Nature Tourism-Bhutan (3 testimonials)

Testimonials (3)

1. Reviewer: Howard Nielsen located in Phnom Penh, USA

   I've just returned from a 2 week trip to Bhutan that I put together for friends and family. Using Nature Tourism-Bhutan, I requested that they organize a trip combining bird watching and cultural tourism. This required a fair bit of travel (over 1000 km during the trip) and the arrangement of 7 hotels and 3 campsites. All the hotels were comfortable and the camping was easy with dining, bathing, and toilet tents erected for us.
   
   I relied on Karma Jamtsho's advice for the itinerary and it produced 223 species of birds, as well as 3 kinds of monkeys. He timed our trip to coincide with the annual religious festival at Paro, organized a visit to a rural farmhouse, and had numerous temples and monasteries included in the itinerary.
   
   Our group was given excellent support from 2 guides and the camping staff had their daily routine down pat. Camp food was brilliant.
   
   Our group traveled in a roomy Toyota bus and the driver supplied was excellent and cautious on the mountain roads.
   
   I'm happy to recommend using Karma and Nature-Tourism Bhutan to organize and customize an adventure to Bhutan
   

2. Reviewer: Cathy McFadden and Paul Clarke located in Claremont, CA,

   With Cathy on sabbatical for the 2004-05 academic year, we decided to take a birding trip to somewhere best visited in the spring, a time of year during which we ordinarily cannot travel for any extended period. We were both intrigued by the idea of birding the Himalayas and set our sights on Bhutan, a remote mountain kingdom that is becoming a popular birding destination – unlike neighbors Nepal and India, Bhutan is politically stable, relatively free from western influences, and the natural environment is still largely intact. Bhutan regulates tourism by charging a flat rate of $200/person/day to stay in the country (all accommodations, food and local transportation are covered by this fee), and requires tourists to be accompanied by a Bhutanese guide at all times. We assumed initially that the only feasible way to bird the country would be to join a regularly scheduled group trip run by one of the major American or British birding tour companies, most of whom have Bhutan on their schedules. We were, however, reluctant to do this – we dislike group birding and also prefer that the money we spend traveling go directly to the residents of the countries we visit rather than into the pockets of western tour operators. Happily, a bit of exploration on the web turned up three Bhutanese tour agencies advertising custom birding tours led by Bhutanese guides. We requested further information, and ultimately chose Karma Jamtsho’s company Nature Tourism-Bhutan (http://www.naturetourismbhutan.com/;nattouri@druknet.bt), whose sample itinerary was virtually identical to that followed by the major birding companies. We were very pleased with this choice and highly recommend Nature-Tourism to anyone wishing to bird Bhutan on their own. Karma runs an extremely professional operation and we never experienced even a minor hitch in any of our travel or housing arrangements – not at all the usual third world travel experience! Even with a $30/person/day small-group surcharge imposed by the Bhutanese government, our total cost (including airfare from Los Angeles to Bangkok) came to just $5000/person, a savings of over $3000/person compared to the fees charged by most major birding companies.

   
   

3. Reviewer: John McAllister and Elize McAllister located in Wakkerstroom, South Africa

   Our initial planning started way back in early 2003 when Elize and I were looking for a reasonably affordable place to spend our Silver Wedding on 31st May 2004.  Our first thoughts turned to Nome or Point Barrow in Alaska – icebergs after all seemed suitably silver in colour.  This proved to be way too expensive, particularly with the weak South African Rand of the time. 

   It took the visit of two Sri Lankan birders who were working in Mafikeng, South Africa, to our B&B in Wakkerstroom, to turn our thoughts to the East.  This rekindled a boyhood dream of mine to one-day visit the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon – Bhutan). 

   The next step was to invite close friends Jo and Shirley Johnson from Cape Town and Dries and Julia Laubscher from Johannesburg to join us.  In the event Jo and Shirley and their daughter Lisa joined us, but Dries and Julia were unable to do so.

   In Bhutan we followed a very well organised itinerary arranged especially for us by Nature Tourism-Bhutan.  It was really two itineraries in one.  The Chicken Chasers were very ably guided by Tshering and driven in a Toyota Hi Ace van by star driver Shatu.  The Culture Vultures were guided by Karma himself and driven in a Musso 4-wheel drive vehicle by Dawa.

   Accommodation and food

   While accommodation establishments and restaurants in Bhutan are often somewhat frugal by western standards they were always adequate.  Contrary to trip reports we had read, we found the accommodation very comfortable.  In stark contrast to the comments in the Lonely Planet Guide we found the food in Bhutan very good indeed.  If you do not like spicy food however it might be a bit bland when these are omitted from the cooking.  Jo, Elize and particularly me enjoy spicy food and thoroughly enjoyed the different cuisine.  My favourite dish was a concoction of bracken shoots, cheese and chillies.  I even managed to eat cabbage and cauliflower – something I’d never dream of doing at home – when they were prepared with cheese and chillies.  I never managed to follow Tshering’s example and eat raw chillies with salt though.  Butter tea was drinkable, but nothing to write home about.  The tea was generally great if drunk black, but unfortunately the coffee was all of the instant variety.  The camping on the Lingmethang road was a bit rough (smallish tent with a sleeping bag laid on two ‘duvet’ type things on the tent floor).  Foodwise Leki and his camp crew excellently catered us for, however. 

   In both Bhutan and India all the accommodation establishments were extremely birder friendly.  Everywhere there was staffs available to make and serve us breakfast at whatever time we wanted it – whether it was at 04:00 or 10:00.  Nowhere were we told that breakfast is only served between certain hours only.

   Climate and Birding

   While the trip was definitely a birding trip it was primarily organised as a celebration of our 25th Wedding Anniversary.  This meant that we were limited to May/June, which was far from the ideal time of the year.  India in particular was extremely hot and waiting desperately for the onset of the monsoon.  The TV news consistently reported maximum daily temperatures of 450 C and over for the Gangetic plains (Delhi and Agra) with minimums in the low to mid 30s.  In the higher altitudes of northern India and Bhutan the temperatures were quite pleasant with maximums in the high 20s for the most part.  In Bhutan it rained most days and this disrupted the birding somewhat although we were able to get at least some in on each day.  The high Himalayas were always under a heavy blanket of cloud so we got none of the views of the high mountains mentioned in the Lonely Planet Guide Book for Bhutan.  On the return flight from Paro to Kathmandu, however, the weather cleared and we got wonderful views of Jhomolhari Bhutan’s highest peak, and a whole range of peaks in Nepal including Kanchenjunga, Makalu and Everest itself.  There was a load of other peaks whose names remained unknown to us.

   Many Himalayan birds are altitudinal migrants and move up to around 5000 m during the summer months.  Intra- and inter-continental migrants are for the most part winter or passage migrants to the area.  The best time to visit the area appears to be during March-April with the winter months being a close second.  Once the monsoon starts in mid-June I would imagine that many places become totally inaccessible.  Corbett National Park is closed during this period.  In spite of all this we still managed to see a total of 323 birds, which from the trip reports seems to be about par for the course for a three-week trip.

   Contrary to what some trip reports and promotional material suggest we did not find the birds tame and easy to see – not by African standards at least.  Many were super skulkers that were very vocal, but took a great deal of time and patience to see.  The one exception was Keoladeo where the birds were indeed easy to see.  This must be a wonderful birding spot at the right time of year and I look forward to returning sometime using Nature Tourism-Bhutan.