Bhutan Travel Specialist, Druk Air Representative (Royal Bhutan Airlines)
Hi all, Am back safe and sound. 1st up. Thanks so much for your various calls. It was a ultra special touch to receive your calls and sms, not just from 1 but from all 3 of you at different sectors of my journey. Nice. Thought I should show my sincere thanks by taking time (an element we are always so short of in stressful Singapore) and giving (hopefully) constructive feedback for your consideration as Bhutan slowly opens up (ie implies potentially more competition for Druk Asia?). Guides Shall start with the guides since this was the most critical factor for me. I had always used A Travel Agent for all my adventure trips (Myanmar, Vietnam, Borobodur, Laos and Huangshan etc) and have been somewhat spoilt by the superbly high standards of the guides we had the blessings of getting to know. Glad to inform you that I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect pair of guides and drivers. P Tshering (PT) and Tshering (T) make an amazing ’stand-in’ guide and driver for the 1st few days in Paro. If Druk Asia intends to hire additional permanent guides and drivers, I highly recommend this pair. They work very well together. PT shared a little of himself on our last evening together that he was quite a handful (ie a little rebellious, irresponsible maybe, unreliable) when he was young coz of the friends he had but throughout our trip, we saw a totally diff side of him. [P Tshering is our permanent guide] He was most patient. He NEVER once hurried us and we stopped for however long we wanted up/down Tiger’s Nest. We started off at 8.30am and reached the car at abt 6pm. Dinner was at 8pm. He was very accommodating. We wanted to have a picnic lunch in Haa. We got it. We wanted to visit a farm in Haa, he literally got the ENTIRE Haa to be an open house for us! Haa is his hometown and we literally visited all his relatives and even his childhood home! We didn’t want to have dinner at the same venue and he and Tshering (driver) arranged for us to have sumptuous dinner at a restaurant in town (not Traveller’s Restaurant). As for Tshering (the driver), he was the perfect accompanying ’2nd guide’ for us. He could converse well in English and took such good care of my dad throughout the climb. This, I believe, you can only develop through experience with age and more interactions with elderly visitors which I don’t think PT could have done it quite as well (only coz he’s still very young and won’t really know how to guide my dad so he ’partnered’ me for the climb down). I am not sure even Tobgay could have done a better job coz it would have been tough for him to take care of both of us (Ugyen, the other driver, doesn’t speak much English). Tobgay - "A gentle giant with a streak of mischief and a soulful of Buddhism." He is a born leader. He has a commanding presence which was great. When he spoke, people listen. He knows exactly what to do to get things done. When he saw our hotel room in K.C. Hotel, he immediately left the room and got us upgraded to the suite. When I wanted to see Aman Resort in Gangtey, he managed to get us in although Aman hesitated to ’entertain’ us. He had a streak of mischief and playfulness that resulted in many magical memorable moments of captured memories. (photos are in FB but I think you probably can only see if we are linked up. My only gripe was that he didn’t want to have his meals with us which was one of my requests during the trip planning stage. However he gave the impression he was not aware of our request. But in lieu of all other aspects which were above expectations, I overlooked this tiny imperfection. Ugyen (driver) - I totally salute him for all the long drives (esp the 11.5hr one) and the horrible roads he had to drive on. I totally sympathise with him for having to put up with Tobgay’s occasional mischief. :P Similar to PT and T, Tobgay and Ugyen work very well together. I highly suggest this combination stays for other tourists. We really couldn’t have asked for a better pair travelling from Trashigang back to Paro.
From Singapore
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