In these final days in Thimphu, I find myself pausing more—lingering at street corners, watching prayer flags flap like they’ve known me all along, and letting the sky stretch over my head like an old friend saying goodbye without words.
There’s a strange ache in leaving a place you never thought would matter so much. Bhutan crept up on me. Not with fanfare, but with quiet rituals: butter lamps flickering at dawn, locals offering warm nods on cold mornings, coffee shops that became sanctuaries. This town didn’t ask me to belong—it just let me.
Now, everything feels like a last.
Last rainy afternoon walk up the hill.
Last caramel latte at the café where I wrote about mountains and memories.
Last time the wind rushes over my face as I glance at the dzong tucked under storm-stirred clouds.
I feel both full and hollow. Full of the moments I’ve lived here. Hollow because I can’t carry them all with me.
There’s no guidebook chapter for “how to leave a place you quietly fell in love with.” So I’m doing what I can—taking photos, walking without earbuds, letting the final days mark me in the way only Bhutan can: softly, profoundly, without noise.
I suppose the only way to leave a place like this is to promise you’ll never forget the way it changed you. And to keep that promise.
Goodbye, Thimphu. You were never loud, but you were everything.
The world flipped in a glass sphere—just like this past year. Thimphu, Bhutan, where the murals are mountains and life is in cafés. No street art to chase, so I learned to sit still. To look closer. To let quiet places hold me.
A traditional Bhutanese mural. The mural is painted above a doorway or entrance, which is significant: such imagery is often used to guard thresholds, protecting the space from evil influences.
I take the long way around campus, I watch the clouds drift in low over the hills like they’ve done every day.
I’m leaving Bhutan soon.
And I find myself trying to walk it into me. All of it. The sound of monks chanting in the distance. The rhythm of archery matches on weekends.
I want it to stay.
So I walk. Through Changlam’s narrow streets.
Some days I walk with purpose. Others, I let myself drift. But every step feels like a soft recording of memory. A way of telling this place: I’m still here. I’m paying attention. I won’t forget.
Bhutan teaches you how to be still, even while moving. How to see the sacred in the everyday. How to belong, even if only for a season.
I know I can’t take the mountains with me. Or the scent of pine rising after a rain. Or the way the valley lights glow just before dark.
Prayer Wheels in Bhutan: Turning Compassion into Motion
In Bhutan, prayer wheels—called “mani khorlo” in Dzongkha—are cylindrical wheels inscribed with sacred mantras, most commonly “Om Mani Padme Hum.” They are an integral part of Bhutanese Buddhist practice, found in temples, monasteries, roadside stupas, and even streams powered by water.
What They Represent:
Each turn of the wheel is believed to release the power of the prayers inside, multiplying the blessings as if the practitioner had recited the mantras themselves. Turning a prayer wheel symbolizes the movement of compassion and the continuous cycle of life (samsara) turning toward enlightenment.
How They Are Used:
Clockwise turning: Always turn the wheel clockwise, in harmony with the direction the mantras are written. With intention: Devotees often spin the wheels while reciting prayers or walking around temples (kora), offering merit to all sentient beings. Mechanical variations: In Bhutan, you’ll see prayer wheels spun by hand, wind, or even water—each creating a physical manifestation of spiritual momentum.
Why It Matters:
In a land where spirituality blends with everyday life, prayer wheels serve as a quiet, spinning reminder: even the smallest gesture—when done with mindfulness—can carry immense spiritual weight. In Bhutan, turning a wheel is not just a ritual; it’s a moving meditation.
Built in 1629 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the founder of Bhutan, Simtokha Dzong is the oldest dzong in Bhutan with both religious and administrative functions. Perched on a ridge at the entrance to Thimphu Valley, its name means “Atop the Demon,” marking the site where the Zhabdrung is said to have subdued a powerful demoness.
I rarely, if ever, think to get photos of myself at all of the places I travel, but sometimes you get a taxi driver/guide, who insists…My taxi driver, Tek, who became my impromptu guide at the Dzong
Stone walls, prayer wheels, and ancient murals whisper stories of Bhutan’s unification and spiritual resilience—making Simtokha not just the oldest, but perhaps the most symbolically layered of Bhutan’s dzongs.
For twenty-two years, traveling has been as natural to me as breath. A flight, a bus ride, a long walk to a border—none of it ever felt heavy. I moved through countries the way others move through days: with routine, with comfort, with a deep sense of rhythm. I knew how to land lightly, to observe quickly, to adjust to my new surroundings almost instantly. I rarely hesitated. I rarely questioned.
But lately… something has changed.
It’s subtle, and I almost didn’t want to admit it at first. There’s a strange new hesitancy as I think about the next move. I find myself lying awake, thinking not just of logistics, but of something harder to name. A quiet weight. A kind of unease. The unknowns I used to welcome now feel vaguely threatening. I catch myself wondering if I’ll get to know the next place deeply enough, if I’ll be able to slip into its rhythms the way I always have.
There’s a loss of grip—not on the world, perhaps, but on the way I’ve known myself in it. I used to feel grounded, even while constantly in motion. Paradoxically, I always felt rooted in my rootlessness. Now, though, there’s a faint sense of becoming unmoored. As if the thread I’ve followed for so long has begun to fray at the edges.
I don’t say this with regret. I say it with curiosity. And some caution. But mostly with honesty.
Maybe the change is not in the places, but in me.
When you’ve lived this way for as long as I have, the line between home and not-home becomes blurred. You create meaning in movement. You build familiarity in the unfamiliar. But now, something inside me wants to pause and ask: Where, exactly, am I going? What am I still looking for? Not in the dramatic, life-redefining way. Just in the gentle, persistent way that feelings shift when you aren’t looking.
It’s not fear I’m feeling—not quite. It’s more like… grief. Or the awareness that a chapter is quietly closing, even as the next one begins to open. Maybe it’s the realization that I can’t keep arriving in places expecting them to fill the same space they used to. That’s not what they were meant to do. And maybe I’ve changed, in ways I haven’t fully acknowledged. Maybe I’m asking for different things now.
Still, this doesn’t mean I’ve lost my love for travel. It just means I need to meet it differently. With slower steps. With more intention. With the courage to not know a place fully, and still find meaning in it. With the humility to realize that being untethered can also be a form of freedom—even if it feels shakier than before.
If you’ve felt this too—this shift, this stirring—I want to tell you: it’s okay. The road is still yours, even if it feels different beneath your feet. You haven’t lost your way. You’re just learning to walk it in a new way. That’s not failure. That’s growth.
And growth, after all, is the truest form of movement.
A Quiet Conversation in the Pines: Oriental Turtle Doves in Thimphu
Thimphu isn’t just Bhutan’s capital—it’s a haven for more than just humans. The stillness of the mountains occasionally carries the soft, hollow cooing of two very familiar visitors: the Oriental Turtle Doves.
I spotted them recently—perched on opposite arms of a pine branch like old friends sharing a secret. Their posture was unhurried, composed.
Oriental Turtle Doves (Streptopelia orientalis) are no strangers to Bhutan. These birds are surprisingly cosmopolitan. Their range stretches from the Himalayan foothills across East and Southeast Asia.
Local elders say that doves bring messages—of peace, patience, and the importance of quiet companionship. I stood watching these two for a while. They didn’t move.
Sometimes, nature speaks not with drama but with presence.
