Said goodbye to our hosts this morning after breakfast and headed to the Black Necked Crane Festival early to snag a seat.

The courtyard was packed full of tourists – the most we’ve encountered so far. Even it the third row it was hard to see what was going on so very glad we caught yesterdays rehearsal.

This is a relatively new festival focussed on the cranes with respect to environment & conservation and to, to bring in some tourist dollars. I think it’s a fantastic idea – how many other places in the world turn to that low hanging fruit, “Casino,” to boost local economies?

The government regulates the home stays so that visitors get an authentic experience. This ensures that farms in the valley get an equitable share of tourist dollars. Rooms are limited to four per host, bookings are through Bhutanese travel agencies only, food is local when possible (but spicing is adjusted,) internet service is not permitted to be offered.

I’ve been battling a sinus cold so was happy to sit in the sun doing nothing. The program started with the entrance of the VIPs and a flag lowering ceremony. When the flag unfurled it released a shower of angel seeds.

It was great fun watching all the bored kids across the courtyard from us during the long speeches. All the classes from the school were queued up in the temple door waiting their turn to perform.

Also entertaining were the orange clad military guards doing crowd and hat control. They would scan the crowd, focus with steely eyes on hat offenders and point with such authority there would be no mistaking that the hat was to come off. They were pretty stern with all the senior ladies who crept up to the front for photos as well.

There were several kid dances – one with them dressed up like cranes and potato farmers. Then the balance of the kids had sandwich boards on their backs with mountains painted on so they could kneel down and create a valley.

The highlight was a traditional dance with colourful costumes and leaping men.

Sadly, at 11a we had to hit the road. It was a tetris puzzle to get the bus out of the parking lot and back on the main road – so many tourists! We headed back up to Pele La pass (at 3420m) hung a right heading to Trongsa and got the bikes unloaded at the first craft stall stop. I got out of the bus and promptly got back on – way to cold to consider a descent that generates zero body heat.

At our cliffside cafe lunch stop I decided to ride a leg – it was freezing, there was a headwind and my ears stuffed up so I couldn’t hear. Too bad as the rolling terrain was awesome and the sight lines were good.

It was back on the bus after a stupa stop at Chendebji Chorten. Nicely sited next to a river and modelled after the Monkey Temple in Kathmandu.

I joined Sally, who was also suffering, on the bus for the rest of the day’s journey – we were able to take in more of the landscape this way. Evergreen trees gave way to more jungle-y vegetation. The number of landslides increased though. We passed a couple of boulders bigger than the bus just sitting there blocking a full lane till the road works folks shift it or break it up further. Passed some cranky looking monkeys – glad to be in the bus. The valleys are quite deep now – saw my first hydro dam and a huge solar farm. (The panel layout jogged around a stupa – in Canada, anything in the way would have been mowed over.) This is another reason Bhutan is a carbon negative country all electricity is from clean sources.

Stopped at an exquisite coffee shop just as we crossed a bridge into Trongsa (2200m.)

Our fancy hotel for the night (at about 1.2 km lower than where we started!) was just what I needed!