Bhutan -- the Last Shangri La

There's background info on Bhutan at the end of this piece.

Although I had a window seat on the flight from Bangkok to Paro, I soon tired of looking at clouds. Then, suddenly, I looked up, and a forested hillside had appeared just beyond the plane's wing tip. Below was a scene from Hans Christian Andersen -- soaring hills, thick forests, a wide valley with a river and houses that looked like chalets. Of course, the variegated green rice paddies didn't fit, and nor did the golden-roofed dzong with its high white walls. A more exotic fairy-tale, perhaps. (A dzong is a combination fortress, administrative center and monastery -- handy when the Tibetans were invading.)

The group (organized by Geographic Expeditions) spent three nights in Paro, the location of Bhutan's only airport. I shared a beautifully paneled cottage (two bedrooms and a sitting area) with Arthur, a retired theater professor from Charleston whose new avocation was paper-making. Here we had our first exposure to the national dish, emadatse (chili and cheese) -- seriously hot! The highlight of our stay in Paro was a hike to the Tiger's Nest viewpoint. Tiger's Nest (Taktshang monastery), clinging to a cliff face, was emblematic of Bhutan until it was destroyed by fire a few years back. The rebuilding is almost complete, and the road put in to help with it has taken an hour off the hike. The views were wonderful, and I was pleased to be only a little behind the first group of hikers despite being really out of shape.

Festival Time in Thimpu

Day four took us to Thimpu for the last day of a festival. The monastery courtyard inside the dzong was packed, with red-robed monks massed together at one side. I worked my way into a good photo position, and watched in fascination as the pictures I had seen came alive -- the dancers in lavish costumes and wild masks swooping and twirling, ringed by spectators in their best clothes. They were followed by lines of men and women doing folk dances. Just as the main dance started we had to leave -- for lunch. By the time we returned things were winding down -- a major black mark for the tour organizers in my book, although not everyone wanted to go back.

Some of us visited the archery grounds after the festival -- archery is Bhutan's national sport. The small targets are set far apart (about 120 meters) -- barely visible to us. While we saw old bows in museums, the archers we watched used very high-tech ones indeed -- they hardly looked like bows to me.

Next day we left on the first stage of our drive east. If I seem to keep writing about rushing water and mountains, it's because I've spent a good part of the last month being driven along a narrow road etched out of a steep slope above a torrent of water. It's been wonderful! In Bhutan the mountains were heavily forested -- at higher elevations with pines, rhododendrons and dwarf bamboo. I was astounded to see Spanish moss growing happily above 8,000 feet. Regular moss, ferns and bromeliads grew on some of the trees -- Elaeocarpus Sikkimensis, according to the Botanical Gardens in Darjeeling, where labels are in Latin only.

I got my first close-up look at the ubiquitous Bhutanese rice paddies after lunch when we walked to a temple (Chimi Lhakhang). The irrigation stream ran faster than I expected and the path was narrow and muddy. The rice was lush, the seed heads heavy and nearly ready for harvest. The pattern of greens, the quilt of individual paddies, was beautiful, but hard to photograph. Bhutan grows both white rice, and a separate strain called red rice, which has a slightly harder texture when cooked.

Lonely Planet writes that a new resort hotel is under construction at Chuzomsa. It's finished now, and Kychu Resort is spectacular. The buildings, three rooms up and three down, are curved, and are set right on the banks of a river that is tumbling over huge rocks. The rooms are wedge-shaped, and the noise of the water constant. Standing on my balcony I looked directly down at the water.

Next morning we had to leave early for a long drive to Jakar, in Bumthang, the central province. Alas, we lost the good weather as we climbed the first pass, it would be cloudy and often wet -- and therefore muddy -- all four days in Bumthang. I was disappointed that the guesthouse in Jakar -- belonging to Yangphel, the Bhutanese tour company that was the ground operator -- was a long three kilometers out of town. We took our shoes off before entering to protect the wood floors -- a good habit I practice myself, but getting up and down steep wooden stairs in socks felt decidedly precarious.

Garab, our Bhutanese guide, helped with the cabin fever by taking three of us into Jakar for dinner one night. Turned out we were the only night life in town. The food was quite similar to the hotel buffets -- red rice, pork and potatoes, chili and cheese, scrambled egg -- but there was also a delicious mix of cilantro, onion and cheese, and it was a welcome break. I had my first taste of butter tea in Jakar, too -- surprisingly good, if you don't expect it to taste like tea -- a bit more like soup, perhaps? Apparently, everything depends on how well the butter is churned -- in a tall, thin, wooden container, requiring considerable physical exertion. While we visited a number of temples, some of considerable importance (and were allowed inside several), for me the best part of Jakar was the two festivals we attended.

Rural Festivals

The first, at Namkhai Ningpo, was a thangka consecration. A Bhutanese thangka is made of appliqued fabric and depicts some aspect of Buddhist iconography. The big ones belonging to monasteries are huge, and only occasionally seen when a patron provides enough money for a festival -- maybe only once every three or five years. This new thangka was over two stories high, taller than the temple. It was well and truly consecrated with long Tibetan horns, chanting and showers of golden petals (nasturtiums or marigolds).

The next day we went to a festival at Thangbimani Lhakhang, founded in the 15th century. Bearing in mind my experience in Thimpu, I lobbied the Geoex leader successfully for a packed lunch for those of us who wanted to stay for the whole thing. The hike from the buses -- down to a (solid) suspension bridge, up the other side and across fields -- was muddy, and it rained for most of the day. The dancing started late, but went ahead despite the weather. The women folk dancers who performed between the religious dances quit at one point, their hair dripping and kiras sodden, but then returned, accompanied by the master of ceremonies. The clowns were better than at Thimpu, interacting with the dancers and the audience, and the dancers were also good. The dances tell stories, not always apparent to the uninitiated -- we got crib sheets in Thimpu. We squelched back to the bus through liquid mud (my sneakers may never be the same), but it was absolutely worth it. (I spent the morning sharing a perch on a balcony with a couple of travelers who had been planning to go on to Bali -- they had just heard that Indonesia would kick out all foreigners if America attacked Afghanistan.)

The bad weather stayed with us as we headed back west, the clouds finally lifting as we reached Trongsa for the night. For some reason the group was livelier -- perhaps because the one TV was in the sitting/dining room -- and some of us played cards. We weren't allowed inside the impressive and extensive dzong at Trongsa -- Buddhists only -- but the next day we visited the one at Punakha that is the winter residence of the Central Monk Body and which houses the body of the unifier Shabdrung Ngawand Namgyal.

Punakha -- Dzong & Disco

The central temple in Punakha dzong was damaged recently by fire (a frequent occurrence in Bhutan), and is being totally rebuilt. We were able to see the work in progress: huge papier mache statues being painted, the walls being papered with paintings of Buddhist figures. The temple will be consecrated in 2004, after which tourists will be barred -- perhaps a good time for a return visit.

We were in Punakha for Saturday night, and Garab took three of us to Punakha's one and only disco. Aside from the three young women behind the bar, the only females were me, the woman who owned the hotel gift shop accompanying her niece, and a woman who worked for the Bhutanese foreign office who was passing through. The men seemed content to dance with each other. There were the same strobe lights and overloud music I had encountered in Kashgar, but the dance floor was much worse.

We finished with two nights in Thimpu, where we managed to get the whole group to Om's bar for a farewell drink. We did a fair amount of sight-seeing in Thimpu -- to me the best sights were the National Library, with 1,000-year old Buddhist texts and an impressive collection of modern books on religion; a folk museum in a 200-year old house, and the brand-new textile museum. I also managed to fit in a massage. Ashok warned me that it wouldn't be very good, and he was right. It's only available in the hotels, and it turns out that only tourists get massages. My masseuse was trained by someone from Delhi, which didn't augur very well for massages in India. It was the first massage on the trip that involved oil, but it was obvious that the masseuse didn't really understand what she was doing.

We also saw the national animal, the takin. Apparently, when the king decided that a zoo wasn't consonant with Buddhist philosophy, the takin were too tame (or too stupid) to be returned to the wild. An odd animal, a little like a small moose, it eats kneeling on its forelegs. (Really, I have a photo.)

I was glad to finally visit a nunnery, after all the monasteries. But there are only about a thousand nuns in the whole country, and maybe 10 or 12 nunneries. The nunnery was much less impressive than the monasteries we had seen, and the reincarnate associated with it is male. We were told that the nunneries are a refuge for the retarded, and for rape victims, and that widows sometimes decide to become nuns. Although property in Bhutan is inherited through the female line, it seems that Tibetan Buddhism has yet to encounter feminism.

South to India

October 9 I said good bye to the tour group, and Garab (the Bhutanese guide) and I headed for the Indian border in a Toyota Land Cruiser -- an ideal vehicle for the roads in Bhutan. During the morning the weather held, and the forested mountains with occasional villages and dzongs were beautiful, but after lunch the clouds closed in again. Lunch was rice, chicken curry, and dumplings with red chili sauce and was surprisingly good. As with part of the east-west highway, the last section of the road to Phuntsoling is subject to frequent landslides and often degenerated into mud. it isn't clear whether the mud produces road crews, or the road crews produce mud, but the two do seem to go together.

Phuntsoling is the Bhutanese half of a twin city. Once you walk through the decorated gate in the middle of the main street you are in Jaigaon, in India. Although Phuntsoling is quieter and more orderly than Jaigaon, it is not a typical Bhutanese town -- most buildings are of unadorned concrete, and there is enough traffic to make crossing the street a matter for some care.

The guide for my next stage, to Siliguri, met me at the hotel in Phuntsoling. I rejected his suggestion that we leave at 7:30 a.m. -- the drive was only four hours, I had arranged to visit the town temple with Garab the next morning, and I doubted that the Indian immigration office would be open then. Besides, I didn't want to get up that early! He had planned to pick up another client at Bagdogra airport at 1:00 p.m., but agreed to meet me at 9:30. I would soon be in India.

Bhutan -- Vignettes

The new temple under construction at Punakha

The three main statues, of papier mache, are huge. The central figure is of the present Buddha in the maya position (calling on the earth to attest to his enlightenment) with the right hand pointing to the ground and the left lying in his lap. The Bhutanese man, correctly dressed in gho and dark socks, who is working on the statue is standing high above the floor on the palm of the Buddha's slightly cupped left hand. It would make a perfect picture -- the Buddha upholding and protecting Bhutan -- but no photos are allowed in the temple.

The temple festival in Bumthang

This is a Buddhist festival in a Buddhist temple, and Buddhism is opposed to killing. A group of small boys is playing -- with toy pistols. At first I thought this must be the influence of television (allowed in last year), but Garab says that he and his friends also played with pistols.

The hospital in Jakar

On one side of the entrance hall is the western dispensary, with a few pill bottles. On the other side is the section for "indigenous medicine", well-stocked with local medicines. I know which side I would pick, but then I use chiropractors and naturopaths at home. Serious surgery requires evacuation to Thimpu, a form of triage...

A muddy stretch of roadway, with women breaking rocks

Bhutan's few roads are maintained and built largely by hand. Nepali and Indian women form most of the road crews, their younger children with them. Near the road works are shelters made of bamboo mats -- looking singularly uninviting in the rain. More permanent villages of concrete and corrugated iron look little better. (It turns out that the housing in the Bengal plains is not much different -- but it's a lot warmer there.)

Jakar

I am waiting for the one and only terminal in the one and only Internet Cafe to free up when I notice two old women and an old man, holding rosaries, circumambulating the building next door. Looking up, I see the band of red paint that signifies a religious building. Inside, the aged caretaker is spinning two massive prayer wheels. The scene is one of age, but the paintings on the walls of the temple are new, as new as the computer terminal.

Bhutan -- Background

Bhutan is the last remaining Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, small, sparsely populated, unique. Intensely Buddhist, its temples (lhakhangs) are likely to contain statues of Guru Rimpoche, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in 746 C.E., and the bearded Shabdrung Ngaway Namgyal who unified the country in the 17th century. The present Wangchuck dynasty was established by the British in the first years of the 20th century. The current king is married to four sisters -- their wedding photo is a common sight -- and is starting to devolve power to the population. He is, famously, more interested in Gross National Happiness than in Gross National Product.

Bhutan is over 70% forested, much of it original, and its forest cover is increasing. There are few roads: the first, from the capital, Thimpu, to the Indian border at Phuntsoling, was built in 1962, the east-west highway in 1984. The population, at last estimate 600,000, is growing fairly fast. The capital has grown to maybe 100,000 people.

Both men and women are required to wear the national dress. For men, this is the gho, which unwrapped looks like an overlarge, ground-length dressing gown. Properly wrapped, it is knee-length, with two pleats at the back, the overhang forming a waist high pocket, and the tight belt holding it in place hidden. Most men wear dark knee length socks and shoes or sneakers, although decorated felt boots can still be seen on special occasions. Seated, men tend to display a fair amount of leg. Women wear the kira, ground length, held at the shoulders with brooches, and doubled back across the front. Both sexes wear ceremonial scarves when entering monasteries or government offices (for men, the scarves indicate status). While it looks elegant, the gho is obviously warm, although it can be seen worn off one or both shoulders (shirts or T-shirts are worn underneath) and as we went further east we saw more men in shirts and pants.

Typical Bhutanese House A traditional Bhutanese house has three stories -- the first for animals, the second for people and the third, an open-sided attic, for storage and to keep the wooden shingles from rotting. It is now illegal to keep animals in the house and newer ones may have fewer stories. Walls, once made of beaten earth, are now of brick or concrete, but decorative woodwork and paintings are still much in evidence -- as are the flying phalluses at the four corners of the roofs. The phallus, a protective symbol, is often painted on the houses as well -- I have quite a collection of photographs.

To visit Bhutan you have to arrange a tour through a recognized tour company, and you have to spend at least $200 a day ($165 in the off season). You can be a tour group of one ($40 a day supplement), but you still have to have a fixed itinerary, a car, a driver and a guide. I opted to go with Geographic Expeditions -- I had first encountered Bhutan in their catalog (highly recommended for armchair travelers), so after five weeks on a budget Aussie tour I was spending two weeks with a high-end American outfit. I went from being one of the oldest in the tour group to one of the youngest. There was one other Englishwoman in the group, who had been living in the U.S. for three years (to my 20+), the rest were all Americans. The sixteen of us were the remnants of three tour groups -- more than half the original members canceled after Sept. 11 -- including my designated roommate. Apparently other nationalities weren't canceling, but Americans are 80% of the tourists to Bhutan. There were two Californian guys, Pat and Dave, in their early thirties, and since most nights everyone else went to bed, or at least to their rooms, at 9:00 p.m., I spent quite a lot of time with Pat and Dave, who were good companions. (We also formed the late breakfast contingent.)

One big difference on this tour was that all meals were included. And all meals were buffets. I don't like buffets, but all Bhutanese hotels serve them. This also meant that more time was consumed by meals -- we usually left for the day at 9:00 a.m., spent a couple of hours on lunch and then quit at 5:00 p.m. Also, the hotels were generally a fair walk out of town, leading to cabin fever.

I also went from one rather uninformative guide to two very knowledgeable ones: Ashok, the Indian Geo Ex leader, and Garab, the Bhutanese guide. Garab went out of his way to help alleviate cabin fever. Ashok took an interest in my plans for India, and even invited me to stay with his family in Delhi.

Sent from Darjeeling Oct. 14 about Bhutan Sept. 26 - Oct. 9