Thank you for your patience!  My five glorious weeks of travel are finally concluded and I’m trying to get caught up with my real world life.  As usual, I am posting my observations written in real-time over the race week in several installments of the 2016 Global Limits multi-day ultra marathon – The Last Secret:

Eve of the RaceBah, I can’t believe that I once again find myself reflecting the evening before yet another 6-day race. It always feels like the week is stretching out so far in front of me, yet I know that in the blink of an eye I will be raising a toast to the runners at our finishers’ banquet.  Here’s a few photos from my first jet lagged 24 hours in Bhutan.
My ride:

The city of Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan:

One of Thimphu’s claim to fame is that it has no traffic lights, just a cop dressed up in a fancy booth directing traffic:

It was the usual chaos the morning that we left for camp. With baggage piled up everywhere and runners milling about, it was starting to feel like race time. 

 The mini-bus wound through the mountains, sometimes on pavement, sometimes on dirt, and sometimes on a mix of the two as an Indian company was actively paving and reinforcing the roads as we drove on them. The drive got long as we bounced down the road and the day got hotter. Finally it was time for lunch in what I like to call Penis Town. I will have to look up the significance of the town but basically there are giant penises painted all over the building walls. Quite creative renditions of penises at that. And there are shops that sell any kind of kitschy penis souvenir that one might need. My favorite was the medium sized sculpture with “good luck” painted on it. Even though we went through here last year, it was equally as amusing this time around.

I really hope that something was lost in translation here…

Lunch was in a beautiful green hotel with intricate painting along all the sills, and also with very aggressive looking penises adorning the door frame. There were beautiful views of the surrounding valley as an accompaniment to the usual Bhutanese buffet meal. I give it about 2 more meals before I can’t eat any more of the traditional fare. It’s good, but I guess I just don’t do well with monotony. Hence my job as a ER physician and my crazy free-wheeling lifestyle.  
(Oh my gosh, the Internet connection has been abysmal here tonight in rural Wisconsin, and it’s not allowing me to upload photos to go along with the rest of my narration.  I promise to continue this post tomorrow once I can get some decent wifi!)