At the start of our trip, our Bhutan guide told us that there are some 50 rhododendron species in Bhutan and we would see plenty of them during the trip.
Driving up and down the mountain roads, we did see alot of these two varieties of rhododendrons growing on the side of the mountains, in a bright reddish-purple colour or a deep red. The leaves of the rhododendrons are quite interesting – they come together in one bunch under the flower instead of sprouting along the branches.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried, I could not capture a nice photo of the flowers. Most of the time, they were too far away from where I was (that even my telephoto 18-200mm lens can’t quite reach) or the light wasn’t right. All my photos turned out very bad and I gave up after many attempts.
At the end of the trip, our guide plucked two blooms from some of the trees which we passed by so that I could take a picture of the flowers. He probably took pity on this deranged woman who kept asking the driver to stop the car whenever we drove past rhododendron trees. That’s how I managed to get a picture of the two varieties seen in the photo above (still a bad photo, nonetheless).
Another rhododendron tree heavy with bright red blooms (another bad photo…). What attracted my attention was the beautiful bird perched on one of the branches. Our guide gave us the name of the bird, but I can’t remember what it is now.
If only we got to see the famous blue poppies in Bhutan but they were not yet in season.
