After breakfast, before heading to Bumthang from Trongsa, we visited the Trongsa small town and visited the watch tower of Trongsa. This watch tower has been converted into a museum by the king. We had to walk up the stairs to Trongsa, and we have to walk slowly to prevent getting breathless.
I was impressed by this museum, as it contains several buddhas, Buddha statues (both peaceful and wrathful forms), relics, sacred texts, costumes, some textiles, weapons, ritual tools, items used by past Bhutan kings and many more. There is a detailed and comprehensive description against each items which give quite a good introduction to each items, so our guide need not be besides us to explain everything.
Just by visiting this museum, you can get a good introduction to the tradition, culture and history of Bhutan. You are not allowed to bring any cameras or recording devices into this museum. After visiting the museum, we drove about 2 hours to Bumthang. We visited the Bhutanese carpet factory along the way, and we bought some handicraft gifts from the shop. Here they use yak and sheep wool and even pure silk to weave different carpets and Bhutanese textiles.
After lunch and checking into our Bumthang, we visited the Jakar Dzong (Jakar means white birds), so this Dzong literally means “The Castle of White Bird”. We make offerings at some of the small temples inside this Dzong, and climbed some amazing very steep staircase.
Inside one of the temples belonging to the local deity, I received a divination using dice from one of the monks inside this temple. Yippie!
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