Capturing a moment of a flowing river

On day 3 morning, we checked out and left Thimphu for Punakha.  To reach Punakha, we would pass by Dochula Pass, which in itself is a tourist attraction.  The temple and the stupas here were built to honour the service of the Fourth King, who personally led the troops against the insurgents (in the year 2003), as well as the regular Armed Forces of the country.

On a clear weather day, some part of the the Himalaya would be in view.  Like Mt Fuji (twice!), no such luck for me.

First view of Punakha valley as we we left the pass and continued on our way.

Close to noon, we reached the start of the next attraction, Chili Lhakhang.  To reach this temple, one has to trek about 30-40mins through mud paths through farm land.  

15th Century Chili Lhakhang.  Couples come here to pray for fertility and children.  

I don't remember what prompted me to suggest doing jump shots here.  However, while reviewing the photos, I don't really like any of them so I'm not going to show them here.  Then each of us, including Sonam, also did 三连拍。But I selected only one from each of us to do a collage here:

We finally ended the very hot mid day trek and had lunch at a restaurant which had it's own very well maintained vegetable farm.

Betel nut, the chewing gum of the east.  Not only after lunchbreaks, but also throughout the day, these guys ate a lot of them.

After the late lunch, we drove on about an hour, then started another short trek to the Punakha Suspension Bridge (Iron Bridge), and then visited the Punakhadzong. 

One view of Punakhadong, before the start of the trek. 

I spotted a leaf-lookalike butterfly.  

From here onwards, we started having much more of Sonam and Jayong (our driver) in our photos.  Jayong is the same age as Sonam, and they were classmates before.  His english is not as fluent, but with Lili the conversationalist around, we chatted anyway.  As a driver, Jayong do not accompany or interact with tourists as much as he did with us, so I'm sure he will always remember Lili!

On the iron bridge:

Another view of Punakhadzong

Evening, as day 3 drew to an end:

The saying goes "A picture captures a thousand words".  What does this picture below say to you?  I remembered, at the start of crossing the wooden bridge at Punakhadzong, a rather stylish and fit looking senior gentlemen, in sensible tracking outfit, was sitting down on a stone step, with the bridge as a backdrop, to have a photo taken by his friend.  We were impressed for his ability to pose so well.  Lili asked if we should wait for him to finish to take that spot, but I didn't want to.  When we exited at the other end of the bridge, I happened to look back to my right and saw this spot that will have the Mo Chhu (River) as the backdrop. I urged Lili for a photo, and she was really amused when I wanted this pose.  It was afterwards, when I reviewed the photos from the whole tour that I fell in love with this set of photos (I posted the set on IG).  

I have heard of this description, that the camera man is the "invisible man".  He is there at that moment, but he is not in the photo that captures the moment in eternity.  Thank you my young friend for this beautiful photo.  At that moment, I felt joy.  Ever-changing yet Everlasting, a relationship is like the river.