Rinchenling Lodge at Bhutan’s Bumthang

Rinchenling Lodge is located in Tashigatshel, Bumthang.  Bumthang is located in the heart of Bhutan, which is the furthest east I travelled in Bhutan.

Bumthang also happens to be where Queen Jetsun Pema hails from.  The guide pointed out a large house capped by a green roof which was supposedly the Queen’s house before she became the King’s consort.

The first thing that hit me when I entered my room was “SO MUCH WOOD!”  The floor was obviously wood, but so were the walls, and all the furniture.

The rooms at Rinchenling Lodge are much smaller than those at Hotel Lobesa, with a smaller bathroom.  Luckily I got a room at the end of a row of rooms, which meant there was an extra set of windows above the beds.  The room was so much brighter when curtains at both sets of windows were drawn.

I suppose Bumthang becomes really cold in winter.  In addition to a modern heater in the room, there was also a stove installed, and outside each room chopped firewood ready to be thrown into the stove were stacked up.  This was the first hotel room I stayed in that had a stove!  However, it was not cold enough to entice me to fire up the stove, so it kinda became a nice distraction which took up valuable real estate where I could have laid my luggage wide open.

The bottles holding shampoo, body form are the tiniest I have ever seen, and all are imported from India.  In Japan, I can pump out soap, shampoo, conditioner and body foam to my heart’s content from the large bottles in the bathroom.  In Bhutan, I keep worrying that there is not enough shampoo and soap to wash myself properly.  Of course I could have asked for more supplies, but somehow with the tiny bottles and thin slides of Cussons beauty soaps reminded me that Bhutan is still rather under-developed and that I should be thankful enough that hot water from the showers was in abundant supply.  While the soaps were tiny, I still rationed my use enough such that even with a two-night stay, there was still part of the soap left.  I wonder if left-over soap is collected and recycled?  At home, if a bar of soap thins down, it either gets discarded or if the new bar is the same fragrance as the previous, the older smaller piece gets stuck on the new bar, hence there is no waste of the soap.  I think Bhutan makes me think more carefully on how much toiletries I usually use mindlessly because huge bottles are so readily available at prices I can afford.

I saw two dogs on the first day and they barked noisily on the first night.  The second day, I saw even more dogs chasing each other merrily around the Lodge compound and being shooed away by the Lodge staff when they tried to sneak into the dinning room.

There is a buckwheat field at the Lodge, from which buckwheat was harvested and made into buckwheat noodles and pancakes.  The pancakes tasted okay, but the buckwheat noodles certainly tasted nothing like the soba I am familiar with.  The noodles were coarser and tasted a little bitter.  I suppose this meant the buckwheat was processed much less than those in Japan?