Day 17: Exploring Haa Valley

We are quite surprised by how well we have acclimatised to the altitude: after puffing and wheezing just to get to the restaurant last night, we are all managing the climb to the temples pretty well. After the temples we loop round to explore the pretty countryside around them on foot. It is a very fertile valley with apples and timber being the main products (we had seen a lot of trucks carrying timber on our way in).

This is very much an army town with barracks, training grounds, officers mess, and army children’s schools. Even the Dzong (fort) is being used for army administration. Jamba is keen to visit the rainbow trout hatchery so we drive through the middle of the army area to visit the National Fisheries Centre. This is still a puzzle to us because fishing is illegal in Bhutan as Buddhists don’t kill animals; the chicken we have in our meals comes frozen from India (apparently it is okay to eat them as long as you don’t kill them); it seems that farmed fish is okay to eat (perhaps they employ non-Buddhists to kill them?) It was fun to watch Jamba (and Chengha) trying to photograph the fish.

Then we head down into the centre of Haa and walk around over the swing bridge across the river and then ambled down the Main Street enjoying the richly decorated shops and houses. Every type of shop you could imagine is catered for. Finally we end up at a restaurant for lunch that serves us more things we hadn’t tried before that were all very tasty, including potato balls, battered eggplant and a different type of dumpling – served with ginger tea that seems to have become everyone’s favourite after I asked for it on the first night.

After lunch we have a visit to the Haa Hospital – this time for me as I need to get my coughing up blood checked out. All health care is free in Bhutan (including for visitors). There are only two doctors in the Haa area and they are based at the hospital. Chengha takes me in and we wait as the on duty doctor is at lunch. It turns out she is a delightful young woman doctor who I get to see remarkably quickly. She doesn’t think there is anything serious, gives me prescriptions to stop the coughing and tells me to come back if it hasn’t cleared up in a few days. One of the prescriptions I can get at the hospital and then we go to the pharmacy to get the cough syrup. The rest of the group have been patiently sitting in the bus but thankfully don’t seem too perturbed.

Then Jamba drives us up to the head of the valley where we are going to do some more walking. The trip notes said that we were to head back up towards the pass and hike to a nunnery but Chengha tells us that the path is being repaired so we can’t go there. We are very happy with the alternative as we have climbed a few more hundred metres and we are pleased to be getting in practice for our climb to the Tiger’s Nest monastery on the last day. It is a very pretty farming village and we walk along a delightful little footpath that winds through it, talking to the locals, passing the cows and horses, seeing peas, turnips and other vegetables being grown, and hay being dried in the lofts of the houses. There is a village temple that we visit also, and see a water mill that powers a stone for grinding grains. We pass an enterprising family who have set up a garden bar at their house and stop to talk to some people building a house. We discover that it is to become a childcare centre. It is being built in the traditional mud brick style, covered with a layer of stone for protection. The women are perched up high, inside a wooden frame where they are tamping down the mud. Men climb the ladder with sacks of mud to tip in. We are very impressed to discover that what they have built so far has only taken 9 days.

Jamba comes to pick us up and take us back to the hotel where a cup of ginger tea and some biscuits await us (as well as a much needed bathroom that we all race for). We are staying in for dinner tonight but they will be making something a bit different for us. This turns out to be food that they make for a special festival that occurs only in the Haa region. I can only describe it as a cross between a dumpling and a Cornish pasty with spanakopita filling; it is made with buckwheat flour that is a bit crispy and is filled with a spicy tangy spinach-based filling – it is very tasty.

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For this and other similar tours see:

Explore Asia with Intrepid Travel (a range of different travel styles – see my post on travel styles)

Peregrine Adventures (Comfort tours)

Geckos Adventures (for 18 to 30s)

Note: After people telling me they had booked an Intrepid Tour on my recommendation, I now have affiliate links with the Intrepid Travel group of companies and may receive a commission if you book a tour online within a couple of months after clicking through to these sites.  So if you are enjoying my tips and stories and finding them useful in choosing your own travel, please click on these links and help me to bring you more .

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