Bhutan – Trek to Laya - October 23 & 31, 2002

The Jakar Lodge – probably the best place to stay in the entire valley, had paper-thin walls, but it did have plumbing and hot water (you had to plug in the 3 gallon heater and wait for an hour for it to heat up). And every night at 7pm the electricity in the entire town went out. Sometimes for an hour and sometimes for the night!

This is a closeup of the wall construction in a typical house. A bamboo or woven mat is fixed to the top beam and covered with plaster.

L The internet café in Jakar – with one computer and two phone lines. But they did have a connection and also a copying machine. They were a busy place while we were there.

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Jakar had a busy downtown and an active agricultural support network. About 35 years ago, a Swiss farmer had come to the valley and brought some methods for making cheese, honey and jams with him, and stayed and taught the local people how to manage the process. The cheese was superb. But we also learned that the valley in Bumthang province was infected with foot and mouth disease – the same one that caused the slaughter of millions of cattle and sheep in England last year. But in Bumthang, they were handling it differently – since no cattle leave the area, and they very seldom intermix with other herds, they were telling all the farmers about it and helping them deal with it on a farm by farm basis. From what we heard, no cattle leave the valley alive – they are all used locally. But it did make us decide to leave our hiking boots in Bhutan after our treks.

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