King of Bhutan: “In celebration of my son's birth by my beautiful wife I hereby announce the renovation of the Drukgyel monastery.”

Ministry of Tourism: “But, my dragon king, as beautiful as your wife may be, we just placed the monastery on the list of tentative works heritage sites as ruins. If we renovate it the entire work will be in vain.”

Zoë: “Honestly, this never had a chance to begin with because you are basing the unique value of the ruins on it never having been changed since its original construction and having just a few brick walls left doesn't show that, at all.”

Bagan Tourism: “We rebuilt everything and will get on the list eventually…”

The guides were a little confused why I asked to see it. It takes a 20 min ride on good road west of Paro and past the entrance of the Tiger's Nest. I still find it beautiful like everything in Bhutan, with a good view of the sacred Jomolhari mountain. There are a few parking spots, a restaurant, trash (unfortunately, and their usual excuse for the Indian tourists to dump it out of the window doesn't apply in this remote spot), and lots of workers getting it ready for a grand re-opening. The guides claim it is 40% complete although from the outside you couldn't tell as it already looking redone. It is not open for public, one could walk around if they wanted to, but the best views are not even from the parking lot below but from the road coming here with the mountains in the background. The guides don't seem to do this often because they had no good spot to let me out for pictures like they know with the dzong and Tiger's Nest, and also seemed much more concerned about getting me to lunch (maybe something about how the package deals work: spending it with tourists is better than having used up too little of the daily minimum).

I couldn't resist attaching the 3rd version of the current look with Solivagant's picture. If he disapproves he will surely let me know in the forum but I didn't want to ask and spoil the “surprise”. I think he took this from an angle I wasn't standing at or the guides didn't give me any chance to shoot from. Shows again this isn't on their regular route.