Mountain Views

June 29, 2009 | Category: Arunachal Pradesh, India, Volunteering | by: Spencer

View across the gorge of Bhutan...morning in the Himalayan foothills.

The monsoons have finally come.  It’s raining everyday, and most mornings we wake up in the middle of a cloud (you can do that when you’re up on a mountain).  Sometimes it’s cool to watch them form way down in the gorge below, and then work their way up to where you are, slowly covering your view of everything – the distant hillside villages, that waterfall over there in Bhutan, the river below, all the surrounding peaks – until everything is completely white and you can’t even see the school buildings up the hill, and the nearest prayer flags are just fluttering ghost-forms.  And then the cloud will move on and there is sunshine and blue skies and a great view again.  The place where Jhamtse Gatsal is situated is quite unique.  It’s on a green ridge, full of life and vegetation.  We’re completely surrounded by big mountains, and perched just so that we look down into two very deep valleys, with two different rumbling rivers – one flowing out of Tibet, and the other flowing into Bhutan.  From here I can count many little villages.  Most don’t even have a road going to them – you’d have to walk.  The climate is milder than most of the surrounding areas, because of a slightly lower elevation and something about the way that the winds come up from both valleys.  Good for growing lots of kiwis.  ☺  P.s. I think we’re in a good place see the solar eclipse that is supposed to happen on July 22nd.  We’ll keep you posted.  Check out 28 random photos of our first month here:

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  1. Reida
    on September 21st, 2009
    1

    :) Was the little shorty painting on the second story Heather? The flowers are called nasturtiums. You can eat them too. Makes a salad more colorful…a bit hot.

  2. Heather
    on September 26th, 2009
    2

    Nope, cute little grandpa fix-it man. :)

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