Arriving in Gyelposhing

28^th December

Our arrival in Gyelposhing was a wonderfully Bhutanese experience.  Noone was quite sure where to go and the camp director was not there.  He did have a legitimate reason – he was getting a puncture fixed.  So we waited.   There was also some explanation also of our rooms not being quite ready – furniture was still being delivered.

Eventually the camp director, Karma, turned up and we were taken to our rooms.  It was explained that the six of us were not together; Ashley and Mike, Dan and Alex would be in one guest house – a new one and Anna and I would be in another “nicer” one.

Anna in our luxurious room

My expectations about our accommodation could perhaps be best described by the bag I had packed to go directly to Gyelposhing from Kheni – it contained a pillow, sheet, down quilt, emergency lantern, coffee plunger, sugar, milk and coffee, porridge oats, a polythene carpet, towel, plastic wash basin and a few other items.  We had been told guest house, my school principal had suggested we might be sleeping on the floor of classrooms…. So our delight upon seeing the accommodation provided to the others was absolute:  beds with new, clean mattresses and bed linen; one room with an ensuite with and hot water cylinder and western toilet and a separate bathroom with a squat toilet and hot water cylinder (which turned out not to work) and a small kitchenette to which was immediately added a water boiler and tea and coffee making requirements, and small, sparsely furnished living area.

We admired these amenities, with Anna and I thinking about the promise that our accommodation would be nicer.  And it was.  We had a room at the guest house belonging to the Hydro Electric Project.  By Australian standards, it probably was about 3 star.  Compared to my expectations and my accommodation in Kheni, it was unheard of luxury.  A new wardrobe and dressing table.  Flat screen TV (though I don’t think we turned it on)  nice beds with clean linen, towels (well, one to start with – although it did not seem thoroughly clean, and a second one materialized soon after). A brand new water boiler and the necessities for making tea and coffee were brought to us.  Our bathroom was tiled white with a western toilet, a fixed shower and we had hot water to both the shower and the basin.  There was a very large bucket and plastic jug, should we prefer a mandi bath, and this proved very useful for washing clothes. We had access to the shared sitting room, which again had a flat screen TV, and VERY comfortable chairs and couches.

and our luxurious bathroom

We were a bit worried that the caretaker was a bit uncertain about how long we were staying, and suggested that we might have to move elsewhere if too many important guests turned up, but fortunately the moving did not eventuate, although the important guests did – there was the upstairs for them.

Once we were left to settle in, with the caretaker saying we should ask if there were anything we wanted, we decided that a nightcap of “medicinal” (it said so on the bottle) herbal brandy from Bumthang would be just the thing to toast our comfortable room and get to know each other better (Anna had slept from jetlag for most of the journey east)

It was the start of an interesting 3 weeks.