Bewitching Bhutan! Day Five: From Punakha to Paro with Sightseeing En Route—Suspension Bridge, Traditional Bhutanese Lunch by a River, National Museum of Bhutan, Donning Traditional Bhutanese Garb, Posing for Pictures on a Picturesque Bridge, Shopping for Handicrafts

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Bewitching Bhutan!

Day Five: From Punakha to Paro with Sightseeing En Route—Suspension Bridge, Traditional Bhutanese Lunch by a River, National Museum of Bhutan, Donning Traditional Bhutanese Garb, Posing for Pictures on a Picturesque Bridge, Shopping for Handicrafts:

We had a very nice night in our Zen Hotel, awoke refreshed, ready to take our showers, pack our bags and head down for breakfast.

Breakfast was a buffet with cornflakes and hot milk, omlettes and toast (with butter and strawberry jam—standard items in a Bhutanese buffet), puri bhaji, fresh fruit, coffee and tea. We ate well and felt ready to meet Dil when he showed up at 9.00 am to pile our baggage into the van and set off. We were heading today towards Paro, the country’s largest city and one that can boast an airport (for international travel)—the other airport is domestic and is in Bumthang (in the northeast of Bhutan—an area that we did not explore). En route, we would stop at a couple of places and the first site was the Suspension Bridge.

Walking Across A River Along a Suspension Bridge:

The Suspension Bridge is another large attraction in Bhutan, primarily because it is a novel concept—a visitor can actually walk across the bridge to get from the car park to the opposite bank of a raging river to a little temple called Tachog Lakhang. But, as this temple is small and does not offer anything exceptional, few tourists actually enter it. The real joy comes from crossing the bridge that is colorfully strung with prayer flags, take pictures in groups, couples or as individuals and generally enjoy the location which is exceedingly picturesque

And so, of course, we followed suit. We took pictures with the bridge behind us. I must state, at this point, that the bridge we crossed is a modern one. The older one, that dates over centuries, is now rather fragile and protected as a national monument. The one we crossed is built more recently to offer access to the temple and to provide tourists with the fun of walking along a swaying bridge. Built with steel ropes and wires, the bridge is designed to sway and it does offer some excitement on a very casual stop. Once we were on the other side, we stopped by a small chorten that is decorated with prayer wheels on all four sides and were able to turn each one of them as we passed by. Once we had our fill of the novel experience and the natural beauty of the spot, we piled back into our vans and continued our journey. And then it was time for lunch

Traditional Lunch by the Riverside:

By this point, being quite fed up with Indian food, we asked Dil to take us to a typical Bhutanese place where we could enjoy home-spun food. He took us to the Alpine River Front Farm House which was about a half hour’s drive from the Suspension Bridge.

This site turned out to be idyllic. Although it does feature a proper restaurant, Dil asked the proprietor, a man named Dorji, to set up and lay tables for us in a little shack overlooking the mountains and the river that gurgled alongside us. It was simply lovely. And then, after we were seated and told the waiter that we’d like to taste Bhutanese food, the offerings started to come at us. First of all, we were treated to either Milk Tea or Butter Tea (no marks for guessing that I chose Butter Tea as I had grown a huge liking for it). Next came the actual dishes themselves, one after the other. Yes, there were the usual suspects: rice, roti, dal, papad, but there were also some unusual Bhutanese dishes that we had not tasted before—really delicious fish and lovely chicken. And we tasted the best Emma Dashi we had ever eaten—the cheese was so flavorful and the chillis in it were not spicy at all. Including this dish, there were three vegetables—steamed broccoli, carrots and another dish with potatoes and stewed beans. Everything was just wonderful. The best part was that our appetites were thoroughly whetted by being in the crisp mountain air, with the soft sounds of the shallow river burbling over the stones. We just loved the setting and the food so much that it became one of the best meals we ate in Bhutan

We also discovered that this same place offers the famous Bhutanese Hot Stones Bath. This was something that I had read about in ‘Lonely Planet’ as being one of the “Don’t Miss” experiences in Bhutan. And when we found out that it was offered here, we decided it would be good to book in for baths tomorrow after our epic climb to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery would badly require the healing and soothing qualities of a spa soak. Hence, we sought out Dorji who very kindly showed us the entire process—from the collection of the river and mountain stones to the heating of them on wood fires, to the inserting of them in wooden bathtubs in which patrons soak taking in the comforting presence of native herbs like artimesia and roots like callum. After a one hour soak, one’s aches and pains and supposed to magically dissolve away—at least temporarily. At Rs. 2000 a pop, it seemed like a steal. And so we decided to take advantage of it and have a go at it tomorrow.

And with that, we returned to our van for the next sightseeing venue—the museum.

Visiting The National Museum of Bhutan and a Minor Set-Back:

And so, in about ten minutes’ time, right in the heart of the city of Paro, we were at the National Museum of Bhutan. This was the very first museum in Bhutan that we would see (as we missed seeing the National Library and Archives in Thimphu)—and so, we were excited.

Like all the official buildings in Bhutan, the National Museum is built in a very stylized aesthetic, in the same uniform colors and with the same design on its façade which gives all the structures in Bhutan a sense of planned development. The interesting thing is that this building was actually a dzong, the Paro Ta Dzong, which was built in 1649. It has been refurbished to house the national art collection and was inaugurated in 1968 by his Majesty King Jigme Dorji Wangchuk. The dzong stands on a hill overlooking the river—an ideal place to build a dzong (fortress) to keep away invaders and also to see them coming by water or land from a distance. In a fascinating and most visionary manner, the inside of the Dzong, a circular building, has been reconfigured to house over 3000 articles that comprise some of the finest works of art produced in the country. Over five floors, each of which contains a particular form of craftsmanship, one can take in the nation’s best treasures: there are thangka paintings galore of various sizes and featuring various deities, bronze sculpture, wall-hangings, arms and armor, a whole life-size Buddhist altar or glassed shrine (this was of special interest to me as it was the first time we were actually allowed to take pictures of a Buddhist shrine). It contained all the elements of a real Buddhist shrine from towering central figure to dough decoration, from tin and clay figurines to extensive wall paintings.

We strode through all the galleries and halls, descending from one level to the next. It was all really fascinating. At the very end, just as we were about to leave the museum, we spied a large prayer wheel and Marisa was keen to turn it. She needed to climb about three steps to get to it, but she was probably distracted, not looking down, and she misjudged the height of the step she needed to take. Next thing we knew, she was literally flat on her face after we’d heard a loud thud. Several people rushed forward to help her get up. Needless to say, she hurt herself badly. I spied a café that, providentially, happened to be just a few steps away and I requested Menaka to run inside and bring Marisa some ice. This she was able to do quite easily and in just a few minutes, we made a little ice pouch that Marisa applied to the affected parts of her body—her forehead, her cheek bone, her knee. No doubt, she was in great pain and seated for a long while on one of the steps, she was able to find a bit of relief.

With all of us helping her up, she was gradually able to make her way up a gentle slope to the van. Yes, we all felt subdued by this terrible experience, but we were also conscious of the fact that it could have been much worse and that Marisa could well have sustained more painful and permanent damage.

And so it was that we got back into the van for what Dil told us would be the next item on our itinerary: trying out traditional Bhutanese dress and shopping for handicrafts.

Donning Traditional Bhutanese Garb and Posing for Pictures on a Picturesque Bridge:

We had one more treat ahead of us as we looked towards the end of a very happening day. We stopped outside a large store where the sign said, “Dress for Hire”. Dil led us into a cavernous space, crawling with loud and animated Indian tourists, bargaining vigorously for the shop’s wares and excited in the extreme. It turns out that although this is a frequent stop, it is a real tourist trap. It hires out the traditional Bhutanese outfit—ghos for men and kiras for women. In a quieter corner inside, where we paid Rs. 200 more for each outfit (ie. Rs. 500 as opposed to Rs. 300 outside), we had an exclusive range of beautiful outfits shows to us and the services of a sweet Bhutanese lady who helped us dress. We, ladies, found skirts and matching blouses in lovely satin and silk fabrics and were shown how to wear them. Llew had the services of a man who helped him pick out an outfit and wear it. Of course, these outfits were grander than the daily ones that we saw all Bhutanese people wear. Once our outfits were on us, we were led to the bridge by Dil—we needed to catch the evening light before it disappeared altogether. There, against the walls of Paro Dzong (not to be confused with Punakha Dzong which we had visited in the afternoon), our guides too pictures of us in these national outfits. It was a great deal of fun and we really had a fabulous time. In fact, we had even more fun when our crazy driver Chilay told us that he wanted to teach us a Bhutanese dance which he would then put on Tik Tok. We followed his lead and ended up having a great time even if we made fools of ourselves. When all this tom-foolery ended, we returned to the shop, where we took off the national garments, and then spent a little while browsing through the wares and buying a few things to take home as souvenirs.

We were quite tired by this point and were experiencing tourist fatigue—the kind that comes from climbing, walking, photographing, posing for photos, shopping, etc. Yes, we had heard, before we set out, that a visit to Bhutan would involve a larger amount of leg work than usual…but this was not overly daunting. However, at the end of the day, one does look forward to the opportunity to check into a nice hotel and relax on a comfortable bed

Checking into our Hotel In the Midst of Rice Fields in Paro:

We drove past the sweet little town, with its very picturesque main street, lined with enticing handicraft shops that we hoped to sample, the next day, and arrived at our hotel, the Shomo Chuki Resort that we found to be tucked away in the rice fields—a completely different rural setting from the urban ones we had enjoyed in the past few days

After we checked in, we found out that we had to leave the Reception and Restaurant building, walk through a small garden (filled with the promise of blooming hydrangeas) to get to the three storey building (no elevators) behind that housed our room. We did not assemble for drinks this evening but merely made our way to the restaurant where we had some of the worst meals of our entire trip. The chef here was certainly not the best and although the sweet waiter tried hard to make us feel satisfied, we were not. The buffet contained the same offerings—a soup that was tasteless—and the regular chicken curry, two vegetables (there were no Bhutanese dishes), a green salad, papad, roti, rice, dal and tinned fruit in its juice for dessert. Nothing was tasty and we were left very unsatisfied by the meals offered by this hotel. Still, considering that we’d had a very eventful and productive day, we overlooked the poor quality of the food, said bye to each other and moved to our own rooms, with the plan to return at 8.00 am, for what we hoped would be a better breakfast.

Until tomorrow…keep smiling.