My Travel Adventures

Today was a major driving day. Charting an eastward course, I drove for three hours straight, after which we took a short break to refill the tank and empty ourselves. We then drove another half an hour to Plitvice Lakes National Park. Yang navigated for much of the journey, as our GPS refused to send us along the tolled highway. Holding her phone with Google Maps open so that I could see it, she would give me the occasional heads up when we were approaching a turn.

We ate breakfast at our hostel with utmost speed to avoid awkward small talk with our fellow travellers and sped back to Croatia. One of the things I have noticed about roads in Italy and Slovenia is that the on and off-ramps for highways are unpleasantly short and narrow. Besides saving marginal costs on materials, I really cannot think of a reason for why this is so. Nevertheless, our subsequent driving up and down the winding country paths of the Croatian coast was equally challenging, with plucky cyclists acting as occasional obstacles and creating pileups long behind their backs.

We departed Ljubljana in the morning after buying breakfast (and some bread and cheese for a quick lunch) at a nearby store. I also grabbed sunscreen, as my bottle was too big to pack in my carry-on. 

Yang and I both woke up before our alarms, which came in quite handy as today was a busy day. After buying breakfast at a nearby corner store, we checked out of our hostel and left Zagreb. Our first destination was Lake Bled in Slovenia, which is about two hours away from Zagreb on a good day – and one and a half times longer when one has the misfortune to get stuck in traffic on the way past Ljubljana. We also took some time to stop at a gas station after crossing the Slovenian border to buy a highway pass (it turned out we could have just done this online).   

There were many things that could have gone wrong today, so I was constantly surprised as good fortune dispelled my paranoia. My friend Yang and I left Oxford at 5:30 in the morning using the rental car Johnny and I had borrowed for our York trip. The day before, Johnny helpfully suggested we park it outside our college in the evening so that we wouldn’t have to walk far the following morning. This plan worked perfectly and helped us avoid rush-hour traffic on the way to Heathrow.

On the last day of our trip to Yorkshire, we finally made a proper excursion of the city itself. We started in the Museum Gardens, which house a tiny observatory and yet another ruined abbey – that of Saint Mary from the eleventh century. We also visited York Minster, which is home to the Archbishop of York, also known Anglicanism’s top dog number three following the monarch and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although it boasts of having the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world (I’m not sure how this compares to Gloucester Cathedral’s similar claim), I would say its most fascinating feature is the Doom Stone. Located in the cathedral’s crypt, it depicts sinners inside a boiling cauldron as well as demonic-looking figures.

It was a cloudy morning when Johnny and I arrived at the Studley Royal Park. We came before the ticketed part opened, so we wandered around a little, taking pictures of the pheasants and goslings before returning to the gate. Despite Studley being officially listed as a National Trust monument, I got free entry thanks to a local partnership between the NT and English Heritage. Studley Royal Park is home to the massive, ruined Fountains Abbey, which was among the wealthiest during its blossom. It stands on top of the stream and after reaching it from the southern bank, we crossed to the northern bank and walked back to the entrance along the more elevated pathway.

The cake we bought yesterday was very good, and it served as breakfast this morning as we were too full to eat it after consuming the ice cream that had come with it. Leaving our exploration of York for another day, we departed for Scarborough, a seaside town most famous for the song Scarborough Fair. As Johnny discovered on Wikipedia on our way, the celebrated fair had a 500-year tradition until it was discontinued in the 19 th century. Also, the town itself was destroyed or heavily damaged multiple times: first by the Vikings, then during the Civil War, and finally by the Germans during the Second World War.

I had been intending to go to York for a while, but the distance (or rather, the bad state of British rail infrastructure) always posed an annoying obstacle to me. The connections are indirect, long, and expensive, taking up more energy, time, and finances than the visit itself. After overcoming my fear of driving on British roads, however, I unwittingly entered a whole world of new possibilities.

With our trip over, I think it would make sense to compile a short index of things I learned to recognise at temples and holy places. This way, I will be able to look darned smart next time I go to a museum. Avalokiteshvara (Tibetan: Chenrezig; Chinese: Guanyin): “Lord who looks down with compassion,” a major bodhisattva. (S)he is often portrayed with four arms, one holding a string of jewels, and another holding a lotus, symbols that refer to the prayer “Om mani padme hum” (translated as “Praise to the jewel in the lotus” or “I in the jewel-lotus”). Another common portrayal of Avalokiteshvara has one thousand arms and eleven faces stacked on top of each other in three rows of three and two rows of one. Bhavachakra: A painting that comprises concentric circles demonstrating Buddhism’s core teachings on samsara, cyclical existence. The hub of the circle displays a pig, a rooster, and a snake, which represent the three poisons of ignorance, attachment, and anger. The second layer exp...

I got diarrhoea at some point yesterday, and I spent last night shuttling between my bed and the bathroom. Fortunately, nothing was planned for the day, as the rest of the tour group was preparing for their departure. From dawn until dusk, therefore, I stayed in bed, drank tea, and ate crackers. Also fortunate was the fact that my diarrhoea abated as quickly as it had come, and when we left on the 12 th , I did not go the toilet a single time for our entire journey.

As I mentioned previously, our second arrival in Nepal was accompanied by unforeseen difficulties. The officials at the airport refused to acknowledge our visa extension forms, leaving us with two options: overstay and pay a fee of fifty dollars or extend our visas at the immigration office. On our very first day in Nepal, my dad and I happened to walk past the immigration office and did not form an overly favourable impression of it. Practically besieged by crowds of desperate looking South Asian migrant workers both inside and outside in the blistering sun, it seemed a realm of understaffed chaos.

Today was a difficult day. I could not sleep because of the traffic outside; cars east of Kathmandu Valley all seem to have horrible sounding horns that they use profusely and indiscriminately. I woke up before five o’clock, and although watching the sun rise over the Himalayas was part of the programme, we saw diddlysquat, as dust and pollution brought the visibility down to laughable levels.

This morning we finally had a more reasonable starting time than on previous days: we were supposed to wake up at a leisurely seven o’clock and leave at nine. I say “supposed to,” as I woke up before six; my body rightly distrusts our tour guide’s newfound lenience.

To catch our 7:40 flight from Paro back to Kathmandu, we had to wake up at quarter to five, which I did not particularly enjoy. However, as we have gotten quite used to the tyranny of our tour operator, the incident passed without much complaining. The flight itself was very beautiful. As during our flight from Kathmandu to Thimphu, we enjoyed clear blue skies all the way, and even better than on that flight, we did not have to make the murderous descent into Thimphu.

Our tour guide persuaded the hotel to serve us breakfast earlier than they usually do so that we could leave for Paro Taktsang at seven o’clock. We did not go directly. Instead, we made a small detour to catch a glimpse of the sacred mountain Jomolhari, as well as Drugyel Dzong. An interesting fact about the latter is that it languished on UNESCO’s tentative list for many years until Bhutan completely dashed its chances by completely reconstructing the ruins.

It has been our luck this entire trip that upon leaving a place, the weather there always turns nice. Sometimes, however, the sun also shines on our destination. Such was the case today, when good weather accompanied much of our bus ride from Phobjikha Valley to Paro.

Today’s programme was more leisurely than our previous experiences. We departed from our hotel in Phobjikha after nine o’clock to visit Gangtey Lhakhang, a monastery built by Peling Gyaltse Rinpoche, grandson of the terton Pema Lingpa. It is said that Pema Lingpa himself predicted the construction of a temple in the Valley of Phobjikha, which is known for being the winter home of black-necked cranes. These are said to circle the temple three times before landing in the valley.   

Today was one of those lopsided days, with a packed itinerary in the morning and a long bus journey after lunch. We began with an early visit to Jampey Lhakhang, one of the oldest monasteries in Bhutan. It is said the monastery was founded by the great Tibetan conqueror Songtsen Gampo, who was advised that a giant demoness possessed his realm. In an effort to subdue her, Songtsen Gampo had thirteen monasteries built at the same time across the demoness’s body, including two in Bhutan. The ancient monasteries in Jakar and Paro pinned down the left ankle and knee of the demoness. Her heart was subdued by the monastery in Lhasa.

On our way from Jakar this morning, we made two brief stops to take pictures of local sights. The first was Jakar Dzong, alleged by some to be the largest Dzong in Bhutan. The second was a rock by the village of Jalikhar, in which some recognise the shape of a vagina. Our first main stop, however, was Membartsho, also known as Burning Lake. The place holds a very special place in Bhutanese history, as it was in this lake that Pema Lingpa discovered his first terma: a teaching hidden by Guru Padmasambhava, held by Vajrayana Buddhists to be an incarnation of Buddha Amitabha.

Today was a major travel day: we had to make the seven-hour journey from Wangdue Phodrang to the city of Jakar in Bumthang District, the historic heart of Bhutan. Winding our way up and down the major artery that connects Thimphu to the central regions, we covered the 2000 metres of altitude that separate subtropical forests from the snowline. The change in flora was remarkable. In the lowlands, we spotted banana and papaya trees, whereas higher up, the lush green landscape gave way to forests of pines and rhododendrons. These grow to enormous heights in Bhutan, rivalling even the moss-festooned magnolia trees that often find themselves sprinkled in between.