On The Road: Bhutan (Bangkok Report)

The late afternoon in Bangkok saw Graham Ware, Kayla Keenan and I spending a couple of hours in Bangkok's Chinatown district, "de-rusting' our shutter fingers with some street photography.

While having dinner with some of the photo-expedition's members at The Irish Pub on Silom, news of the 6.3-magnitude earthquake in Bhutan reached me. The AP report said that the earthquake killed at least 11 people, damaging an ancient monastery and forcing hundreds to flee, with at least 15 people injured.

The afternoon earthquake was centered in Monggar, a little-populated eastern region of the tiny nation of Bhutan, close to Gauhati in Assam, India. The AP also reports that most buildings in that region are small farmhouses built from mud and stone.

At this time, all signals are green for the photo-expedition to proceed as planned. The quake-hit region is far enough from our routing that it shouldn't have any effect, however it may have caused landslides in the main road leading to Bumthang, which is our ultimate destination.

Further information will be obtained in the morning from our agent in Thimpu.