Visa

At last, today I got my Indian visa. Now, I can't wait for the journey to begin. Actually, India was never on my travel list this year but China lost is India gain la... My original plan was to travel Tibet-Beijing by train (the highest railway track in the world) but unfortunately riot mushroom in Tibet and most part of Tibet is closed and restricted for tourists. There's no point to spend so much money for nothing to see. So I decided to switch my travel plan to Bhutan.

After a thorough research, I found out that Bhutan can ONLY be reach from 6 cities (Bangkok, Delhi, Kolkatta, Dhaka, Khatmandu and Bodhgaya) by air and ONLY one land entry i.e through Phuentsholing. Among the six cities, I'm only interested in Bangkok or Delhi but since I just got back from Bangkok in March 08 so I decided to start a journey from Delhi-Agra-Bagdogra-Darjeeling-Sikkim (Gangtok & Pelling)-Bhutan (through Phuentsholing-Thimpu-Punakha-Paro)-Delhi on 16-31 May 08. I hope can cover all the places within the 16 days period. It looks and sound too much to cover but I might just drop a few destinations if time doesn't permit.


The only thing that I didn't get yet is a Travel Permit to enter Sikkim. Sikkim is the smallest state in India and foreigners need a travel permit to enter the state. I think I'll have to get it in Darjeeling when I arrive there coz the India High Commission in Malaysia didn't issue the Sikkim Travel Permit. Since it's a last minute switch of plan, it's quite a hassle to find out the info about each destination, their requirement and try to get everything booked in time. As what i found out, Bhutan is very strict country to visit and they only allow around 7,000 - 10,000 tourist a year entering their country and they just open their country for foreigners since 1974. They have a few standard and procedure that we have to follow but I think it'll be worth the hassle. From their point of view, it's good way to protect/preserve their country unique culture and tradition i.e Land Of the Dragon 'The Last Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom'. I'll be lucky if can meet one of the 'Trulku' while climbing Tiger's Nest Temple (one of the scared temple in Bhutan) hehehe. I'll let you know the hassle that I've gone through in my next post.