Rainbow Photo Tours of Bhutan

10/04/2024

What is UFOs are just billionaires from other planets?

11/03/2020

Let's celebrate November with the Black-necked cranes. This beautiful endangered bird species migrates to Phobjikha valley in the west and Bumdeling in the east of Bhutan every winter from the high Tibetan Plateau.
The graceful birds are the only Alpine crane species in the World. According to WWF there are less than 11000 Black-necked cranes in the World.
In Bhutan, the bird is considered a sacred bird and its arrival is celebrated with the annual Black -Necked crane festival in Gangtey every November.

📷

02/15/2018

Five individuals who were convicted in choeten vandalism cases by the Mongar dzongkhag court in Nove...

01/19/2018

Yongphula Airport is finally open! I am a foreign travel agent that has led 33 tours of high-end dollar-paying adventurers to Bhutan since 2001. My tours begin in Paro and cross the country to Samdrup Jongkher where we spend the night and then drive by taxi to Guwhati the next day. Each time I passed the locked gate of Yongphula airport I dreamed of the day when we would no longer need to spend two days of hard travel to get back to Bangkok.

Beginning with my next tour in April we can enjoy a picturesque flight back to Paro and spend two more nights at NakSel Botique Resort and Spa before flying back to Bangkok. These last two nights at NakSel will be a pleasant way to cap off our tour to Bhutan, "Where Happiness is a Place." An added bonus is we can hike to Tiger's Nest at the end of the tour when we are more acclimated to the altitude.

The opening of this new airport gives me and other travel agents another good reason to advertise travel to the eastern side of Bhutan--I have already made reservations for three 2018 tours of 16 people each, some of the very first tourists to take this flight.

Addressing the recent conversation about discounting tours that go to the Eastern side, it is my humble opinion, la, that this will not encourage more foreign tour operators to go there since discounted tours are not why high quality, low impact dollar-paying tourists go to Bhutan in the first place. Further, there is a probability that the savings will not be passed along to the tourists. The government should delay a year or two after Yongphula airport opens to see if there is an uptick in tourists going beyond Ura and then crossing the breadth of the country on a newly widened road capped off with a flight back to Paro. If marketed right this should be plenty of incentive to entice dollar-paying tourists to cross the country leaving a trail of dollars in their path.

Instead of discounting the royalty, la, there should be a scheme wherein the royalty beyond Ura continues to be collected, but then instead it getting lost in the fog of countrywide budgets pass it along to fund Eastern schools, farm roads, health centers and other underfunded areas of Eastern Bhutanese infrastructure. Whatever the voters decide, I already have incentives enough to continue to fill my cross-country tours-- the proposed discount would not make it into my purse anyway.

10/18/2017

Will make a handsome king some day. Photo by his father.

06/11/2017

Here is a link to the new page about our guides and drivers, the best in Bhutan! Comments and pictures by past participants welcome.

http://www.rainbowphototours.com/rainbowtoursGuides.html

06/01/2017

Here is a link to the new page about our guides and drivers, the best in Bhutan! Comments and pictures by past participants welcome.

http://www.rainbowphototours.com/rainbowtoursGuides.html

05/09/2017

03/23/2017

I'm excited to announce that the new Lonely Planet Guide to Bhutan was just released and my tour is once again recommended. That's four editions in a row since 2006!