10

April

0

Why I Got Pissed Off at Bhutan and the Subsequent Birth of ‘Adventure Travel Bhutan’

Before I headed out on my recent 4th trip to Bhutan to help put on the Bhutan International Marathon, I noticed I was a tad irritated and reticent. I was spending yet another big chunk of money and time going back to the same place in which I had already spent 6 months volunteering and roaming about. I’d see the same people and work with the same organization for an event that I believed had taken us much too long to bring to fruition. The sameness of it all just wasn’t my MO. And for that, I was feeling a bit, well, pissed off. A few months later, another soul-opening trip behind me and the silly pissed-off feeling in the […]

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Category: Adventure

18

February

0

Negotiating a Blue Flame in a Soft Light Country

In a land of generally mild, courteous, tradition, I am told I play in fire. This isn’t new news to those that know me, nor unusual for a hard driving American, but it has been insinuated at various opportunities here in Bhutan and showed up directly after a meeting in Punakha last summer with all of the stakeholders for the Bhutan International Marathon (BIM). As we finished up official good byes and meandered into the parking lot, Karma leaned in and whispered with a gleam in his eye, “You are like fire.” Most of the larger organizational meetings I’ve attended via the Bhutan Olympic Committee (BOC) are productive yet polite affairs. Someone calmly and politely offers information and then requests […]

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Category: Bhutan 2014

31

January

0

Appreciating Home through the Eyes of the Thunder Dragon

For us Westerners, the dragon tends to be the biggest and baddest of the bad guys. But in Buddhism the dragon symbolizes the power and dominance of compassion awakening us from delusion while heightening our communication practices—kinda like a wise, strong, tough-love friend who asks you (without asking) to live up to who you truly are.  So it’s always seemed fitting that a white dragon takes center stage on the Bhutanese flag, happily marrying the secular (yellow) and spiritual (orange) traditions in this predominantly Buddhist country.  But even under the auspices of this powerfully symbolic flag, both the King and the Prime Minister in Bhutan still deal in almost all the same human struggles that burden every other country. They […]

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Category: Adventure/Reflection