Gasa

After Gelephu I headed back up to Punakha for some work. I managed to get the next day off and decided to go to Gasa as I had never been and heard the hot springs there were pretty and I'd also seen pictures of the Dzong there which looked gorgeous. So I headed off in a small taxi for what I thought was a 30minute drive but actually was 3 hours. The drive is a bit bumpy but incredibly scenic. A less traveled road with giant waterfalls leaping down cliffs in the distance from sides of the roads. Monkeys here and there as well. When you arrive to the hot spring walkways (it's a 15min walk down) you can see the Dzong above in the distance with clouds and mountains perching behind it. The walk to the hot springs is uneventful (and steep on the way back up) and near the bottom is a small cave like area where you can drink sulfuric water and sniff from a bottle in the mountain. The bottle is very concentrated hot spring steam and is said to clear sinus issues, one sniff and I almost passed out. But my nasal passages did feel more clear. The hot springs themselves are bigger than the ones outside of Gelephu but also much more crowded. Not the most hygienic, but for the sake of being there I did get in the most warm one. Having past out a few days earlier from a different hot water treatment I was hesistant to go in, but also thought that it may help my injury from said hot water treatment. My taxi driver was so happy to be there that we stayed extra long there just because he seemed to enjoy being there so much. But we had a long drive back to Thimphu that night, so we parted maybe an hour after being there and headed back the way we came, picking up some other passengers along the way to help the driver create some more revenue.