Last Day of the 5th King's Birthday Celebration

At Yongphu Temple, above Kanglung.

The king was very lucky. His birthday holiday was extremely bright and sunny, at least in Kanglung. So much so that the plan of doing schoolwork all day didn’t pan out; Scott and I had to get out of the house. Today might’ve been the clearest day we’ve had so far. The snow-peaked mountains had no haze in front of them, no cloud coverage – just stark white mountaintops against a bluebird sky.

After lunch, we set off for the hills. We started walking toward lower market but broke off from the main road at the college hostels and followed the road above it.

The road led to a monastery of sorts – where the monks go when they graduate from the Shedri – that we’d never seen before. After a few failed attempts, Scott finally located a suitable walking trail, the one we were looking for. It lead us to prayer flags, a group of chortens, and some magnificent views. We quickly realized we both had overdressed. When we’re in the freezing house getting ready to leave, we have no concept that warmth even exists, but it does, especially today.




We ended up walking for around three hours – a pleasant walk through new views and sites for me (from running, Scott had already seen much of what we passed today). We joined a trail we’ve explored a couple times now, but went off a new way, which led to the Yongphu Temple, a site of a yearly Tshechu (a religious festival).


After, we continued up toward the main road and soon linked with familiarity – the Bhutan Food Corporation office, and home was only three kilometers away.

For most of the walk, I kept thinking how lucky we were, to just go for a walk so close to our house and come across such simple beauty – chortens, prayer flags, gardens, newly planted trees, people sitting outside enjoying the sun, two girls sleeping on the roof of their house under an umbrella, temples, birds – everywhere. And the whole time, the looming snow-peaked mountains kept an eye on us.

A view of Kanglung from above.


One of the entrances to Sherubtse College.