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On tour to the distant world

I listened tolerantly with tears in my eyes and sadness in my heart, when my associates narrated to me about the knowledge they gained, the experience accumulated and the time they enjoyed in the worlds far away from Bhutan, when they visited such worlds either sent by the government, projects or business. This was not because I am not happy here in Bhutan but I was jealous of the knowledge and experiences they gained. Is there day for me too when I can also go and collect such foreign knowledge and experiences? I wonder.

Negotiating flimsy bamboo bridge
Every time the metal bird of Bhutan with the mark Druk Air in its tail was on its way to and fro following its route crossing Chukha from high above, I wave safe journey and welcome back safely to Bhutan. I wonder if there is any chance for me to join this metal bird in its daily trip.

Our destination is a village afar
But did I barely realize that soon I was to be chosen as one nominee from Chukha to embark on study tour of Thailand on Watershed Management, Community and Private Forest. Here my lifetime fantasy of experiencing distant world would mature into actuality.

Members of the tour group
I could join the metal bird and gather the knowledge and experience from overseas lands and during the course of study tour, making tour of every community forest, private forest and watershed areas in Thailand, I have been engrossed filtering all experiences that are applicable here in my country.
We also erudite their mistakes so as to guarantee that we don’t commit the comparable mistakes when we apply the similar knowledge in our own country. We also shared with them what we have here in Bhutan particularly about the watershed management, community and Private forest.

Flimsy bridges provides just enough space on place step
Other than that, we also exchanged the informal and leisure cultural conversation reflecting the diverse cultures of each other. And I found all these are very unique here in Bhutan and that was the reason why we are proud to say that we are from Bhutan.

For all this, my full credit goes to Wang Watershed Management Project for funding our tour, which was very relevant, and I offer my personal gratitude and deep thanks for my immediate sector head who unbiasely nominated me among many other competitive colleagues.

Infact, I realized that we really could learn a lot from other countries as an added knowledge to what we have already learned in our own country.

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