Travel to Remote Eastern Bhutan Where the Yeti Lives – Part One

All text and Photos Copyright Nathan Ward – No reprint without permission.

This is a multi-part story about a trip Andrea and I took to the eastern part of Bhutan. It takes six days of driving non-stop to get there and back, but we only went a few hundred miles because the roads are so thin and curvy. This story originally appeared in Lifestyle and Travel Magazine. Read on to learn all about it.

Beyond the World’s Last Corner - Flying Tigers, Wise Monks and Hairy Yetis, Nathan Ward explores the Hinterlands of the Last Himalayan Kingdom

A wrinkled brown hand pushes a wooden bowl toward me, a bowl filled with sweet saffron rice, a Himalayan delicacy. Using my fingers, I scoop the golden rice into my mouth and wash it down with a sip of thick butter tea. The host’s dark eyes crinkle with a smile as she hands me another drink, this one clear like a mountain stream but filled with the power of fire, laughter and warmth. I toss back the tangy rice wine and look at the demons dancing below me.

Two masked demons twist and spin their bright robes into fluid spheres of shimmering color, their wooden faces frozen in grimace and fear. Frantically, drum beats fill the air and fierce-faced warriors stream from the corners of the ancient palace, surrounding the demons. The warriors beat the drums with a roar that ebbs and flows as they chase the evil spirits back to the underworld.

Sacred Mask Dances at the Phobjika Valley Monastery

The drumbeat and rice wine has worked us all into a trance, our eyes and ears fascinated by the battle of good and evil in front of us. All around the courtyard, villagers stand open-mouthed, staring at the dancers and feeling the tales of their history. I also stood transfixed watching the ancient ritual unfolding in front of me.

I was in central Bhutan traveling with a few friends and we had just happened upon this sacred ceremony at the remote Enduchholing Palace, a ceremony carried over the great Himalayan peaks hundreds of years ago in the hearts of nomadic Tibetans. Today in Bhutan, the rituals continue almost unchanged to celebrate the deeds and teachings of the great Buddhist gurus. Watching the dance was like stepping into a time machine - it’s a world unlike any I’ve ever visited.

In fact, not many people have visited this mountain kingdom. Bhutan remains one of the most fabled travel destinations on Earth, a result of its long-closed doors, limited tourism and remote location, hidden in a tiny span of proud peaks between India and China. When people do make it to Bhutan, they usually see only a few sites in the western part of the country, along the well-known path between the great fortresses of Paro, Punakha and Bumthang.

However, many jewels of Bhutan lie off this beaten path, hidden in the central and remote eastern parts of the country. This is what we set out to find – the distant dusty corners of this far-away Kingdom. I wanted to see it now, while few outsiders had visited and we wanted to go all the way to the end of the road.

We set off from the capital city Thimphu and slowly made our way east on the National Highway, around thousands of skinny curves. This road is the only road from east to west in Bhutan and was only built in the 1960s. After crossing several mountain passes, we climbed the high Pele La and dropped into the gentle valleys of central Bhutan. Instead of following the main tourist route to Bumthang, we turned south and descended into the green subtropics near the village of Zhemgang.

This story continued tomorrow - Part Two