Walking down the street

We left behind the poetic city Punakha and commenced for trekking at morning; we crossed the prayer wheel, circled it thrice and wished for something. The Buddhist believes if someone circled the prayer wheel or move it thrice his/her wishes come true. We walked down the wobbly mountain trail, passed small villages, paddy fields, oak and pine forests and flowering Rhododendrons shrub one after one. We stopped by a village house to have our lunch, met the old woman. She prayed for our remaining journey.

We lost our trail, found again. After entering to Tapshilla Mountain it started raining cats and dogs. It was tough to trek uphill along through the rain, muddy and slithery roads. With this awful condition leeches appeared and augment our complexities to move forward. I slipped twice. Despite constant raining was a matter of annoyance, but it made the whole jungle more vivacious and greener and the sights seemed more spectacular. At afternoon looking at downhill when Tshering told, “Now you are at the peak of the mountain, which is about 8,500 feet high from the mainland we left”, then I couldn't even believe my own ears that with my twice broken legs I made it!

Through our whole trekking time we didn't hear any birds chirping. Tshering was so tensed. Then we came out to an open place; and started walking again towards Kajhi. The more we walked, it seemed like the destination house is moving afar from us! We lost the right route again! It was pitch dark surrounding us, muddy roads beneath our feet, sounds of wild boar were blowing in the air, guys lighted on cigarettes, songs playing in mobile, and we all were walking through a narrow trail in a straight line by the side of a water channel.

We all were too tensed but making sounds with mouth frequently to keep the wild animals away from us. We kept walking down the potholed roads went in between bushes and removing stems and shrubs all through the way. It seemed like we were walking through a never ending path. Nevertheless we often stumbled on the bumpy pebbly road, but at one moment it seemed like we were beyond any feelings of fatigue, pain or curiosity. The silent nature made us silent as well. After 4 hours of trailing when we reached to Mr. Khandu Yangka’s place it was almost 10 pm then. We all looked devastated. We had our dinner with red thick rice, and Ema Datshi [National food of Bhutan, which is prepared with Chili (Ema) and local goat cheese (Datshi)], it felt like having heavenly food.