Saturday morning Aksel and I decided to go to the bank and exchange the rest of our foreign currency into Ngultrum so we were ready to do some big shopping during the weekend :-) First free weekend in Bhutan - nice! It was raining a little so we took a taxi downtown, got some Ngultrum and walked back to one of the big shops in the center of Thimphu. Suddenly Aksel called out: Watch out! Confused I asked: What? Where? and looked around. He pointed to the sidewalk in front of me and I saw it! It was the abdomen of a rat with 2 legs and a long tail. Bvdr! Half of it was eaten by a dog or a cat! Aksel told me that animals never eat the tail of mice and rats because it is poison to them.

After this experience we went shopping for a couple of hours, had a nice lunch at the Ambient café and continued shopping a little longer. In one of the narrow streets we suddenly saw another rat - this time alive - that was chased by a young girl with a broom. I am glad that I am going back soon ;-) Apparently all the rats get out during the summer!

In the evening the ministry had invited us out to dinner and at 6.15 we were picked up by Chief Sangay. It was a very nice dinner together with 7 - 8 of the people from the ministry. The new director, Sangay Dorjii, taught me a lot about Buddhism and it was a very interesting night. When we finished the director gave Aksel a book as a thank you gift for all his hard work and it was time to say goodbye to some good Bhutanese friends. Miss Kinley drove us home to the Khang and gave us a small gift each - a token of good luck that her mother had made for us. I really appreciated that!

On Sunday I took Aksel to see the market down at the river. It is a fun place to walk around and you can buy almost anything here. We found the clothes "department" especially interesting and bought a lot of T-shirts, dresses and scarves very cheap :-)

At night we had dinner with Carsten at the Druk Hotel - and a few Druk 11000 - a very good beer. We talked about Bhutan, our stay and Carsten told us some of the amazing stories of his life. I always enjoy when he does that. Then it was time to go back to the hotel for the last time on this trip to pack our things and get ready for takeoff to Paro airport at 8 o'clock Monday morning - a 4 hours' flight from Paro to Bangkok at 11 am - staying in Bangkok airport from 3 pm to midnight - and finally the 11 hours' flight with SAS to Copenhagen at 0.35 - and of course the drive back to Jutland. It is a long trip - around 32 hours - but the great adventures in Bhutan is worth the long trip every time :-)

See you all again in September ( around the 10.th).