"The Red Panda: Mill Mountain to Maurer"

Red Panda Beer, the best beer in Bhutan.

People ask how Kelly and I can travel for a month throughout the Himalayas with our three tsunamis -- er -- children in full gear alongside us. Our answer?

Red.

Panda.

Beer.

This weiss beer is brewed in Bumtang by Fritz Maurer, a remarkable Bhutanese citizen of Swiss birth. His story is as good as the beer. Uncharted Travel tells the story much better than I can...*

"Fritz is an unusual name for a Bhutanese man, but then Fritz is no ordinary man.

Fritz Maurer was born in Switzerland and came to Bhutan in the mid 1960’s to help develop farming in the Bumthang region of Bhutan as part of the Pro Bhutan Foundation. He eventually married and started a Swiss cheese factory.

He now runs a Swiss Lodge style guest house, and produces not only cheese, but also honey and Schnapps. He speaks the Bumthang dialect better than most Bhutanese, and the locals refer to him as Dasho, a title reserved for high ranking officials. No one can remember the last time they saw him in western attire.

According to recent folklore, when Heinrich Harrer came to Bhutan he haughtily introduced himself to Fritz Maurer as “Heinrich Harrer, Seven Years in Tibet”, to which Fritz Maurer replied “Fritz Maurer, thirty years in Bhutan.”

Fritz Maurer is one of the few foreigners lucky enough to immigrate to Bhutan; of the others the vast majority are also Swiss. You can already hear rumblings on the streets of Thimpu over the number of Swiss immigrants, I think there are three altogether now. Others in the past included a Canadian Jesuit who was very proud of the fact that he didn’t convert a single person."*

It is worth noting that Kelly chose the red panda as her favorite animal long before we arrived in Bhutan. She saw her first red panda at Mill Mountain Zoo (www.mmzoo.org) in Roanoke VA, and instantly fell in love. Never mind how improbable it was that we find this zoo in the first place (a story of its own), or that there should be a Himalayan panda living in a small Virginia community zoo in the middle of the summer. It was meant to be, and her red panda love affair continues via the beer here in Bhutan.

*full credit for this excerpt: www.unchartedtravel.com/asia/bhutan/attractions/bhumtang.php?country=bhutan