Bhutan 2009 Day Four – Cheri Monastery and Drive to Punakha

October 2, 2009

When we went down to breakfast this morning, I just had a couple slices of toast. I was still feeling pretty weak, and of course tired. After checking out of the hotel, we headed off for a hike to the Cheri Monastery. Unfortunately, the hike was all uphill and I was still feeling week. I [...]

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Bhutan 2009 Day Three – Thimphu

October 1, 2009

We had an extremely busy day today. We started off by visiting the National Memorial Chorten. A chorten is a receptacle for offerings and contain religious artifacts. It was built to honor the memory of the third king of Bhutan, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck. Buddhists walk around the chorten counter-clockwise, at least three times. They even [...]

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Bhutan 2009 Day Two: Thimphu Tsechu Festival

September 30, 2009

After a good night’s sleep, we went down at 7 am to a breakfast of toast, fried eggs, bacon, beans, porridge and apples. We met Pema at 8 am to head over to the fortress for the tsechu. All the people were in their finest clothes, and it was an impressive sight. The women wore [...]

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Bhutan 2009 Day One: Paro to Thimphu

September 29, 2009

UPDATE: Stephen has posted all his pictures (547 of them) from Bhutan on his website, so if you want to see more Bhutan pictures than are in my travelogue, please check it out. Well, at the last minute, we decided to bring my laptop. Our first hotel, here in Thimphu actually has wireless, so I [...]

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Packed for Bhutan, but no blog access

September 26, 2009

I am more or less packed to leave for Bhutan tomorrow. I just have a few little things to throw in my backpack. It looks like I won’t be able to post while I am in Bhutan. I restricted admin access to my blog by IP address, and I didn’t get a chance to set [...]

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Last Minute Packing, Bad Backs, and Dog Sitters

September 23, 2009

I don’t know why, but I seem to be incapable of getting my suitcase out more than a day before we leave on a trip. We leave for Bhutan in four days, and thus far I have simply contemplated packing. True, we travel a lot, so we already have a good idea of what is [...]

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Unique Tourism Plan – Kalona, Iowa

September 19, 2009

The town of Kalona, Iowa has come up with a unique way to draw tourists. They arrest them. Check out this CNN video: Embedded video from CNN Video My travels are usually a bit further afield, but I am originally from Iowa, so this video caught my eye. Very cute idea.

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New banner and blog name are live!

September 16, 2009

I really struggled with a name for my blog. Kara’s Travel Blog was a bit bland. So I put the question out to the geniuses on the Bookmooch forum, saying that I wanted some sort of play on words using my last name. A fine English gentleman, Rob Sharp, came up with what was hands [...]

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Here we come Bhutan

September 12, 2009

It won’t be long until we head to Bhutan. We just received our visas and our final itinerary. We will fly into Bangkok (thank you United frequent flyer miles) and stay overnight. The next morning, we will leave to fly into Paro. Other stops will include Thimphu (for the annual festival at the Thimphu Dzong), [...]

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Watercolors on the Run

September 12, 2009

I always take a watercolor set with me when we travel. I used to drag tons of art supplies with me on our trips, but I have cut it down to the basics and it has not cramped my style at all. What follows is an overview of what I take with me when I [...]

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