Bhutan
Bhutan | May 13 - May 31, 2018

carole
carole c.
New York, NY | Reviewed on Jun 05, 2018

Overall, the trip was fantastic and I am truly grateful that you suggested India before Bhutan. However, the hotel in Delhi was superb. They upgraded us to a fabulous room the the 2nd and 3rd times that we were there which was lovely. Our guides in India were fine. I do have a couple of suggestions....I think we could have done with 1 night in Rathombore. We saw 1 tiger on all our safaris, although others saw many more...just lucky. We really liked Jaipur and maybe should have had 2 nights there instead. Darjeeling. Bhutan was really spectacular...we loved it. But there are some suggestions...It was a long drive to the Probjika Valley and we were not excited about it. The hotel was pretty bad and after we hiked a bit and saw Karma the crane, we were ready to leave. We thus stayed only 1 night and went back to Thimphu and stopped for a long hike en route. This was fine. We enjoyed trekking around Paro. However, our trip to Tigernest on May 29 was the same day as a major Buddhist holiday. Could not stand the idea of hiking in the crowds so we convinced out guide to substitute another trek We went to Tigernest about 3PM and started walking up as hordes of Indians were descending. Our guide tried to convince us to stop...turned out he and driver did not have a hotel to stay in and I think they were mostly worried about where they would be. The previous night they had to stay in Thimphu and I think they were anxious about getting back....Not clear to me why they had not booked their own rooms when they new the schedule. They did try to be accommodating to us and were very concerned that we were "happy," although there is no question that they would have preferred we just look at the Tigernest from the highway rather than climbing up. I had a difficult time separating what was convenient for them from what was in our interest. As an example, they left us at Paro airport at 7AM for the 9:30 flight. I realize that it is important to be early but that was really very early...we were the first to check in.

Local specialist: Sebastiaan Naus
Sebastiaan
Sebastiaan Naus
Local specialist in Bhutan/Netherlands | Replied on Jun 20, 2018

Hi Carole,
Thanks for taking the time to post a review for your trip! Glad to hear that overall your trip was fantastic. Great that you enjoyed your visit to India , Sikkim and Bhutan. I addressed some of the things you mention here already in my email. Also, I will also talk to our guide to see what happened on the Tiger's Nest hike and after that I will come back to you. Thanks for travelling with us and see you again some time at kimkim! Best regards, Bas.