Postcard from Bhutan: Pillars and Prayer Flags

By Colin Christy | April 18, 2015

The highway winds slowly through and around the steeply cut valleys pushed up by the Indian subcontinent. Small streams and rivers carve deeper V’s in the valley floors. I am reminded of the woods where I grew up in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho, and for a moment, I forget where I am. Then the bus rounds a bend and I am greeted by thin, towering pillars with fluttering prayer flags reaching towards the sky, and a farmhouse with wooden shingles pitched at a shallow angle weighed down by large stones instead of nails. Houses with whitewashed earthen walls interrupted by sturdy, hand-cut window frames dot the landscape. Cows and yaks emerge from tall rhododendrons and lope lazily onto the road, looking for a tasty patch of grass to graze on. “This is Bhutan,” I find myself thinking. “I’m really here!”

Artwork pictured above by Colin Christy: Prayer flags in the Bumthang region.

To get ideas for travel in the Land of the Thunder Dragon, explore GeoEx’s Bhutan journeys.