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Looking for a place to sleep
One of the fun aspects of a spontaneous trip is the unpredictability part of it. I usually plan an overall theme and let the small details emerge as and when required. After visiting the beautiful Punakha Monastery, it was almost sunset. Being situated in a valley, it gets dark within no time. We decided to stay in Punakha.
We (there are two of us in this story, remember?) walked the 4 km distance between Punakha and Khuruthang, a little ‘new’ town where most of old Punakha town was resettled. Khuruthang is a grid of streets that intersect each other at 90 degrees, how charming! I flipped open my guidebook and saw that there were two budget sleeping options and two overpriced ones.
Road from Khuruthang to Punakha
Most stores were already closed by 19:00 as we knocked the door of our first hotel. Three girls greeted us. My ‘khuzuzangbo la’ (Bhutanese greeting) evoked smiles but failed to yield any discounts. We told them that our budget was Rs. 400 (~$8) for a room with 2 beds and a heater. Their initial price of Rs. 800 jumped to Rs. 600 but no less than that. There was no heater, and the room stank of cigarette smoke.
(PS: Selling tobaco is illegal in Bhutan.)
So we went to the next hotel. The guy agreed at Rs. 400 for his Rs. 500 room. It had a nice wooden closet (which was useless to us since we had no luggage on us) and a nice TV with about fifty (mostly awful) Indian channels. We took the room. ‘No room heater in Punakha’ the young receptionist quipped. Oh whatever! I thought.
As soon as the problem of shelter was solved, our stomachs began to grumble. It had been a while since that painful lunch at tourist restaurant. Unfortunately this hotel didn’t serve food. So we walked around the town hoping to find something since we didn’t want to face the cheerful girls at the first hotel again.
We ended up requesting the cheerful girls to make some daal (lentil soup) and rice since everything else in the town was closed. It was very basic meal but my stomach burped with satisfaction and we walked back to our hotel for a peaceful sleep, or so we thought.
Early morning in Khuruthang town
Most of the night was either cold or noisy (dogs) or both. It was cold, not cool. We had vapours coming out of our mouth even when we were inside the room. I generally have a problem sleeping with clothes on, and I tried hard to sleep in my jeans and sweater. I got sweaty. Then cold. Then there was some loud thud. Phew, the night was interesting!
Nice thick fog
Finally the night ended. I got out of the bed as soon as I could. The dawn was so beautiful. There were noisy pigeons on the street eating grains that some shopkeeper had strewn on the street. The air was fresh. Everything I touched was mostly wet due to fine drops of dew, and the fog was still thick. Somewhere at a distance I could hear the sound of a vehicle and people unloading something. Milk and groceries perhaps. I guess they had a sleepless night too…!
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You brought back my Munaar trip memories. Walking on the deserted roads at 10 pm and searching for a hotel room. It was a miracle that we somehow got a room that night. Everything was full.
The last photo is beautiful.
Thanks Amit. Oh I have so many finding-hotel stories!
@ Priyank : Your clue should have been the name of the place “Khuruthang”. Thang means Desert he he he he. I guess it is the sort of town which is mostly ‘empty’. Funny I have not been to this place at all. Next time I am going to check it out.
Are you serious!? Interesting! Most of Punakha town is moved to this new un charming town here (or so I was told).
Early morning and thick fog snaps are just awesome!!!
Thanks Swapneel. It was a beautiful day-break! No cocks or roosters though…
Really nice pictures. It looks like the road to the place is good.
Thanks Rajesh!
This has been a fantastic set of posts, Priyank. I have always wanted to visit this place. I guess dogs and pigeons are the same everywhere.
Thanks Shantanu! Did you find them in France too?
I don’t think my comment posted, If it did, feel free to delete one of them. Love the images, especially the one with the fog, although the night one is cool too. You are far more adventurous then I , I’m going tour all the way in China.
Thanks Bob, both your comments got submitted (so I deleted the short one and kept the long one, LOL).
I’m not very adventurous compared to many other people, so I don’t compare and neither should you, hehehe!
Wow. I admire you for going on a loosely-planned trip. If I were that, details such as accommodation would be planned to the minute. I suppose it’s just my personality: my itinerary can tell me what I am doing at any given minute in a day.
And I learned a few things about you here. So you sleep naked. And you segment events in a rather interesting way. Apparently, you can quantify when nights begin and end. Yes, there is sunrise and sundown, but on a more layperson level, it is more of a gradual change. Not that quantification is a bad thing, but interesting nonetheless.
Hi Jeruen,
The extent of planning depends on several circumstances. Most of the times detailed information about the place are crammed into my head so I don’t bother planning in advance since I know there will always be a way. When I first traveled alone in 2005, I planned everything minute by minute, including contingencies, and it was great. You know, planning is always a response to anticipated risk – predictability, safety, knowledge etc. In Russia for example, I was never so relaxed.
Ah you do read between the lines! Let me add some useless trivia: I sleep in my boxers or shorts. The night has a definitive end – I generally can’t sleep once the sun is up – and while transition to daylight is gradual, sunrise/sunset are totally binary. Does my clarification make it easier? I didn’t understand by what you meant by ‘segmenting events’.
cheers!
the early mornings are so pristine and Fresh- sometimes it doesnt matter if its in crowded bombay or the heart of himalayas. btw, great pics – both!
Thanks Neeraja. I am a morning person and prefer sunrise to sunsets. You are right, mornings are special anywhere.
[...] – yeah I hadn’t slept much last night [...]
[...] series of travelogues narrating my trip to Bhutan. Here are the other posts! « Previous post: Sleepless in Khuruthang | Next post: Blessed by Bhutan’s highest monk [...]
[...] Me ← Toronto Tuesday: 01.12 : Older post Newer post : Sleepless in Khuruthang [...]
I saw a guy comparing his Munnar trip to the one to Khuruthang trip in Bhutan…I have been to both the places..how curious to see people making comparisons which are quite unbelievable. Khuruthang, Punakha on the himalayas….can we compare with a small hillock like Munnar in Kerala…hahahah funny are these guys, who are real frogs in wells. reach out to the world yarrr…before making these funny comparisons.
Thanks for the comment jijo,
Perhaps you could read the comment once again. The person was merely comparing my “experience of finding a hotel at night” with a similar incident he had in another city. It is not a comparison between Khuruthang and Munnar itself.
[...] wake up early in the morning and go out to see this little town of Khurutang, near Punakha, Bhutan. The sky is cloudy and the wind is gentle. A ray of sun occasionally pierces [...]