Bhutan Adventure

Every time, when I visited Bhutan it had become an interesting adventure. In my third visit, I never expected to face an adventure and concentrated on training programme. However, it became the most interesting adventure.

10th June 2012, we started the our journey, (Samantha and Ravi, lectures from UCSC were other resource persons). We were visiting to conduct a f2f training session on Instructional Design and e-Learning to academic staff of Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) on behalf of University of Colombo). In advance,I have planned everything with the help of Mr. Rinzin Namgey who is the coordinator of World Bank Project to RUB.


Few hours before departure, I got a message from Ryan (Our ticket agent from Jetwing), that Drukair has changed the airport from Bangkok Suvarnabuhumi airport to Don Muang. I didn't take it very serious. However, when I inquired about it from the airport, no one knew about this change. Fortunately, I was able to contact someone in the airline and he confirmed the change. It was never shown officially in the airport. Next day, we were able to get into airport and reach Paro airport in Bhutan. Anyway, we had two sleepless nights to reach Paro from Colombo.

 Bhutan is always memorable place to see. Thanks to Rinchen, he guided us to see few nice places from airport to Gadu, while spending few hours at RUB head office in Timpu.

Workshop was conducted at Gadu College of Business studies, of Royal University of Bhutan (RUB). It was a very nice place.

During the workshop, we engaged teaching and facilitation work, no adventures inside the classroom but continuous raining and the campus is surrounded by huge mountains kept us unspoken anxious. However, we got small brake to take pictures with our participants when rain was stopped for few hours.

On Friday 15th evening, we decided to go to see the biggest Hydro power station in Bhutan called "Thala". It was heavy raining and we started around 4 pm. Due to security conditions, we were not allowed to reach power station but allowed to go their office complex. Road accidents and landslides demonstrated the risk of life that we didn't estimate in advance.

The critical day was 16th Saturday, the last day of workshop. We completed our sessions just before the lunch. Soon after lunch, we got into Inter cooler Jeep. Raining was continuous but the driver was confidence. I felt the risk is very high  and one friend in the workshop, told me if there is a landslide (which is very common), road may close to 6-48 hrs. Visibility in the Road is very poor. I kept the driver driving very slowly to minimize the risk. It was really existing time to travel from Gadu to Thimpu (134 kms) in 4 hrs. Simply, more exciting than traveling in Rollercoster at Disneyland in Tokyo (which I experienced in the previous month - May 2012).

Motion sickness and stress made us very tired once we reached Timpu. I never expected but it became too difficult to keep us functioning normally. Only solution was vomiting. Samantha was completely down. But Ravi was ok. I suspected our lunch or water we took before we started the trip. We were in very bad mood at the Dinner which was organized by Vice Chancellor of RUB. Both Samantha and I didn't eat at the dinner and hardly managed. Soon after dinner, Rinzin helped us to go to hospital to consult a doctor and get some medicine. With all these matters, I got a message from Champa, that Himanga was admitted to Hospital at Home due to vomiting and dehydration. I cannot remember how I managed things at the end of day, but I wanted to go home as soon as possible ending the adventure.

Fortunately, we were able to recover more than 50% of our normal working condition on next day morning.  I wanted to go home and finish this adventure. Unfortunately, I lost the interest taking the risk and it is my duty to be with my family when there is a critical situation. Since the road from Timpu to Paro is very clear and there is no risk. I expected everything would be fine and we are not lucky on previous day. However, when we started from the Hotel to Airport, I felt weather is not good for an airplane to take over from Hidden Run-away at Paro. However, I thought it is a problem of Pilot and we have to keep calm and praying. 


We were just 20 kms away from Paro airport and saw a very long traffic. People were calm and staying in their vehicles. Driver said there could be an accident in the river. After traveling another couple of kms, we saw a very big landslide and highway was gone. It was hard to move beyond that point. At the same time, it looked like further mud from the mountain could come down. We parked the vehicle and gave up the idea of going back home since it was hard to imagine reaching airport before the departure.
A guy tapped on the glass and told me that if I coul move to other side, I may get another vehicle to go to Airport arranged by the airline. However, crossing landslide area was highly risky. Anyway, I saw Bhutanese were calm.
My mental situation didn't allow me to estimate the risk. I also didn't let me colleges to think twice. I asked Sammantha and Ravi to take bags and cross the muddi area. I was sorry that I didn't took a picture since it was not sure of last few minutes of my life. Somehow, we jumped into other side. Airline was kind to take us to airport using their vehicle.
Once, we reached the airport, they informed due to visibility the aircraft cannot land and it was at Bagdora airport (in India) until the visibility increases. 2 hr delay means that we could loose the connecting flight at Bangkok. Fortunately, Internet was available and I started looking alternative ways to reach home. Also sent SOS to travel agents to find alternative flights, if we miss the connecting flight.
After 1.5 hrs, the situation was slightly improved and Aircraft landed. Soon after unloading passengers and goods, Drukair officer requested us to get into airport as soon as possible since weather was again getting bad. Within 45 minutes everything was done, and Drukair took off.
Our small memorable adventure in Bhutan came to end.