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Bhutanese Mail Route Of Yore: Yatung-Nathula Pass-Sikkim- Kalimpong II
Looking at the following mail cover, it becomes apparent that while we know that there was no postal services in the country during the early 1950’s – there appears to have been some kind of mail...
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Please Extend The Lockdown
The Royal Government of Bhutan has recently announced that the ongoing lockdown could be lifted after the New Year and the Nginlo that is coming up tomorrow and day after. I should be relieved – but I...
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Bhutan's Earliest Postage Stamps Gives Joy to a Sikkimese
I have long been grumbling about the errors – perpetrated both intentionally and through carelessness – in the printing of our bank notes as well as our coins – both hammered and milled. But now that...
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Bhutanese Mail Route Of Yore: Yatung-Nathula Pass-Sikkim-Kalimpong III
It turns out that the history of philately in Bhutan is ten times murkier than that of our coinage. It is one truly tangled world – one that appears to have been shaped and molded by characters mostly...
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What You See Is What You Get - But What You Got Is Not What You Wanted
As pointed out in my last blog, it appears that some of the mail covers that are in the possession of collectors around the world – do not quite tell the real deal. Something is amiss. Like I said in...
View ArticlePlease Extend The Lockdown II
All across the world a good number of countries have started to administer COVID-19 vaccines to their population, as authorized by their individual governments and regulatory authorities. Luckily, in...
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Did We or Did We Not?
It is now confirmed that there existed an organized mail service in ancient Bhutan. As I had suggested in one of my earlier posts, they used a relay system – a postal runner from the originating Dzong...
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Fakes and Forgeries of Bhutanese Stamps
Collectors - whatever or wherever they collect – are a breed apart. They are passionate, zealous and obsessive, to the point that at times they become easy prey for the immoral and the nefarious. It...
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Peculiar Problems During Lockdown
I am glad that the Government has extended the lockdown in Thimphu and Paro for a further period of 2 weeks. Hopefully, we are able to break the chain of transmission by then and should there be any...
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Are We Preparing For Heavy Snowfall?
The weather has been warm for the past 3-4 days and the sky overcast and gloomy. It worries me - is the weather due to brew up some heavy snow across our mountain passes? We are into mid January and...
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Dangbo Dingbo: Bhutan’s Postage Stamps: The Early Days
'Please come now to Bhutan. Jigmie leaves May 21 for Ha Dzong. We have received permission for you to join him.'The above telegram message enabled the young American Burt Kerr Todd to make his maiden...
View Article130 Fully Funded Rotary Fellowship for 2021
Dear readers who are Bhutanese graduates and are interested to take up higher studies in select subjects, the Rotary International is offering fully funded 130 Peace Fellowships to qualified...
View ArticleDangbo Dingbo: Bhutan’s Postage Stamps: The Early Days II
I like what a historian recently told me:‘Without written records, we're left to "sleuthing"– to investigator logic.’This was in relation to my exasperation at the near zilch written records within the...
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Dangbo Dingbo: Bhutan’s Postage Stamps: The Early Days III
Although unsure as to when and where it happened, it can be said with certainty that a written agreement would have been reached between Burt Kerr Todd and the Royal Government of Bhutan - for the...
View ArticleCOVID-19 Vaccines: Let Us Wait & Watch
The Bhutanese people are only just now speaking of the COVID-19 vaccines – I have been speaking about it as far back as early March, 2020. The following is the reply from a friend who is a scientist...
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One Of Many Community Service Projects By The Rotary Club of Thimphu
Dear Club President,Greetings from Bhutan and the Rotary Club of Thimphu. I hope you and your other Club Members are keeping well and safe during these difficult times.In my capacity as the Club...
View ArticleDangbo Dingbo: Bhutan’s Postage Stamps: The Early Days IV
One of the sentences in an article appearing in the Kuensel about 4 years back on Bhutan’s postal history goes as follows:'One envelope with the date stamp of Lingzhi Dzong shows that it was carried by...
View ArticleIf I Go Down, You Go Down Too
Even as I write out this blog post, the global COVID-19 cases stand at 101,441,979, of which Bhutan’s number stand at 856. For once I am glad of the fact that we rank so low among world nations –...
View ArticleA Loving Old Man Who Meant Well For Bhutan
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first Prime Minister visited Bhutan during September of 1958. It was a reciprocal visit – on the invitation of Bhutan’s 3rd King His Majesty Jigme Dorji...
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Mini Bhutan In The U S of A
The following article was written in 2017 - then promptly forgotten all about it. This morning as I was going through my computer for photos of Doklam areas that I had taken few years back, I came upon...
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