire Tibetan Himalaya range, including Makalo, Lhotse, Everest, and Cho Oyu.

Tibet 2011 - Lex 232

On our way back to Lhasa, we took a different route through a gorge along the Brahmaputra River. Penjo was at his finest today, offroading anytime the main road was closed. In Tibet, barricades indicating road closures are apparently simply something to drive around. This road was clearly closed, but Penjo decided we would take it anyway, which meant that at certain points we had to totally drive off the highway and go through pastures, fields, and people’s property. Many others had the same idea, including giant 18-wheelers! Penjo passed semis in a blur of dirt, drove through sagebrush, which we dragged along behind us until it shook loose, and swerved even more than usual.

Penjo’s driving was truly a thing to behold, with brake slamming, high speeds then incredibly slow ones, random veering, and aggressive crowding of other vehicles. Somehow we never worried too much; we decided people here drive like maniacs and have constant near accidents but never any actual accidents. At one point, Penjo almost nailed a dzo, but neither he nor the female owner of the dzo seemed the least bit perturbed as he screeched to a halt mere inches from the animal in the middle of the road.

Penjo

Penjo was a soft-spoken (Tibetan language only) man who was quite mild-mannered out of the vehicle. He had a sweet, shy smile and since we are alive to tell the tale, we have only the fondest memories of him!

More posts on our Tibetan adventures:

A Love Affair with Lhasa

Face of a Pilgrim

Not for the Squeamish

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

Mountain Mama

19 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by lexklein in Himalayas, Nepal, Travel - General

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

avalanche, Himalayas, Mount Everest, mountains, Nepal, Sherpas

I wrote this little meditation on mountains a few days ago, and then a terrible avalanche made yesterday the deadliest day ever on Mount Everest …

(CLICK ON PHOTOS if you want to see them full-size)

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 414Mountains move me. They speak to me, embrace me, and have a hold on me that won’t let go. Sometimes I fear their rocky faces, and I frequently curse my wheezing breath as I climb them. The great ones are far away, expensive and time-consuming to reach. I will never achieve the summits of the “eight-thousanders,” or even much lesser peaks, and yet they call me to come close, to play along their flanks, to lean into their sides for a few weeks at a time. A few let me reach their crests, and my exhilaration knows no bounds.

For many years, I loved the ocean and thought there was nowhere I’d rather be than by the shores of a crashing sea. But the mountains were a part of me from the beginning and as time went on, their clutch tightened. I grew up in the Appalachians and took for granted a Sunday hike up through a pine grove to a stony knob overlooking the western Pennsylvania countryside. I spent early summers in the Blue Ridge mountains, and later came to know and love the Colorado Rockies, but it was not until I started hiking around the world that I really grasped the grip that high altitude had on me.

My memories are filled with mountain scenes. A cup of tea by a frosted window in Namche Bazaar, Nepal. A soft call of “jambo jambo” to rouse me from my tent in the Great Rift Valley of Tanzania. The last of the evening sun on the cuernos in Paine Grande National Park in Chile. A tinkling of cowbells in a wildflowery meadow in the Alps. The shiny, worn, ancient stone paths of the Inca Trail in the Peruvian Andes. And the absolute awe of being face-to-face with the most famous face of all, the North Face of Mount Everest on a cold June evening.

Long story short: As John Muir said, “the mountains are calling and I must go.”Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 520

… Today, I’m feeling almost a little guilty about my mountain obsession in light of the number of Sherpas killed yesterday on Everest. For me and many first-world adventurers, mountains seem like mere playgrounds when we think about the fact that they serve not only as home but as livelihood to those who are doing our grunt work on their slopes. Rest in peace, Sherpa heroes.

Please read this: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/climbing/mountaineering/The-Value-of-A-Sherpa-Life.html

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 509

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...

A Sense of the World

12 Saturday Apr 2014

Posted by lexklein in Himalayas, Nepal, Travel - General

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Ama Dablam, Himalayas, Kathmandu, Nepal

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 150I breathe in the Nepalese Himalaya, from the earthly to the sublime. In Kathmandu, I snort, trying to rid my nostrils of the olfactory assault on the streets. Rotting garbage, small fires, burning rubber, dogs, sweat, incense, hot, sticky blood that pools in small rivers on this special slaughter day of Dashain. In Thamel, reefer wafts and mixes with saffron and cumin and garam masala and dirty dreadlocks. Asan Tole market cows bump my legs and leave their sweet hay-dung smell, an instant memory of fresh mown fields and summer days.

A stomach-lurching flight later, I inhale the freshest air I’ve ever breathed. The crisp blue air smells of ancient glaciers and fallen snow not yet touched by living feet or polluted clouds. There are hints of fresh earth and grass and water, mountain flowers and rhododendron leaves, and the dusty oxygenated smell that rises off a sidewalk after a long-awaited spring shower.

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 210Eyes shut as I pull the alpine freshness into my lungs, my ears engage. Yak bells jingle and dzo bells jangle, prayer wheels chime and temple horns bleat. Monks chant and nuns murmur, brooms whisk and fires crackle. The Dudh Kosi swishes and tumbles, gathers strength and roars over the river rocks. Hanging bridges creak on their cables, and feet – both human and beast – clump and clop across from bank to bank.

Senses blur further on the trail. I feel the steep climb in my calves; they shriek with tension that is soon relieved by the soft squish of pine needles on loose earth. At higher elevations I curse my ragged breath rasping through my airways; my lungs burn and my throat tightens and my head throbs. And then I am fairly skipping downhill, fresh-headed and light on my feet, bouncing and floating from boulder to boulder, root to root, humming a song, thinking of childhood happiness in the woods.

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 202My eyes focus sharply when I’m not fighting to climb and breathe. A close examination of a tiny red spindly flower growing right out of a rock, an open-mouthed awe at the layering of myriad mountains in the distance – from the tiny to the vast, my vision is rewarded over and over again. We pass through vibrant Sherpa villages whose colors are an illumination of the Buddhist soul. Grounded by black, richened by red, blue, purple and green, heightened and lightened by sunny yellow and crisp white, their houses and temples insist that man lives here in the farthest reaches of the earth.

As the days progress, brown and green trails lead to gray rocks and gravel, barren escarpments and pale lichens. As we climb ever higher, color weakens; the sky fades from cerulean to lightest blue. The tundra changes to a more frozen, snow-covered zone. In the calm and almost featureless landscape at our feet, the peaks grow ever more impressive. They knife toward the sky, their serrated ridges jagged against the heavens. Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 223They are massive from this close – huge blocks of granite and limestone hulking into the atmosphere. The thinness of the air clears the mind of all but this sight. There is nothing to smell at this altitude, and any noises seem dampened and muffled inside my headband and hat and fuzzy head. I still feel an exertion, but I am on autopilot now. I plant one foot in front of the other and just see. I watch the narrow path, the boots of the hiker in front of me, the tiny holes made by his poles, the slight kick of wispy dust or dandelion snow. When I can, I raise my gaze to the giants and simultaneously shrink from their stony faces and lean into their mother-earth embraces.

Nepal & Abu Dhabi 2012 424At base camp near the top of the world, we collapse and succumb to a final sensation. Our sherpas pour sweet hot chocolate from steaming thermoses into cups we clasp in clumsy, gloved hands. We fall silent as our salivary glands engage and the rich, sweet aroma fills our noses. The wind swirls, a rock ledge digs into my back, the multi-colored tents at base camp glow in the late afternoon sun. My senses are filled …life is good.

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Like this:

Like Loading...
Follow One Foot Out the Door on WordPress.com


I’m a restless, world-wandering, language-loving, book-devouring traveler trying to straddle the threshold between a traditional, stable family life and a free-spirited, irresistible urge to roam. I’m sure I won’t have a travel story every time I add to this blog, but I’ve got a lot! I’m a pretty happy camper (literally), but there is some angst as well as excitement in always having one foot out the door. Come along for the trip as I take the second step …

WHERE I’M GOING

Dolomites, Italy – July 2023

France – September 2023

 

Follow me on Instagram, too!

It’s a whole different world here in Hoi An after the grayness of Hanoi.
You can’t always get what you want … 🎶🎵
Souk Waqif was hopping at midnight last night! A few shops were closing down, but locals and visitors alike were out in force, eating and socializing into the wee hours.
Today we’re off to Marsaxlokk, a small, traditional fishing village in Malta. These brightly painted Maltese boats are called “luzzus,” and I couldn’t get enough of them!
Day 1 in Malta is all water and walls.
FINALLY made it out of the U.S. for the first time in 2 years. 😀🌴☀️

Recent Posts

  • A Week in Vietnam: Halong Bay and Hoi An
  • A Week in Vietnam: Hanoi
  • A Bonus Destination
  • Maltese Memories
  • Taking a Leap

WHERE I’VE BEEN

  • Argentina (9)
  • ASIA/HIMALAYAS (1)
  • Australia (2)
  • Austria (4)
  • Belgium (1)
  • Bhutan (2)
  • Bosnia & Herzegovina (4)
  • Canada (2)
  • Chile (6)
  • China (7)
  • Colombia (3)
  • Costa Rica (4)
  • Croatia (6)
  • Cuba (3)
  • Czech Republic (1)
  • Ecuador (2)
  • England (1)
  • Estonia (3)
  • Finland (2)
  • France (8)
  • Germany (3)
  • Ghana (5)
  • Greece (9)
  • Guatemala (2)
  • Himalayas (11)
  • Hungary (1)
  • Iceland (8)
  • Ireland (4)
  • Israel (4)
  • Italy (6)
  • Jordan (4)
  • Madagascar (2)
  • Malta (1)
  • Mexico (6)
  • MIDDLE EAST (1)
  • Mind Travels (7)
  • Mongolia (9)
  • Montenegro (1)
  • Nepal (13)
  • Netherlands (1)
  • New Zealand (3)
  • Nicaragua (1)
  • NORTH AMERICA (1)
  • Norway (1)
  • Peru (8)
  • Photos, Just Photos from All Over (21)
  • Poland (4)
  • Qatar (1)
  • Russia (3)
  • Slovakia (5)
  • Slovenia (7)
  • South Africa (2)
  • South Korea (1)
  • Spain (2)
  • Switzerland (1)
  • Tanzania (6)
  • Thailand (1)
  • Tibet (18)
  • Travel – General (130)
  • Turkey (6)
  • UAE (1)
  • United States (37)
  • Vietnam (1)
  • Vietnam (1)

Archives

Follow me on Instagram too!

It’s a whole different world here in Hoi An after the grayness of Hanoi.
You can’t always get what you want … 🎶🎵
Souk Waqif was hopping at midnight last night! A few shops were closing down, but locals and visitors alike were out in force, eating and socializing into the wee hours.
Today we’re off to Marsaxlokk, a small, traditional fishing village in Malta. These brightly painted Maltese boats are called “luzzus,” and I couldn’t get enough of them!

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • One Foot Out the Door
    • Join 980 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • One Foot Out the Door
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: