Wayfarer's window!

There we were, a good two hundred of us, lip smacking for a taste of the "call of the wild". Our itinerary was well chalked out: everything to make it eventful, enjoyable and worthwhile! On the face of it, it looked good. In reality, while there were a smattering of well organized events, the jungle trip was only a packaged deal of a whirlwind tour for three-hours packed in safari jeeps. We saw little. They had told us that in the 1288 square kilometers of forests there were only around 200 tigers: the odds of seeing a tiger was always against us. Hanging somewhere between excitement and dismay, we met the man. We met him in two unassuming places; a cottage where he once lived and at the bookshop! As I got to know him better, I began liking him. He was everything I knew him not to be! I knew him as a hunter, whose call to fame were a score of man-eating tigers he shot and killed. Instead, he was a friend of the wild. The vast tracts of remaining forests, the survivin...

Our hosts in Bhutan were my wife's aunt and uncle and a few long-lost cousins and their families. They were gracious and warm. On many days, they would take long hours to prepare the best of Bhutanese delicacies. The best one for me was the Trout -fish curry; adventurously caught in Thimpu river by my wife's cousin and lovingly prepared by her uncle. We also had a visit to the local market to behold the sight of local food and Bhutanese handicraft memetos.

We reached Bhutan sometime between the end of spring and beginning of monsoon: a time for flowers to fade and fruits to begin..yet we got to see the best of the collection there!