In the morning Jytte & Ole speed sight-see all the stuff I saw at my leisure while they were trekking. I pack and take a little walk around the neighborhood. We meet for lunch in a nice restaurant near the sports complex, where we eat the usual fare and try the local wheat-based firewater. Unlike other guides, Thsering and Ugen never eat with us, but have their meals somewhere else in the same place - kitchen? Next item on the program is the weekend market, to get to which you have to cross a prayerflag filled wooden pedestrian bridge. There are two sections - the 'antiques' and the clothes. We are not overly interested by either of them. The 'antiques' are expensive, and the clothes give us an awkward feeling of having maybe originated from relief donations - at least some of them. We recross the bridge to the actual market where we see stalls with grains, vegetables, fruits, etc., along with those impossibly short brooms. All very colorful and genuine. We are very intrigued when we see some heavily garbed women with golden noserings. They are Nepalese, we later learn.
We pile into the car again and drive the almost 2 hours to Paro, near the entrance of which we see an archery field. The archers are divided in two teams with the targets so far apart, that even with glasses I have a hard time making out the bull's eye. Whenever someone gets it close the men perform a little song and dance, which make those, who understand the words, burst into laughter. Tshering tells us that he, too, is an avid archerer, and that the people here have very sophisticated bows made in the US. Meanwhile the women are singing and dancing in a circle, sometimes joined by the men that are waiting out their turn. Hits are marked with colorful banners hung from the waist, and some of the men must be very good, because they have almost little skirts from all the banners stuck in their belts.
We leave him and Ugen there and take a last look at quaint little Paro, the lovely Dzong and the amazing snowcapped mountains. The silence, pure air, and general peace will be hard to replace. We return to the Toyota and to the Olathang, where we are given the same cottages we had before. Our flight out is at 8am, so it will be a 5am wake-up call for us - and an early night.
A variety of pictures here:
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