15/07/2022
Hunting the blue Yeti of Bhutan
Once thought to be a Himalayan myth, Bhutan’s national flower is a once-in-a-lifetime find.
On a clear day, the entire Jomolhari Range – including Bhutan’s second highest peak and one of the country’s most sacred places – should be visible from where I was standing. But on that cold and gloomy June afternoon, all I could see were a blinding mist and grey skies.
I was on the 3,780m-high Chele La mountain pass in west Bhutan, and despite the ominous monsoon weather, my guide Raj Lama sent me hiking up yet another trail to try to get a better view. I was not impressed, and I let him know.
Lama and I often argued during my week-long stay in the Himalayan Kingdom. One of our first arguments, in fact, was over Lama’s belief that Indian girls are not good hikers. I proved him wrong, trekking to the Tiger’s Nest Monastery with considerable ease the previous day. And in a “watch-what-you-wish-for” moment, that’s how I ended up on a nondescript trail with obscured views that afternoon, fielding subsequent prompts to hike every possible trail around.
But as it turned out, the constant bickering had an upside: it led me to one of the rarest flowers on Earth.
Bhutan’s national flower, Meconopsis Grandis, or Himalayan blue poppy as is it popularly known, is a flower so enchantingly blue that it instantly commands undivided attention. Growing only above the tree line in a harsh high altitude environment of 3,500m to 4500m, it blooms just once during the monsoon between late May to July, after which it disperses its seeds and dies.
