Until the early 1960s there was no motor road into Bhutan. Traders and officials going from the Dooars plains to Paro or Thimphu walked or rode mules for several days, climbing through forest and over ridges on old mule tracks.
In 1961 India's Border Roads Organisation set up Project Dantak in Bhutan, at the request of the Bhutanese government. One of its first jobs was a road from the border at Phuentsholing up to Thimphu and Paro. The new road turned a journey of days into one of hours.
The road changed Phuentsholing too. A small trading post grew into Bhutan's main commercial gateway, where most of the country's goods from India still arrive by truck. Dantak continues to maintain roads in Bhutan, and its milestones and painted slogans are still seen along the highway north of town.
Sources
Legends are retold differently from village to village. Where a story is told locally rather than written down, we say so.
