General Tour Information
TRAVEL TO INDIA AND BHUTAN: This tour is organized by our British company, Sunbird, and starts and ends in London. The cost of the group flights between London and Delhi (and on to Bhutan) are included in the tour cost. You can choose to make your own travel arrangements to Delhi. You would receive a corresponding discount in the tour cost should you decide to do this — but we strongly recommend starting the tour in London. Please read the Important Travel Information for Participants on Sunbird Tours here.
ENTERING INDIA: United States citizens will need a valid passport and a multiple entry tourist visa. Visas can be obtained from the Indian Embassy or Consulates in various major cities. You can reach the Indian Embassy in Washington, D.C. here. Visas can also be obtained for you by Visa services like CIBT.
Citizens of other countries should contact the closest Indian consulate or embassy.
Evidence of a Yellow Fever vaccination must be shown only if you are arriving within six days after leaving or transiting endemic areas.
ENTERING BHUTAN: All foreigners need a valid passport and a tourist visa to enter Bhutan. Participants should not try to obtain a Bhutanese visa themselves. The visa will be arranged for us by our Bhutanese agent and will be issued on our arrival at Paro international airport. This will be valid for 14 days and a visa extension to cover the remainder of our tour will also be obtained for us by our agent. The cost of both is already included in the tour price.
BHUTAN AND INDIA MAP AND COUNTRY INFORMATION: You can view maps of India here….of Bhutan here. You can review the U.S. State Department background notes on India and Bhutan here and here.
HEALTH: The CDC currently recommends that all travelers to malaria-risk areas in the Indian Subcontinent should take one of the following antimalarial drugs (listed alphabetically) — you will want to check with your doctor or public health department as to which drug is best for you: atovaquone/proguanil (brand name Malarone), doxycycline, mefloquine (brand name Lariam), or primaquine. NOTE: Chloroquine (brand name Aralen) is NOT an effective antimalarial drug in the Indian Subcontinent and should not be taken to prevent malaria in this region.
Further, CDC recommends the following vaccines (see your doctor at least 4—6 weeks before your trip to allow time for shots to take effect): Hepatitis A or immune globulin (IG); Japanese encephalitis (only if you plan to visit rural areas for 4 weeks or more, except under special circumstances, such as a known outbreak of Japanese encephalitis); typhoid vaccination is particularly important because of the presence of S. typhi strains resistant to multiple antibiotics in this region. There have been recent reports of typhoid drug resistance in India and Nepal; and as needed, booster doses for tetanus-diphtheria and measles, and a one-time dose of polio for adults.
Health advisories for India change frequently and we recommend consulting your physician at least two months prior to trip departure to insure that all necessary inoculation sequences can be completed. You can review the CDCs current travel advisories here.
ALTITUDE: On the second day of the tour we will fly from Delhi into Paro airport (7400 feet). It is exceptional for anyone to experience serious problems at this altitude. From there we will drive to Thimpu, which at 7550 feet, is only marginally higher. On our first full day in Bhutan we will drive up to the summit of the Dochu La (10,050 feet), one of Bhutan’s five major road passes. We will spend about five hours at this altitude and, as throughout the tour, we will try to avoid walking up hill and will move at a slow pace so as to avoid altitudinal headaches, breathlessness, etc. Our next two nights will be spent near Punakha (4500 feet) and the intervening day’s activities will be at this altitude also.
From Punakha we move on spending the night at Gangtey in the Phobjika Valley. At 10,900 feet this will be our highest overnight stay. Very few people have suffered altitudinal problems other than mild headaches and minor bouts of breathlessness at this altitude.
From Gangtey we will continue east crossing a couple of fairly high road passes - the Pele La at 11,132 feet and the Thrumsing La (Bhutan’s highest road pass) at 12,400 feet. We will not spend much time bird watching at either site and will keep physical exertions at this altitude to a minimum. In any case we will do virtually all our bird watching from the road, usually walking down hill, and our vehicle will always be close at hand so that anyone wishing to take a longer break can easily do so.
We anticipate no serious altitudinal problems on this carefully chosen tour loop. Most acclimatization problems can be overcome by sitting quietly in, or near, the vehicle and by drinking plenty of fluid.
CLIMATE: Delhi will be very hot, with mid-day temperatures in late April perhaps approaching 40°C (100°F). Lowland Bhutan, i.e., in the areas south of Zhemgang, and near Samdrup, Jongkhar, will also be warm, perhaps 30-32°C (86-90°F) if the weather is clear. Since much of the remainder of the tour is spent at moderate altitude it will be noticeably cooler for the bulk of our trip. Temperatures on the higher passes may drop to near freezing and there may be a few patches of snow or ice lingering in shaded roadside gullies. It is unlikely to snow during the tour. Rainfall cannot be totally discounted anywhere and is perhaps more likely around Paro, Thimpu and Punakha in western Bhutan. Our second campsite, the one at Sengor on the upper Limithang road in eastern Bhutan, is at 2940 metres (approx. 9650 feet) and, if the sky is clear, night time temperatures can drop as low as 2°C (36°F). Our other campsites — the ones at Yongkola on the lower Limithang road and south of Zhemgang are at about 5000 feet, 2000, and 5000 feet respectively. The nights at all three of these sites will be comfortably warm.
Note that temperatures in mountainous regions such as Bhutan can vary enormously from year to year and often dramatically throughout the day and could range from 0-32°C (32-90°F).
TRANSPORT: Transportation between sites is by bus in Delhi and in Bhutan. Our internal flight from Delhi to Paro is with Druk Air, Bhutan’s national airline, while our flight back to Delhi from Gauhati in Assam is with Jet Airways. Both of these carriers’ planes are very modern, and their safety record is excellent.
SMOKING: Smoking was made illegal in Bhutan in early 2005. Cigarettes cannot be bought in or brought in to Bhutan. This new law is enforced in all public places and applies to both foreign tourists and Bhutanese citizens. Even outside Bhutan and in keeping with all WINGS/Sunbird tours, smoking is not allowed in the vehicle, nor at meal times or when the group is gathered together for the checklist. If you are sharing a room with a non-smoker please don’t smoke in the room. If you smoke in the field, please stand down wind of the group so that smoke doesn’t drift into their faces.
ACCOMMODATION: Throughout most of the tour we will be staying in moderate or good quality accommodation. Our hotels will always be among the best that are available and although the rooms will always be clean and fairly well maintained, it must be remembered that Bhutan is a third-world country and that hotel facilities are below the standard we are used to in the West. You should also be aware that very few tourists visit sites away from western Bhutan (this is a lot of the attraction of an adventurous tour such as this) and that the tourist infrastructure in the east is still in its infancy.
In Thimpu and near Punakha we will be staying in good quality hotels. All the rooms will have private bathroom facilities with showers, baths and a western toilet. There will be ample supplies of hot water and constant electricity.
Once east of Punakha the number of foreign tourists drops off dramatically and the standard of the accommodations drops slightly. At both Trongsa and Jakar we will again stay in clean, reasonably equipped, family run guest houses and both are the best accommodation that is available. Both have private bathroom facilities with showers and western toilets.
At Gangtey we will stay in the new guesthouse in the Phobjika Valley, about a twenty-minute drive from the spectacular Gangtey Gompa. The Phobjika Valley is not connected to the main electricity grid, and while our guest-house has its own generator, this does not operate for 24 hours a day. Normally the generator is turned on at dark, off again at about 10.00 PM and on again at about 6:30 in the morning (normally well after we’ve left the guest house). In the past they have had sufficient supplies of fuel, and we have been able to negotiate longer hours. Each room has a private bathroom with a Western toilet and a shower.
Partly because the accommodation in eastern Bhutan is somewhat basic, and partly in order to avoid long drives and to be near the best bird watching, we have decided to camp at four sites. We will spend a total of seven nights under canvas - two near Tingtibi on the Zhemgang road, one at Sengor about one-third of the way down the Limithang road, three more near Yongkola further down the Limithang road and one at Narphung about half-way down the eastern highway. We will use modern, two-man tents. These are spacious, decent quality walk-in tents, each with sown-in ground-sheets, a fly-sheet and a door at either end. They measure about 10’ long and 8’ wide and are about 7’ high down the central ridge. Our ground agents will erect the tents for us. Each double tent will be provided with two comfortable camp beds, each with a mattress and a couple of thick blankets. Single tents are exactly the same except that only one bed will be provided. One or possibly two latrine tents are also provided. We will have a separate ‘mess tent’ complete with tables and chairs for our meals. Our camps near Tingtibi, Yongkola and Narphung will also have an enclosed “shower tent’ that is approximately 7’ tall and 4’ square. Our camp staff will provide large buckets of hot water and a ladle. This “shower tent’ will not be available for our one night at Sengor (we’ve found that it’s a little too cold there for most people to be interested in having a shower); instead bowls of hot water for washing will be provided.
People who are sharing rooms will also share a tent - there is plenty of space and those who have requested single rooms will also have a tent to themselves. We are unable to guarantee single rooms at all our hotels but if you have requested a single room and you do have to share occasionally, we will refund the appropriate single room supplement for those nights.
FOOD: The food on the tour will, for the most part, be very good. We will have a few hotel breakfasts and most of the others will be cooked for us in the field by our ground staff. The meals that our ground crew provide when we are camping are amazing and are usually the tastiest of the entire tour. Field breakfasts are invariably tastier than those provided by any of the hotels. They usually consists of porridge or cornflakes, followed by either scrambled, fried or poached eggs, often with baked beans or sausages. There are also ample supplies of toast and jam, and tea and coffee. As always in Bhutan, the quantities of food provided will be vast. Lunches will usually be eaten in the field and will frequently be a meal cooked for us on site. These are often lighter than our breakfast with a wide variety of soups, biscuits, bread and cheeses being offered over the course of the tour. All evening meals will be in our hotels (usually hot buffets) except when camping, where our camp staff will cook for us. Up to ten different dishes have been provided at dinner and there’s always more than enough!
In contrast to some other parts of the Indian subcontinent, food hygiene is good in Bhutan and although mild stomach upsets are sometimes encountered due to a change of diet, we anticipate very few problems here.
PACE OF THE TOUR: The tour will not be physically strenuous in any way but in several places the best areas of forest will be some distance away from our hotels and we will need to make early starts. This will mean leaving the hotels as early as 4:00 or 5:00 AM on those days. We will have breakfast in the field most days and this will entail our ground crew going ahead of us and setting up their cooking equipment. We will often do some bird watching before joining the crew for breakfast. Tables, chairs, plates and cutlery etc. are all provided for these excellent and enjoyable meals. We will usually also have lunch in the field, and once again the crew will normally go ahead of us and set up the tables and chairs at a suitably scenic spot.
Most of the birdwatching will be done from the road. Away from Paro and the capital, Thimpu, there is relatively little traffic and in any case the forests are often so dense that it would be impractical to try venturing into them. There will probably only be a couple of occasions where we will venture onto forest trails - one of these trails is fairly steep and lasts for about one and a half miles. Our coach will drop us at the start of the trail and drive around to rejoin us at the bottom so anyone not wishing to do the walk does not need to. The second forest trail is another that we will walk on for about one-and-a-half miles and again this trail is down hill all the way. The coach will drop us at the top and will wait for us at the bottom. The leader will explain more about these trails and the other day’s events during the course of the tour.
As much of the tour is at medium temperatures bird activity continues throughout the day and conditions remain pleasant, so we won’t be scheduling long mid-day breaks as we sometimes do in hot tropical areas. If anyone wishes to have a longer break during the day and stay with the bus, this will never be a problem. Our bus will be with us throughout the tour and anyone taking a break can rejoin the group when they wish to.
We anticipate having at least two vehicles with us throughout the tour - one for us and at least one for our Bhutanese ground crew. In this situation we have more flexibility and can offer the option of returning to our hotel early for those who wish. On a couple of days there will be some optional pre-breakfast bird watching. There will also be several occasions where we will take an optional after dinner owl walk.
We try to make as many of our birding excursions as possible optional, so that if you find the pace too tiring it is possible to take some time off and relax. However it is important to realise that on this tour we are moving on most days and only spend more than one night at the hotel near Punakha and at two of our three campsites. Consequently, it is rarely possible to take the entire day off.
Essentially we aim to provide dawn to dusk birding for those who want it and as many opportunities as possible to opt out for those who wish to pursue other interests or simply relax.
GENERAL INFORMATION & CONDITIONS OF WINGS & SUNBIRD TOURS: Please take a moment to read the WINGS General Information & Conditions here. This section contains important information about how we conduct tours, e.g., what is included in the tour price, refund and cancellation policies, pace of the tours and other information that will help you prepare for the tour.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: More complete General Information for Tours to Bhutan will be sent to registrants on receipt of their booking. Final information with instructions for meeting the group, hotel addresses, etc., will be mailed about three weeks before trip departure. Other news will be communicated as necessary. If you have any questions, please contact us.
Updated: April 2007