15 Feb 2017, Gasa:
It is said, “beauty lies in the eyes of beholder”…but I say it is an understatement to say Lunana is beautiful. Lunana is much more than beautiful…Check it out for yourselves with these most recent pictures of lunana, and regretfully these are just tip of an inceberg (taken from 11 to 15th Feb 2017).
Lunana is one of the four Gewogs of Gasa Dzongkhag. Lunana has 5 Chiwogs, 17 villages, 185 hhs, 900 people with some of the highest mountains of the country (Table mountain (7094m), Gangchen Singye (7205m), Rinchen tsoe, Ganglakarchung) and biggest glacial lakes of Thorthomi, Raptsreng and Lugi fame. They have their own dialect, but Dzongkha is widely understood and spoken. Yak is still the backbone of their lifestyle with barley, potato, radish as their main crops. They produce one of the best quality Droem and incense. Since 2004, Cordyceps is the main source of income. Cold weather, windstorm, accessibility, communication, power are major challenges. Still taking 7 days walk through what could be the roughest and toughest of terrain from Goen Shari or laya/Gasa, Lunana remains to be the remotest and most inaccessible Gewog. But on the other hand, don’t forget, with the chopper service, its is just 45 minutes from Paro. Also like inform that it’s a myth that all Lunaps are super rich from cordyceps, yes, we have rich Lunaps, but we also have much more poor Lunaps, struggling to meet their daily needs. Life is still very raw and tough in Lunana, but on the lighter side, I believe it’s adequately compensated with its pristine natural environment coupled with raw and innocent/ignorant nature of people. The good news is Development is catching up in Lunana. And Lunana is STUNNING !