“Our guide, Pema, and our driver, Choeda, were a great duo. Together, they were most welcoming and made sure we were always comfortable. From the airport, we started our tour and we were immediately wowed by the beauty of the country. Something about the architecture and the landscapes – it was almost pristine compared to anywhere else in the world.”
A big thank you to Sonam and Ulli for planning our trip to Bhutan with our twin 10 year old daughters. As part of an extended family trip, we wanted to visit Bhutan as we had heard great things from other people but where to start? There were so many tour operators to choose from which made it incredibly difficult to figure out how best to organize ourselves. After a few weeks of reading/researching, we realized that we should do a private tour vs. joining a larger tour group. By doing a bespoke trip, we could change our schedule (add more/do less) since one never knows how the children will fare.
From that point, we contacted a few agencies and it was via a blog that we found Bhutan Homestay. We had assumed that we would stay solely in hotels but were easily convinced to incorporate homestays into our itinerary based on the reviews posted by others. We ultimately decided to do 3 night in homestays and 2 nights in a hotel to ensure that we would have wifi. Sonam and Ulli were extremely responsive to our questions so we knew we were in good hands.
Our guide, Pema, and our driver, Choeda, were a great duo. Together, they were most welcoming and made sure we were always comfortable. From the airport, we started our tour and we were immediately wowed by the beauty of the country. Something about the architecture and the landscapes – it was almost pristine compared to anywhere else in the world.
The itinerary put together for us was perfect but most memorable for us was:
• Damchoe’s Homestay: Damchoe is a lovely, smart woman and makes a mean tofu momo as well as delicious lentil soup. We enjoyed chatting with her and learning more about the country as she answered a lot of questions that we had
• Leki’s Homestay: We really enjoyed this homestay as we had a couple nights there and we loved the communal living room where we ate with Pema, Choeda, and other guests. It was a lot of fun and the food was plentiful. We had some ara (local wine) which made things even more fun. We even got to borrow some of Leki’s family’s traditional clothing (kira and gho) so our family could dress for the local religious festival in Punakha.
• Hike to the Tigers Nest: Of course, everyone does this if they are physically able. We were still amazed that this could have been built into the side of the mountain. Note: our kids did not take the horses up to the halfway mark as much as they initially wanted to. On the walk back down, they were so pleased with themselves for having done the trek on their own.
• Punakha festival: We were only there for about 45 minutes but it was amazing to see all the locals come out and celebrate
• Post Office (Thimphu): The personalized stamps on the postcards are amazing – must do and it doesn’t take long
“Pema was a total pro and it was so nice to get to know him and he was always there to help us or the kids in any way. Choeda doesn’t speak English but it didn’t matter as his lovely personality came through in his smiles.”
A very big thank you to Pema and Choeda. Pema was a total pro and it was so nice to get to know him and he was always there to help us or the kids in any way. Choeda doesn’t speak English but it didn’t matter as his lovely personality came through in his smiles. There’s a lot of discussion regarding the roads being twisty and perhaps requiring motion sickness pills. We used it once at the beginning only because we didn’t know what to expect but we found we didn’t need them. I will chalk it up to Choeda’s great driving!
Although we won’t be back to Bhutan in the short-term, we would love to come back when the kids are older and take another trip with Pema and Choeda.
Thank you,
Venice and Murray