Welcome to Thimpu friends! After the 5 hour zig zag ride through hundreds of mountains ( it almost felt like hundreds ) we arrived in Thimpu. It was around 5 in the evening when we got there. The journey had exhausted us. We checked into out Hotel & spent the rest of the evening relaxing over some great food, tea & the cool Thimpu air.
The next morning, we were ready to greet the Capital city of Thimpu with open arms! And my! Were we amazed! Lets start from the first place we visited.
Buddha Dordenma Statue
The hugeee Buddha statue is built over looking the Thimpu valley & is built as a mark of celebration for the 60th anniversary of their fourth king Jigme Singye Wangchuk. It is infact one of the largest Buddha statues in the world at 51.5 meters. In fact when we visited it, parts of it were still under construction & the work was finally completed on September 25th, 2015.
The construction of the statue is also a tribute to the monarchy of Bhutan which celebrates its centennial anniversary this year. Now here is the interesting part. This Buddha monument fulfills two prophecies. A renowned yogi called Sonam Zangpo prophesied that a large statue of either Padmasambhava, Buddha or a Purbha would be built in this region to bestow peace, happiness & blessings upon the whole world. The second being that the mention of a statue like that is present in the ancient terma of Guru Padmasambhava himself which dates almost back to the 8th century! Isn’t it something?
The one thing that I loved about this statue is how beautiful looking the face of the Buddha is! The people who worked on this masterpiece must have been so exceptionally talented!
Just to give you an idea of how huge the statue is I am sharing an image from the blog.voanews.com.
Isn’t the place where the statue stands absolutely beautiful? So serene, peaceful & gorgeous! You can almost get a view of a part of Thimpu town from up here.
Can you see the roads in the picture? They are the ones that lead us to this monument!
Now, whenever you are in Thimpu, make sure you start your Thimpu sight seeing from this point. Just stand where I was standing when I took the above picture ( you will know where, just look around) Take in the sight of Thimpu town, & start on this wonderful adventure called Bhutan.
I hope you will love this place as much as I did when you visit! As always, I am looking forward to your comments ! Leave them in the section below!
Love,
A.
Arpita's Travelogue 