Recommended Local travel agent and guide

We recently returned from a one week trip to Bhutan. We traveled via Bangkok from Beijing, China where we live. We traveled with two small children (5 and 8 years old). We had a wonderful time and a lot of the reason has to be due to the excellent service we received from the local travel agent we used (Bhutan Majestic Travel and its owner/manager Namgay Dorji and our excellent guide Tashi Wangchuk).

We were a little worried about what to expect taking two small children into Bhutan but the itinerary they arranged for us was flexible to take into the account the children s and our needs. On arrival in Thimpu we even received a visit for dinner from Namgay to make sure everything was going as we hoped and planned.

We arranged our trip over the internet. After our positive experence I cannot see any reason why anyone would want to use an external (to Bhutan) travel agent. We already intend to return again (and this time plan to go further East as we only made it as far as Punakha on this trip). We will definitely use Bhutan Majestic Travel again next time and ask for Tashi Wenchuk to be our guide. Tashi is a local guide who lives on the outskirts of Paro. He trained in Tourism and Hotel Management in India and had worked as a Manager for the Amankora Resort in Paro before becoming a freelance guide. Our children thought he was great and on the last day he even brought along his own son so the children had a ball.

Our tour with Tashi (and our driver Ugyen) started in Paro, then we went via Thimphu to Punakha and then returned by the same route. The Paro and Thimphu valleys were very different than Punakha (due to the elevation differences) so it was well worth the driving trip over the Dochu La where we incredibly lucky to see the Himalayan peaks.

You can get to Bhutan Majestic Travel easily via any search page.

Related link at; Lonely Planet http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree/

Stephen Smalley & ChiaHway Tang