Picture of our trip to Bhutan in the New York Times!

Hey Everyone,

We thought this was something fun to share with all of you, our friend Kerry sent us a link to the New York Times to share a photo from our trip to Bhutan since it was one of the countries ranked as a top place to travel to in 2013.

We sent the photo in and if you scroll down to number 5 on the list for Bhutan and then look under the main photo you can find ours under "Readers Photos:)"  You can find it here if you want to see the other countries: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/01/10/travel/2013-places-to-go.html?ref=travel&_r=1& 

We hope you enjoy!  For those of you who have been there, or live there, you know how amazing it is, for those of you who haven't, it is definitely an awesome place to visit!

Christy and Amrish, New Delhi is listed as #7!  Wahoo!

Reader photos from Bhutan 

Willie and Katie Bittner

Taking in the beauty of the Phobjikha Valley in Bhutan. This valley is filled with beautiful hiking trails with breathtaking views. Wherever one travels in Bhutan, there are endless opportunities for seeing beautiful vistas and experiencing the rich culture of the country. -- Willie and Katie Bittner, La Crosse, Wis. (Submitted April 26)

Have a great day!

Willie and Katie

India, friends and time to go home

Our last couple of days in India we have enjoyed the company of our friends and wonderful hosts Christy and Amrish in New Delhi, and we even had a chance to meet their wonderful friend Sammy who was visiting from Paris.  It has been nice to catch up, relax and enjoy great conversation.  We even had a chance this week to travel to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal.  It is truly magnificent!  If you get a chance to travel there it is definitely worth seeing.

We hope you enjoyed the recent updates!  We will continue to blog once we get home, but will update more infrequently.  So keep in touch and let us know how you are!

Willie and Katie

Our last week in Bhutan!

We have been traveling and updating our blog on our computer until we found internet, but since we were in more rural areas we have not had access until now.  So below you will find a recap of the last week.  We hope you enjoy and we will update you more once we are back in India.

A few foods we have tried during the journey:
Butter tea – Hot tea made with yak butter, drank especially in the higher regions where it is much colder.
Doma – Beetle nut and lime (chemical) placed in a grape leaf and chewed.  As it is chewed the person’s mouth turns red.  This is a tradition for many people.
Ara – Basically the Bhutanese moonshine!  It is brewed either from wheat or rice and can be served with boiled egg in the drink.
Dried cheese – These are pieces of cheese dried until they are very hard and then dipped in yak milk.  It takes a long time to chew through one piece.
Ema datse – Their national dish made out of chiles and cheese.   It is incredibly delicious, but the level of heat in the dish changes depending upon where it is made.  Katie has dove in too enthusiastically at times and has spent the rest of dinner trying to cool down her mouth and stomach.

Paro Festival or "Tsechu"

We spent a few days in Paro, Bhutan to watch the Tsechu which is Dzongkha for “festival.”  People come from all around the area to watch intricate dances that tell the stories of Buddhism and the history of Bhutan.  We dressed in the national dress, the “Gho” and “Kira” because everyone attends in their finest attire.  The festival was wonderful and we even had time to visit their museum and learn more about the history of Bhutan and about the natural history, which was really awesome.

We spent the remaining part of the day resting up for our hike the next day to the “Tiger’s Nest” which is an epic hike up to a temple on a cliff.  Of course Wednesday, the day of our hike, Katie’s stomach decided to partake in its usual bug it gets while traveling.  Nonetheless we pushed through and hiked up to the temple which was amazing.  It is literally built on the edge of a cliff, so when you stand in the different rooms you can look straight down to the bottom of the valley, it is impressive!

The hike took much of the day, so after we returned Katie just rested in order to prepare for the long drive on Thursday.  Nobody wants to travel winding mountain roads while feeling queasy.  Luckily we woke up early on Thursday and Katie felt great, so we were able to start the nearly 11 hour journey to the east side of the country.  The distance is not really far, but you can never travel much more than 40km per hour, and in reality you are spending much of the time slowing down to 20km per hour to pass a truck, wait for cows to clear the road, or drive delicately over a wash out.  The drive was beautiful! We went through 4 mountain passes and had the opportunity to see different plant life as we drove further east.

We then spent the next day traveling to nearby cities, and just taking in the day.  We finished the evening with a mountain bike up to a palace nearby and dodging cows as we traveled.  The views were beautiful and it was so quiet.  After spending several days in the city it was nice to relax in the more rural areas.

Langur

Friday we continued our journey in the center of Bhutan going on a fabulous trek down to a river and then up to a temple.  The hike started seeing the white capped Langur which is a monkey in central Bhutan, and then we finished with seeing and experiencing a rowdy group of monkeys (different type) hanging out around the temple.  At one point one of the monkeys threw a chunk of rice at us from the rooftop, which is when we found out that they will throw many things at people including rocks, ha, ha.

Saturday we made the trip even further west and stayed at a guest house in the central part of Bhutan and spent the evening having great conversation with members of the company we are visiting.  Yesterday we finished up heading back to Thimphu to enjoy our last full day in Bhutan.  The day was full as we visited a temple, had tea with wonderful friends of Amrish and Christy’s and then enjoyed dinner with our friend we met last year.  

Our intro to Bhutanese Roads and Hospitality!

On Thursday we spent the day meeting with individuals in the capital of Thimpu to get their input on needs for Bhutan, and then finished the day meeting with the former Prime Minister.  He provided additional insight and thoughts he had for development in Bhutan.  It was really enjoyable to catch up with him and our friend about their time in the US and what they do for work here.

Friday morning we woke up and traveled to our next location.  We had been told about the flights into Bhutan, but nobody had told us about the roads.  They make the flight look tame.  We were delayed a little bit in the morning due to a rock slide, but eventually got on the road midmorning.  As we traveled we gradually increased in elevation the road width seemed to decrease and as a result could see more and more the steep cliffs we were traveling on.  Willie enjoyed taking pictures, while I held on to the seat tightly.  Now that a few days have gone by Katie has become more used to the narrow roads, wash outs, steep cliffs and truck drivers, but not the bathrooms as even the locals will not use them along the roads.

After arriving we had the first opportunity to bushwhack through the forest.  We were accompanied by a team of search and rescue professionals, which happened to be the first search and rescue team established in the country.  The route was beautiful, yet very steep!  At points they brought out ropes to descend to lower parts of the route.  Katie embarrassed herself by slipping twice on the same rock, and drawing plenty of attention from the team. 

We had a wonderful time, and then traveled the next day near the border of India.  The hikes we went on were nearly straight down the mountain and very rugged.  After we reached the bottom we had the great opportunity to visit a power plant. 

The nights at both places were fabulous!  Great company, drinks and delicious food!  Not to mention the most hospitable people we have ever encountered traveling.  We even were able to join in with their Bhutanese dance and song later in the evening.  Who knew we would even be graced with a John Denver song dedicated to Katie!

Tomorrow we are looking forward to seeing their largest festival in Paro!

Willie and Katie

International Day of Happiness!

Yesterday we arrived in beautiful Bhutan, and we were excited to find ourselves arriving on the first annual International Day of Happiness!  Bhutan started pursuing Gross National Happiness in 1972 as a measure of national health and quality of life (similar to GDP but also very different), and the international community has started to pursue this measure, which led to the International Day of Happiness.

Willie getting fitted for a "Gho"

As a result, people were in the streets  all day celebrating, and enjoying music, archery tournaments, soccer and the company of friends.  We spent the day walking around and enjoying the celebration with two of our excellent hosts here, as well shopping for the national dress which we will wear today to the government offices and any temples we visit for the rest of the trip.

It took a team to dress Willie

The national dress consists of a "Gho" for the man and a "Kira" for the woman.  Both involve layers of beautifully woven textiles from Bhutan, and a scarf (rachu for women and kabney for men) for traditional occasions.  We spent much of the day searching for a "Gho" for Willie because they did not have any long enough for him.  At the fourth shop as we dug through all of the options with lots of help we found a XXL Gho that suited him perfectly.  After the shopping we spent the rest of the evening eating delicious food, and catching up with our friend we met in Madison last year.

Our day also involved an amazing flight along the Himalayas and we were able to see Mount Everest.  It was a surreal experience, I don't think either of us could stop looking the whole trip, until it vanished into the distance.  

Mount Everest and the high peaks of the Himalayas

The flight was amazing, and the landing did not disappoint.  It was truly the most unreal landing we have ever experienced.  You can check it out on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlKApjc9T2U or search Paro, Bhutan landing, but nothing prepared us for what it is like to see the ground a mere couple hundred feet from the wing as you are banking into the landing through the valley.  As you come into the runway you are turning until the last second and then the amazing pilots have mastered leveling out the plane just as you touch down.

Arriving at Paro International Airport

Today we will continue our time in the Capital of Thimphu and then tomorrow we will journey out to the east side of the country to check out the parks in Bumthang.

We may not be able to update our blog for a few days, but we hope all is well you!
Willie and Katie

India!

Amsterdam airport nap!

We made it to India late Monday night after a long journey of traveling, and were picked up by our friends, Christy and Amrish to stay at their beautiful home in New Delhi.  The visit has been wonderful thus far, filled with relaxing, going for walks and eating wonderful food.  Now as you can see, really we have only been here just about 2 days, and with sleeping and catching up on jet lag (10.5 hours ahead in India), we have definitely had our time sleeping and resting, but even so we feel so relaxed.  Luckily we had the experienced advice of Christy and Amrish to relax and allow ourselves to adjust.  The first morning as Willie woke me up, I thought it was probably about 9:30am, turns out I wasn't even close, it was 2:30pm!  Nonetheless we stayed up and enjoyed a wonderful dinner and drinks with friends.

With our friend Ailen

Today brought us our first adventure traveling out into New Delhi.  Our wonderful friend Ailen from our time living in Argentina, happens to be in Delhi at the same time as us.  She has been traveling through India for the last 2 months and we decided to meet up during the short time we are visiting.  It was quite the adventure trying to track her down, and after nearly 24 hours we figured out where each other was met up.  With Christy's help figuring out travel Willie and I took an "auto taxi" over to where she was and spent the next hour or so catching up on life over the last 6 years.  It was quite the experience traveling around the city, and it gave us our first look at the day to day life in Delhi.  We made it there and back, and only got hit by two water balloons (apparently there is a festival this week and people throw water balloons at vehicles).  Since our vehicle was open we took the brunt of the water.  Other than that we met the nice gentleman hosting Ailen and then made it back.

Our vehicle in Delhi traffic

Tomorrow we wake up really early and catch our flight to Bhutan.  We are looking forward to learning more about the country and culture while we are there!

We hope all is well with you!
Willie and Katie

Off to Bhutan and India!

Off to Bhutan and India!

We know it has been a long time, far too long since our last blog, but we are back and excited to share our upcoming adventure.  We are leaving in less than a week to travel to Bhutan and India.  We connected with a few individuals from Bhutan last April at an Earth Day event.  
Flash forward nearly a year later, and we are just about ready to head out on the trip.  

Our journey will start with a couple of days in Delhi, India where we will be staying with Katie's friend Christy and her fiance Amrish.  We are fortunate not only to have time to catch up with Christy, but we also found out our friend and host sister from our time living in Argentina will be there at the same time.  We are only in Delhi for a couple of days on the front end of the trip, but we are looking forward to time with all of them.

After we settle into Delhi, we will be taking off for Paro, Bhutan.  We are both looking forward to reconnecting with the individuals we met last year, and meeting new people as we travel throughout the country.  Bhutan currently exports a substantial amount of their hydro power to India, and as a result they are looking to build additional infrastructure (schools, roads, etc.) with the revenue from India.  We are excited to learn more about this, as we have been reading about the culture and history over the last few months.

We will spend a couple of weeks in Bhutan before we return to Delhi to spend our last few days abroad with  Christy and Amrish.  After that we will return home and will look forward to catching up with all of you.

Our goal is to continue to keep the blog updated during our journey in both Bhutan and India once we arrive.  Now all we have to do is continue trying to get all of those little travel items into our carry-on bags before we leave:)

We hope all is well you! 
Willie and Katie