Bhutan 2: The road to Gelephu

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When: March 2025 Weather: Cold to warm! 5-25C

NikonP900, Sony A7II 70-400mm, Leica Q3

After our teaching workshop and surgeries in the national referral hospitaln in Thimphu, our next community cataract surgery program was way down in south Bhutan, at a town called Gelephu on the border with Assam, India. Although only 250km away, the road was a long winding twisting road leading out of the mountains of Thimphu, pass Punakha and the Himalayan range towards Tsirang and down into the plains of Sarpang and Gelephu….it only took 8 hours with an hour stop for lunch in Tsirang at the Damphu resort….

An hour or two after leaving Thimphu, we stopped for a break at this scenic viewpoint of the distant himalaya…
Mount Masagang at 7200m is reputed to be the highest unclimbed peak in the Himalaya
The road was twisting and turning for the best part of 6 to 7 hours…here’s a rare straight segment..it also ran in part along a river where the hydroelectric power station was…
More than 4 hours later we stopped at the Damphu Resort for lunch
where we had the first good sighting of the Great Barbet….
Great barbet… a lifer for me
A handsome black bulbul also posed
As did a whiskered yuhinia…another lifer
As we descended the mountains, about an hour or so after Tsirang, the vegetation changed to a more tropical terrain and the road flattened out as we approached Gelephu…..
8 hours after setting off, we arrived at the Kuku Grand Hotel in Gelephu, our home for the next 4 nights….
A beautiful Asian barred owl greeted us outside the hotel
a lovely sunset over gelephu..
As is usual, I did my 630am walk around the forested areas nearby…and was greeted by this lineated barbet
And some red breasted parakeets
A hairy crested drongo
rufous treepie
another lifer…a grey headed woodpecker
and the star bird of the morning…..the Collared falconet
Here, a red vented bulbul chasing off the falconet
and so on to the referral hospital in Gelephu where we were to do the cataract surgeries….a candle lighting ceremony to start the day with..
down to work….
after two days, 204 surgeries were successfully completed..here is the post-operative review
we had time on the second evening to take a walk and saw this lovely orange headed thrush
and a long tailed shrike

At the end of our community cataract surgery, more than 200 patients had had their sight restored….a most fulfilling endeavour indeed.

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