My afternoon started outside the Pedlen Restaurant in the village of Haa. I was joined by my friend and guide Tsheten from MyBhutan.
I started with some chilies, potatoes, and beef; ema dashti with red and green chilies; radish with red chilies; a dumpling; and potato fritters. The ema dashti was super spicy. It hit me right away! It was both creamy and spicy and was fantastic. I needed some chai afterward to calm down the heat in my mouth! Next was a piece of moist, tender, and slightly spicy beef with soft potatoes.
The radish was really nice in terms of spice. I followed that with some cheesy and creamy tomatoes. The hoentay dumplings were a little bitter and full of soft and delicate turnip greens They were my favorite dumplings of the trip so far, especially with the ezay! Then, I had some earthy ara, a soft and spicy potato fritter, and some papad and dal to finish up.
After lunch, it was time to explore Haa! The population is only around 14,000 people. It’s known for having more shopkeepers than customers. I loved the traditional architecture in the town.
We visited a pair of general shops, the second of which only sold Buddhist items for the home or families. I bought a carved skull keychain, which fends off evil and cost 250 Nu/$3.31 USD.
We braved the frigid wind across a suspension bridge over the Haa Chhu River. On the other side was a small Buddhist temple and tons of white prayer flags, which are for someone who has passed away. We walked along the Haa Chhu River, past a golf course and the Fortress of Haa, and through a colorful stupa, to get to the White Temple.
The White Temple was made up of several buildings and a massive courtyard. To the right and left are the monks’ residences, and at the very top is a temple with a statue of the god of longevity.
Then, we hiked past a herd of cows down a path toward the Black Temple. It was much smaller than the White Temple. Inside are statues of the future Buddha, the second Buddha, and the Unifier. It is thought that the statue of the future Buddha has saved the locals from epidemics and famines. The grounds were beautiful!
Then, we hiked back down to the road and drove to Risum Resort, where I had a super nice room. After a tour and a quic nap, it was time for dinner! There, Tsheten served me 10 fried hoentay dumplings, 10 steamed ones, ema dashti, chili paste, ara, and chai.
I tried a fried hoentay with the chili paste. It was oily, crunchy, and full of turnip leaves. It tasted like a fried empanada. The chili paste wasn’t that hot, though. The ema dashti was really cheesy and spicy but so good! The cheese was a little different; it was processed.
Then, I grabbed a steamed hoentay with no chilies. It was bigger than the ones I’d had earlier. I added some ema dashti to a large fried hoentay, which was so good. The fried ones were tastier, but I loved the steamed ones, too. They were right up there with the xiaolongbao I loved when I visited Shanghai. When you mix dumplings, vegetables, chilies, and cheese, you can’t go wrong!
The ara was also delicious. It was super clear and flavorful. What an awesome day in Haa Valley!
My name is David Hoffmann. For the last 12 years, I have been traveling around the world in search of unique culture, food, and history! Since starting David’s Been Here in 2008, I have traveled to over 1,100 destinations in 77 countries, which I welcome you to check out on my YouTube channel, travel blog, and social media sites.
I focus a great deal on food and historical sites, as you probably have seen! I love to experience the different flavors that each destination has to offer, from casual street food to gourmet restaurant dining. I’m also passionate about learning about the local history and culture.
P.S. Thank you for watching my videos and subscribing!
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What's good everyone? I hope you're all doing well
This is David Hoffman from David's been here coming at you from a hot valley in Bhutan one of the least populated areas in
The country and what I want to do today is I want to show you everything you could do and see in this town
We're gonna start off right here at the peddling restaurant, which is traditional Bhutanese restaurant
We're gonna eat some good food. And then from there, we're gonna walk around the town
We're gonna do some shops and then we're gonna hike to a monastery about a 30-minute hike see the monastery
And we're finally gonna end with some delicious dinner at my hotel. We're gonna eat some dumplings traditional hot dumplings. I'm very excited
How are you guys?
Wow, what a feast check this out 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 different things
I think I'm gonna start off right now with potato chili and beef
Good enough
Some chili cheese this one has
So it has red cheese green chilies and cheese
We got some radish and chilies
If you want you just put the cheese aside. I don't need to eat that many today
Well, I guess I've got a few
Let's get one of these dumplings
Can't wait and you we have these potato balls
So I'm gonna jump into the cheese first
Mm-hmm. Oh, it's spicy
Hits you right away. Yeah, super spicy
It's creamy and spicy
Mm-hmm. It's fantastic
Whoa, this is all chilies
Mm-hmm. Huh?
Need some chai
No, super spicy. Oh delicious, though. Mm-hmm
Next chip on this beef. So there's a moist beef not dry
We used to do drive a piece of potato. Here we go
Mm-hmm
Nice mush potatoes super tender beef and the beef isn't spicy
it has a little bit of spice you can see a little bit of the seeds, but
Perfect. Next let's jump onto the radish
Mm-hmm. Radish isn't that bad in terms of spice. I personally love all the veggies here
Nice radish. Mm-hmm. Now you feel spice
But if you want to get, you know more adventurous
Let's get in with that red chili
Mm-hmm
That wasn't hot at all if you want to really get hot go in here
Mm-hmm
Spicy
Then right here we have some tomatoes
So one thing I really haven't eaten that much. Oh
Nice, nice. Very moist tomatoes. They're creamy as well
And chili put cheese in it. They put cheese in everything next up. I'm trying what I came here for
The dumplings but with dumplings with turnip inside
Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah
Delicious turnip leaves but wheat so different. Mm-hmm. It's like a little more bitter
Mm-hmm. I need another one. Oh, this is so good. Dude. These are great. I want some spice to it
50 see you see the inside turnip leaves taste very similar to cabbage. Oh, it's just different. Oh
Yeah, this is like a numbing heat right here
These are the best dumplings of the trip Wow, it's so good veg dumplings. She surprised me with a little bit of ara
Mm-hmm this one that tastes a little different because they put the bark a little bit of tree in there
Mmm, very earthy
Love it
How the color pink and here we go the potato fritter
Mmm, basically just mushy potatoes fried
Pretty good. It has spice
For me my two favorite things here with dumplings and chili cheese
Yeah, so chili cheese and the dumpling
Mmm, and then my favorite chili cheese
So hot it's so creamy
When you have to come here for are these
The turnip leaves and when they're so soft and delicate
So these dumplings are called hint a which are basically dumplings, but with dumplings with turnip inside
So I've tried everything except the puppet which is basically the same thing as in India
Mm-hmm
there's also rice and
Mm-hmm. It's great. There's actually like exactly Indian
little creamy lots of veg
Tomato I mean best thing to do is mix it with the rice, but I need to lay low on the rice
I'm thinking way too much rice
All right. That was an epic meal. Lots of good food. Very spicy
Now we're gonna go explore the town
the village of ha
ha ha ha
HAA the population of ha valley is only around 14,000 people and now
They must be having like 3,000 house
In the town of ha you could actually see more shopkeepers than customer
So this is it. This is the main part of the town on each side of the road
There's these three-story buildings. Usually it's three stories and how it works is the bottom
It's like a general store like grocery store or a shop top the middle the second level
That is a restaurant and then the third level is a house
That's sort of how it is and they don't actually own the building
So the restaurant owner doesn't own it the owner of the of the apartment doesn't own it
Somebody owns the building and everybody rents. Yeah, and these are all traditional houses
really beautiful houses
Weekend market a visitable market on the weekends. Yeah, so this is what general shop looks like
Basically, it's a mini market right in mini grocery store. They have food lots of like snacks
Water sodas they have like toys for kids. They have gloves. They have hats they have balls
I mean, that's basically what you see here. So every single one is almost the same just like this. That's it general shop
I mean, I love the town in terms of architecture. It's pretty traditional
It's old school and how old is this town?
So I came into another general shop because this one has these darts
These are the big darts the ones you throw like really really far and then he has some stuff here hanging
This is all like Buddhist stuff, right and then you have the arrows and then over there
We have some Buddhas some cups and that's basically what these stores all about
This one's a little different because this is not like a market. This is more like
Buddhist stuff more religious stuff and a few things for you know for games and stuff for like, you know archery, etc
Hello, so my friend here has these keychains
So we have tiger dragon and this one is to fend off evil spirits the skull
Let's go a lot. Okay, and it's 250 each. Yes. Okay, so I'll take this one
This shop it sells only the Buddhist
Products not really the products the Buddhist things that is really need for the home or for the families
And then the candles there as well. That's not a candle. It's an incense stick. Oh, sorry. I couldn't see it there
Okay to a 50. Thank you
Karinche suspension bridge, let's go. This is so different from
Right here because this is the coldest place we've been and here we have the suspension bridge
River is another one farther down
And you go all the way left
What a difference in temperature from the bridge to here it's like it's like 10 degrees colder there the wind just is
Crazy, it's so much
So that's the windiest place we've been to. Oh, thank God. I brought a scarf. I know it's cold when I see you brown sweater
It's a small temple of this locality so in Bhutan every
Localities they have their own local temple. It's one of them
So it's a very small temple two buildings over here. We have a prayer bell and here more flags
So what's the difference in the white one? I know the white prayer flags
Yeah, the bunch of white prayer flags usually it is for a dead person for one dead person
We try to like put hundred and eight numbers of white prayer flag. So why it is
Purification of karma in order to have a next good life
The family members they put hundred and eight numbers of white prayer flags for the dead person
So when you see white prayer flag like this 108 to be exact that's for one dead person and it says a prayer
That's all it says these actually have you know pictures of God's right stupas different things
I know my nose my neck. Oh, I'm gonna run
Walking along this river. Oh, it's too cold
It for sure. This is like zero. Yeah, it has to be
Yeah, and tonight it's gonna be like negative five. So it's gonna be roughly like 28 degrees
Luckily, I'll be in my room with the heater on
The river here in her belly is called his heart you and most of the river in Bhutan it comes from the northern parts of
Northern part where we have lots of snow cap mountain and the river it flows all the way to India mostly to
Vermaputra, so if you guys don't know the vermaputra river flows through the state of Assam through to Bangladesh and empties out
Down there, right? And so if you go ever go to Assam Guwahati test for my Julie Island there
You can see the vermaputra river. We have like a
20-30 minutes
I will be the monastery
So we just finished the hike on the trail now made to the road and I didn't know this was actually a golf course here
A nine hole golf course, but there's a private golf course for the military. So you can't just come here and play
It's only for the military walking through right now
There's an instruction here and the monastery is the end of this street, right?
The golf course here. I
Mean the wind alone is gonna be impossible to hit the ball just fly back
This building you see behind us is the fortress of ha it is now a military base
And when was it built the actual fortress? It was built in 1895. It has been burned down completely in
1913 and again in 1950 started reconstructing a new one and here we have a stupid actually walk through
Very unique. I haven't seen one like this before
Now we've got
We made it to the temple white temple, right?
Okay, it's like in every temple get off the hat a king of Tibet
He was called as King's awesome gamble and there was a prophecy that he should bet
108 temples and he choose her valley in order to build two temples
So in order to find a area to build the temple
What he did is that he had a white pigeon and a black pigeon pigeon
He set it free
So the white pigeon has landed in this area and you choose to build the white temple in this area
So before building the temple and while they were building the temple a group of people from nowhere
They came so in our language
we call it ha Tom which means all of the sudden and that's how the temple or
How the valley got the name ha from ha Tom all of this sudden and the black pigeon it landed like 10 minutes
Away from here when you walk it will take around 10 minutes to that temple
We have a village over there
The black pigeon has landed there and he choose to build the black temple in that area
By looking at the color you could make it out which one is white temple and which one is black temple
So the temple is made of a courtyard massive courtyard over here to the right and to the left you see residences of the monks
Here at the very top you have the temple and in the temple
You have a statue of the God of longevity and that's basically it for the temple now
We're gonna hike 10 minutes up to the black temple. Dude. This is great. What an experience got to be careful
Oh, the mothers get mad no more cows
This is a steep hike
Yeah, I love it though Mouton thought about the hikes
Hat off
Here is the black temple
very small compared to the white temple like
miniscule
This is where the black pigeon has landed and you choose to build the black temple in this area
So the white temple is ginormous in comparison to the black temple
This is like one room like one of the monks houses
That's basically what the black temple is obviously the difference is the color and size and this is it. So what's inside it inside?
We have a statue of Joe Joe jumper. My true Buddha the future Buddha. We have a statue of Guru Rinpoche
the second Buddha and we also have a statue of the unifier Shabroom and
the people in this area they say that because of the statue of future Buddha the life of the
People in the in this area has been saved from epidemics and famine famine, right? That's it
We saw the black temple walked around it. You can see the village right here
See some boulders
Beautiful grounds now, we're gonna do and we're gonna go all the way down
Get in the car and go to the hotel and check it out. I don't even know where I'm staying yet
We'll learn right now. We will be staying in a resort called Rickson
This is one of the best resort in high Valley
Like I said, how badly is open for tourists only in the 2002 so not much resort
We have in high Valley from the white temple to my hotel
It's like a 10-minute drive as you can see
We're passing through everything that we walked and now we're gonna cross over, you know over the river
That's the other side and we're going up a hill and basically this is all farmland
And he was telling me they produce a lot of apples here and they export it to where?
To Bangladesh. Okay, so it's apples and you know other type of vegetables
But we
Also wheat buckwheat and here we go. This is the resort. We made it this zoom resort
So right here. We have the lobby behind me
restaurant
These are the rooms. There's 14 to be exact
Mine is right here number 13. Check out this room
Right when you enter you have a living room two couches a table and everything here is wood
Wooden ceiling wooden walls wooden chairs what it wouldn't everything and then over here we have the bedroom
Beautiful lots of space king-size bed. We have a TV. We have an area here
I can just sit down and work so a little desk area and over. Here's the bathroom
Nice and spacious love it. They put the heater on. Oh and here so we have a bathtub and we have a shower
So we have both got the heater right here for hot water
toilet faucet
Perfect. All right guys. I'm gonna take a break. It's like 4 30 now. We're having dinner at 6 30
I'm gonna probably have some more dumplings some chili cheese. Let's see what we eat. All right, I'm gonna take a nap
Now it's really really cold must be like negative 5 or something. Oh, it's so chilly. Wow. That's something you have to know about hot
It's windy. It's cold. Oh
Man, I'm excited. Oh, I'm hungry
630 dinner time dumplings chili cheese. Maybe some easy
Hey my man here just
Served me the biggest portion of dumplings. I've ever seen look. I got 20 pieces. I got 10 fried 10 steamed
Chili cheese got chili paste. I have a glass of hotter
Had to do the other and then here I have some chai
And the reason I have chai is to calm down the heat cuz I'm gonna mix a lot of heat here, right?
So how do I do it? Just put it on. Yeah, I'm chilly. That's it
Yeah, so I'm gonna try this one first because I haven't tried the fried one yet
So you think I should just get some of this, okay, just put on top yeah
It's a lot of food, it's all mine. Oh
Man this good. Mm-hmm. This actually feels like off your Friday, but I'm
Mmm, so tasty oily
Love this man. Mm-hmm
Hmm and the best part is I'm
The chili chili paste isn't that hot. That's gonna be hot. I
Mean, it's only me, right? Yeah
so
Well, I'll do that. Let's see. Let's see how hot it is. I have a little bit
Hmm. Oh, I love how cheesy it is. Mm-hmm
Mm-hmm. Oh, it's spicy, but it's good
Mmm, I feel like the cheese is a little different. It's a different type of cream. Oh, wow
Processes. Oh
So next grab one of these steamed yeah, I'll definitely minimize the heat I'm gonna do with no chilies
Hmm this one in terms of the ones I had earlier are bigger. You're not really supposed to cut it up, but
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Actually like this one the best. Yeah. Yeah, and you can see like here you see everything has been like crispy. I
Mean for me, it's like breakfast, right?
so
So I get some chili cheese on top. What do you think a little bit right there? Oh, it's like a lot of chilies
Mm-hmm. Oh wow, what combination obviously fries always gonna be tastier. Mm-hmm
for me the best thing in China is
Dumplings my favorite the xiaolongbao in Shanghai
This one's like
incredible
Science than that ----. She's on top. Mmm, nice and spicy and creamy if you love dumplings you love veg
chilies and cheese
This for you
Basically, I named every ingredient here. Oh
This is good man, look at this clear super clear. I love rice wine
When I was in Japan every day, it's the only thing I drank
You won't find this kind of dumplings in some of the areas of Bhutan
This is from half alley from half alley especially and every year
They celebrate
Hinti where like the half people they make lots of dumplings from the wheat
Do a big festival. Yeah, it's a kind of a festival for them. So it's called is hinting
I'm just gonna finish the rest of these myself
so I
Hope you guys enjoyed this video because we explored ha ha valley. We did basically everything you can do here
So we explored a town, you know, we walked around so different shops
I bought a small souvenir and then we kept walking. We did a mini hike
We crossed the suspension bridge really really cold lots of wind then we walked for like I don't know
Maybe an hour and eventually we made to the monastery. So white temple, right?
So it's the white temple and then the black temple on top. I mean you have to do it if you come out here
These are the things you've got to do then we came back to the hotel
And we ate the dumplings and this is food wise you have to try this what we dumplings fried and steamed with turnip inside
So hot
So delicious you guys if you love this video give me a thumbs up
Subscribe my channel for more awesome travel content. I'll see the next travel food adventure in Bhutan
