Pele La Pass

On our way to the Phobjikha Valley we traveled over the 11,000 foot Pele La pass. This is on the main east-west road through Bhutan.

One thing that I hadn't realized before is that roads are a relatively recent addition to the Bhutanese infrastructure but not necessarily a modern one. This is one of the best and best maintained roads but it is mostly one lane, and inconsistently paved. There are wide outs occasionally so oncoming traffic can pass. It is also the main trucking route for goods coming from or going to India. The wide out strategy works in this case but just barely.

These photos were taken in October 2008 mostly with a Nikon D3.

(Almost) all the big "Goods Carriers" were similarly adorned. Check out the surrey-like fringe of sparkles, check out the eyes painted above the headlights, check out the paint job. Are these cool or what? Sometimes these trucks would be loaded with people ... and one of my favorites, we saw one full of monks going to a ceremony ... what I dubbed "chock full of monks."
As we crossed the pass we saw this family picnicking but that's not what made this pass memorable for me. To this point, we had always been within shouting distance of restrooms. Today, and for many days in the future we would not. As we descended the pass, we were let out of the bus to hike down the roadway and find bushes, flowers and/or rocks to water. I now have some better appreciation of the indignity our dogs may have felt when we let them out of the car for their own bio-hygienic purposes. One of our fellow travelers was laughing as she came back to the bus. "I think I just frightened a family ... they were coming down the trail, rounded a bend and all they could see was a big white hinny!" Moments later said family walked by the bus laughing. Mostly, we all laughed to, mostly.