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

Please welcome Mr. and Mrs. Bittner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As most of you know and witnessed, we got married last Saturday, May 7th at the Living Green Expo!  It was so wonderful to have all of you there who could make it to celebrate our special day.  We will follow up with a more detailed blog post this weekend, as we are leaving technology behind for the next few days as we are on our honeymoon!


Here is a photo of the day, and the link to watch the wedding clip on Twin Cities Live.  Hope you enjoy! All our love, the Bittners:)
http://twincitieslive.com/article/stories/S2103060.shtml?cat=11215

How to plan a wedding in 4 days

Hello everyone,


As many of you know, we have been very busy planning our upcoming Green Wedding that will be taking place next weekend, May 7th at the Minnesota State Fair Grounds.  Many of you also know that the wedding had to be planned in less than a month, so here is our journey of planning a wedding in 4 days.


After we found out about winning the Green Wedding, we were given the email addresses for each of the vendors so we could make contacts with them and set up appointments.  Given that we are a couple of hours from the Twin Cities and that really, in a month there are not many free weekends, we planned most everything over one extended weekend. 


Friday, April 15
We left town early in the morning to head up to the Cities for our first appointments of the weekend.  The day started off with a stop in Winona, MN to apply for our marriage license.  Along with the application came the best question yet, "So, will you have to wear an edible dress?"  


Next we cruised up to Minneapolis where we meant with the delicious local/organic catering company and tried the most decadent delights that will be served at the wedding.  After maxing out our time eating our treats, we hurried off to pick out our rings on 394 near Hopkins.  Not going to lie, picking out a ring with a short window of time proved to be more challenging than we had anticipated.  Nonetheless, we found a great band for Katie and scooted off to the final vendor.  One might say, hmm, busy day, but no, we decided to throw in a swing through trip to the brewing company that was on the way to meeting with the flower vendor.  You know you have traveled a lot in a day when you have seen all three campus of the University of Minnesota.   


3 vendors down, 8 to go.


Saturday, April 16
We decided to "take it easy" Saturday morning, since the rest of the weekend was going to be busy.  As it happens, we ended up flying through tasks on the computer, and going shopping for goodies for the rest of the weekend.  At 11:00 Bill and Carol (Willie's parents) and Jori (Willie's sister) arrived at Katie's parent's house in White Bear Lake.  They had a relaxing 15 minutes to put their things down before we had to rush out the door to the thrift store, Lost and Found, where Willie would be picking out the suits for the groomsmen.  That is right, he had to pick out not only his suit, but two more for our friends who will be flying in for the wedding.  Our last groomsman, Erik, was able to cruise down and pick up his suit at a later date.


Suits, check!  Next, off to the hair and make-up professionals with Zaega and Aveda in Minneapolis.  We had a consultation, looked at fabulous hair styles, were able to try out some of their products, before piling in our vehicles for an evening out.  That is, the bride and bridesmaids headed out for a night on the town.  Willie and our parents headed back to White Bear, and Katie continued on with Alyson and Jori and met up with Sarah, the other bridesmaid and our friend Emily (girlfriend of the bridesman), to a quiet night at a POLE DANCING lesson!!!!!


Consider that a complete day!  5 vendors down, 6 to go, and 1 new skill.


Sunday, April 17
Off to dress shopping!!!!  The ladies all headed out to Goodwill to look at fabulous gown options for the wedding!  If you ever need a dress, check out the bridal show at the Twin Cities Goodwill, it is unbelievable.  There were dresses ranging from traditional to high end designer gowns!  We all were able to find beautiful dresses, including Jori who found a Vera Wang!


Next, we headed off to cupcake central at Bryant Lake Bowl and ate the most exquisite cupcakes!  After a delicious sugar high we packed up and met with the DJ in Uptown.  After meeting with the outstanding DJ, Nicholas, check him out http://www.generationnowdjs.com/, we made our last stop in Stillwater to look at photography.  Finally, 8:30pm, we are back in White Bear Lake.....
So tired.............ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!  Katie forgot she needed to finish taxes for 2 of the 3 states she had to file in.  Make that bedtime 10:30.


9 vendors down, 2 to go, and taxes for 3 states filed with the support of Katie's dad and Willie.


Monday, April 18
Wake-up bright and early!  Off to KSTP TV to film the final three segments for the show Twin Cities Live that is following the wedding planning.  What a wonderful day traveling around with the team and meeting with vendors to film!  We were even able to take time to talk with the electric car company to make plans for our honeymoon!  Need your Prius converted, check out ReGo electric conversions.


After a full day of filming, we left KSTP at 4:45pm to meet with our last vendor to make plans for the invitations.  Then, our trip back to La Crosse to snuggle into our own bed, in our own house.


Luckily we had our fabulous families to support us through the weekend and participate in all of the excitement!  Thank you to all of you for everything you do!  Steve, we missed you this weekend, but you are a major part of the whole adventure!


11 vendors down, 0 to go.....at least for that weekend.