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Published: November 14th 2012
Mount Everest
The highest point on earth...just outside our plane window.Day 1
So we headed to Bhutan – a small land locked country sandwiched between Tibet and India. Our flight from Kathmandu to Paro was incredible including a view of the Himalayas out of the left side of the plane the whole way. This included a fantastic view of Mount Everest and many of the other tallest mountains in the world.
Bhutan had resisted modernization for a long time and was the last country on the planet to get TV (in 1999!). They believe in low volume high quality (and expensive) tourism. What this means is that you pay a standardized daily rate per person and for this you get your hotels, 3 meals a day, a guide and a driver. In 2006 the King just announced one day that the country would become a democracy. The people were not initially very happy about this, but after education and getting input from the whole country on the constitution, most people have adapted to democracy! The King also believed that GDP is not the best measure of a country's success and introduced Gross National Happiness (GNH). This sounds funny, but actually is a complicated metric that includes economic development, preservation
The Tigers nest Monastery
1000m up...built into a cliff over 500 years ago. of culture heritage, good government and conservation of the environment. People often erroneously call the Bhutanese the happiness people in the world. They are not the most happy…just the only place to try and measure it!
The houses in Bhutan all have to be built in the same architectural style as they always have been. This gives a very old world feel to the place. The government also has mandated that people must wear the national dress during the day. This makes for a “quaint” feel all around. The men’s dress is very reminiscent of old style kilts with patterned woolen’s pulled around them, and synched in with a belt. They even have (kilt?) socks. The Bhutanese only use half the material of kilts though (4.5 yards versus 9 for kilts).
Our driver and guide met us at the airport and we headed off. We drove through a number of typical little villages with countless kids heading home from school. Kids in school uniforms always look more well-dressed than kids in regular clothes, but Bhutan tops all with the kids all wearing uniforms in the form of their traditional clothing. We went to a ruined dzong (fortress) and
Tigers Nest Monastery
Its really high. Building this took a bit of effort! marveled at the thousands of prayer flags. In addition to the typical Tibetan prayer flags Bhutan is filled with vertical prayer flags. We ate dinner that night at our hotel. That’s the typical approach in Bhutan – tourists eat in their hotels, mostly buffets. To this point I’d say they’ve been hit and miss. Some of the food is really good. Some…isn’t. Since travel in Bhutan is not inexpensive, many of the hotels are quite fancy. Our room in this hotel wasn’t just a room, it was a two story suite. We had a full living room and bathroom on the main floor. Then the upstairs was a huge bedroom and one of the biggest bathrooms I’ve ever seen in a hotel. The shower even had a phone and a radio in it. Unfortunately I didn’t know how to make an international call so none of you got a phone call from my shower. But don’t get the wrong impression about the type of luxury, this hotel doesn’t have central heating, it’s heated by electric heaters in the room.
Day 2
We got up bright and early to head to Bhutan’s most famous sight, the Tigers
Nest Monastery. The hike up involves about 800m of elevation gain. About half way up you are rewarded with a stop for tea and biscuits. That’s how hiking should be. After climbing up you then have to descend approximately 300 steps and then ascend 300 steps to get to the actual buildings. It is an impressive feat of architecture, engineering and religiously driven perseverance that anyone would choose to put a building here. It was built in 1692. I have a hard time remembering the details of most of the stories here but essentially Guru Rinpoche flew here on the back of a tiger (as one does), subdued some demons (all in a days work), meditated to gain some more strength, and subdued some more demons. Seems like the kind of thing that would inspire construction of a monument of some sort doesn’t it. The average age of traveller in Bhutan appears to be approximately 60 so Shelagh and I were not the slowest people to hike to the Tigers Nest.
After hiking down we headed to Paro for lunch (buffet). We had our first taste of Edamatse, the national dish of Bhutan. It is made from chilies and
Drying Chili's
These were everywhere...nobody Western can eat standard Bhutanese food as the chilli content is too high. cheese. Yes, correct, chilies are the vegetable in the dish, not the spice. It is hot. The Bhutanese eat this every day and put chilies in practically everything. They tone things down for the tourist buffets of course.
Following lunch we drove to Thimpu. We asked to go to the post office – all the cool kids want to visit the post office when they are travelling. But here’s the thing, well, the two things about the post office in Bhutan. Thing 1 – you can get stamps made with your own picture on them. They will take your picture or take pictures off an sd card you give them. I totally do not understand why, however, a few lucky readers should expect an extra special postcard soon. Thing 2 – Bhutan is famous for its stamps. I surmise that there are two reasons for this. The first is that its one of the smallest, most isolated, least advanced countries on earth so the average person will not receive a large number of items from Bhutan in the mail over the course of their lifetime, thusly making the stamps rare. The second is that for some reason Bhutan Post
View of Northern Bhutan
View from top of the pass towards Northern Bhutan including the worlds highest unclimbed mountain. chooses to commemorate things in stamps. Yes, I know all countries do that, but typically they would commemorate things that at least had something to do with their own country – flowers, birds, royalty and the like – not Bhutan. You can buy series of stamps featuring the Apollo space missions, American Presidents, the Winter Olympics (including Calgary), and more.
We went to our hotel (another huge suite) and gave our driver and guide the okay to leave us alone. We then hopped in a taxi and headed to downtown Thimpu. Technically, we are not really supposed to do this, your guide should remain with you at all times. We are wild and crazy, exploring on our own in probably the safest place on the planet. We had a beer in a local favorite bar. Dinner back at the hotel was, uninspiring however the free fast wi-fi (or “wiphy” as its pronounced here) made up for that.
Day 3
Today we did everything one could ever want to do in Thimpu. Shelagh and I travel at the speed of light compared to other tour groups in Bhutan. First of all, there are only 2 of
New stamps
Recognize these people? Not sure who is the queen. us, not 15. We are slightly more spry than some of the visitors and we are less likely to linger over a textiles exhibit than some others. As a result we manage to pack more into a day than our guide knows what to do with. We went to a Chorten (religious building) built in memory of the third king. I’m not going to lie, we’ve now seen a lot of stupas, dzongs, monasteries, temples, etc and they are all starting to blur together. Then we went to the folk heritage museum which was really interesting. It’s an old house of a wealthy family from the 1700’s. It’s filled with traditional household items – like Boomtown, Bhutanese style for those of you from Saskatoon. We visited the National Institute of Traditional Medicine. They have exhibits of all the plants and minerals collected around Nepal. Yak herders in the high alpine areas make a very good living collecting these and selling them. One highlight is a worm that has fungus growing on it. It is a Himalayan version of Viagra and sells for thousands of dollars per kg in China. Bhutan has a good western medical system too but many people
Vertical prayer flags
Unlike in Nepal there were both horizontal and vertical prayer flags. The vertical prayer flags are for remembrance and the horizontal for good luck. opt to use the traditional methods. I have had a very bad cold for about a week now and was very very tempted to ask the woman who is a professor at the school to hook me up with a cure.
Bhutan places a high priority on preserving its culture including its traditional arts. There is a technical school where post-secondary students go to learn woodcarving, painting, sculpture, silversmithing or embroidery. The students are in class working away and you can wander through looking at their work. Highly annoying for the students I suspect but quite fascinating for visitors. There was definitely a difference in the quality of work students are producing but some of it was amazing and intricate. We had a chance to check out a game preserve that was built to protect the Takim, Bhutan’s national animal. Legend has it that the animal is a goats head on a cows body. It looks a lot like a caribou without the big antlers. We became spectators in an archery tournament and the participants hammed it up for the crowd. They taunt and jeer their opponent when he’s trying to shoot and then they do a crazy dance
Monk playing
Some of the monks start from a really young age. Despite being monks they still are boys! when their team hits the target. Since it was Saturday we went to the weekend market and wandered around. The quality and variety of vegetables was impressive. We bought some dried chilies and some rice and we think that we’ll be able to bring them back into Canada. We also bought some oranges (I was jonesing for some fruit) but the first 4 or so we peeled had small creatures living in them. That was shelaghs first experience of a worm in an orange, or more accurately, a worm from an orange in her mouth. We also had a chance to see the only (or one of the only my memory fails me) nunneries in Bhutan. The nuns were in the middle of a session and were chanting and playing a variety of instruments including a smaller version of the Tibetan horn you always see in movies etc. We looked at the parliament and the kings palace (from a distance).
That night we really did not want to eat another buffet. So far every meal had been variations on a theme. There is always rice (red or white), there is always boiled spinach, often boiled cabbage, often potato or
WTF?
Warding off evil spirits... pumpkin curry, usually a chicken something, and edamatse. Dessert is usually a banana. Often several of the dishes are very good but usually the whole experience is mediocre. We asked our guide to take us to a place in town for dinner tonight. We had pizza (not because we are necessarily looking for western food, we really aren’t, but more because we are eating mainly vegetarian and pizza is an easy way to do that). They even had a cheese-less pizza on the menu for me.
As we returned from dinner our guide told us that the wife of the man who runs the tour company we are travelling with wanted to meet us. We thought that was weird. It turns out that the couple who own the company and another set of guests were having drinks at the hotel. We joined them and had a very fun evening. I say “set of guests” because the word I would normally use when a man and woman of about the same age are travelling together and sharing a room would be couple. However, when those people did not know each other a week ago and by some mistake, either by
Punachka Dzong
Punachka Dzong - the largest and most important fortress/ temple in the country. the portugese travel agent they used, or the Bhutanese company or someone somewhere in the process, they were put together on a trip and in the same room, they are not a couple. Luckily they seemed to be getting along well and were making the most of what was a strange situation. The owner of the company is a big, loud, hard drinking man who has built a great business in Bhutan. He was full of stories, jokes, bravado and keen to buy “Druk 11000 – The Super Strong Beer” for his guests. At one point he started a story about people from some country and when someone suggested that might be racist, he clarified that there is a "difference between racism and astute observation". Right. The portugese people and their guides were headed out clubbing because it was her birthday. We hummed and hawed about joining them but because we are old and lame at heart we declined and went to bed.
Day 4
Our guide and driver picked us up bright and early (every day has been bright an early this whole trip) because we had a big drive ahead of us. We had
Black necked cranes
Only 500 of these in the world. a 70 km drive to get to Punachka. That’s right, 70 km. I’ve seen some bad roads in my day and none will ever be as bad as a road up to the national park in Rwanda, but in terms of narrow, slow, winding, potholed main roads, Bhutan takes the cake. Our vehicle is a Hyundai Santa Fe which has the feature that once you hit 30 km/hr the doors automatically lock. On this drive, it was at least half an hour before the doors locked. It took us 3 hours to go 70 km. Roads were not previously a priority of the government but they are now starting to put emphasis on it and are paving and widening a number of roads. In some places the road is in bad shape, but mostly its just that is so narrow and winding that you can’t go fast and you can’t pass. I don’t mean pass a car that’s going too slow, I mean pass a car that’s coming the other direction.
We stopped for lunch at a nice little restaurant near a fertility temple. In Bhutan, the people paint protective symbols on their homes. It looks very nice with
Black necked cranes
They hang out in the marshland. large paintings of lions, dragons and of course, penises. The Bhutanese believe that the penis is a powerful protective symbol…oh I think we’ve all heard that line before. This little area seems to have realized that tourists really enjoy this whole penis thing and so all the houses have penis paintings, the restaurant had giant penis statues in it, you can buy key chains with penises on them, the whole bit. The fertility temple itself was interesting and there was a couple there with their one month old twins giving thanks because the temple had done its job for them.
We spent an hour or so at the Punachka Dzong – it is the biggest and most interesting one we have visited. The architecture and artwork (woodcarving, painting, statues, etc) are amazing. This one is now used half for government offices and half as a religious facility.
Our hotel tonight was the first one that left something to be desired. They were all out of the “good rooms” and so we had a very small, not very nice room. No big deal, we’ve stayed in places like that in other countries. We’ve just never paid so much for
Archery
Bhutan's national sport. The target is a long way away. a bad room. We went to the restaurant early and had a drink. We ended up chatting with some 60-ish British ladies – it was like having a drink with Shelagh’s mom and the ladies from the bowling club. I tried my luck on some “Snow Lion” gin. Success.
Day 5
Today we embarked on another long drive. On this one we encountered road work so it took about 4 hours to go 55 km. First stop…another Dzong. Then lunch which was not a buffet but contained all the same dishes as the buffets. Then we had a chance to participate in my favorite activity…bird watching. I’m not sure how this happens that on every trip I go to great lengths and great expense to go see birds. For those of you that haven’t read my travel blog before or don’t know me that well, I don’t like birds. I actively dislike the pigeon/seagull variety and am at least indifferent to all other types. This time, the marvelous creatures are the black-necked crane. There are only about 800 in the world. About 500 of them summer in Tibet and then winter in Bhutan. We went to
Old man in temple
Complete with prayer beads and prayer wheel. he lives next door and visits the temple every day. the area that about 300 of the birds migrate to. And thank god, we saw them! They look like, well, cranes. Bhutan is working hard to conserve these animals. We went on a nature walk, which was nice because there has been a lot of sitting in a car lately. Now we are at our hotel for the night. It’s a beautiful place. Our room is huge and has a massive picture window with a view of the whole valley. Tonight for supper… I predict a buffet!
Day 6
Our room was heated by a small wood burning stove that we had to keep going before we went to bed. With a hot water bottle as well this worked remarkably well and the room was still warm in the morning. We woke up this morning to a white blanket on the ground that we initially thought was snow, but it was just frost and quickly burnt off in the sunshine. The view was beautiful. Today was the really long drive back to Thimpu. This is a ridiculously short distance that took us 6 hours.
The exciting part of the day was when the
Red rice
Tastes good. country's chief abbot passed us on the road. In the winter he moves from Thimpu to Punachka to escape the cold. His entourage was large with police, buses of monks, golden Buddha’s all passing us on the single lane highway! Today is both dry day and pedestrian day. Local bars are closed for the day – which no one really bothers about. More of an issue for the locals is pedestrian day. Every Tuesday you can’t drive downtown. There are masses of parked cars and trucks sitting out side the town. The funny thing is that taxis are allowed so taxi drivers come from all over Bhutan to carry the pedestrians to where they want to go. This seems like one of those good ideas in principal, but not so good in practice. Its only been in place for 4 months and the locals don’t think it will last.
Day 7
We headed back to Paro. We first went to the National Museum which has some cool objects in it. After we went to our last Dzong. Its fair to say that we may be a little “Dzonged” out now! This one was much more like
a castle as its built on the hill with a moat surrounding it. We encountered monk’s allegedly learning. It looked exactly like a high school math class with some kids bugging their friends, others trying to tattoo themselves with a pen and some sleeping. We found one very young monk squirting water everywhere. We then walked into town for lunch.
After lunch we went to the oldest Temple in Bhutan (around 7
th century). Here the local villagers hang out at the temple and our guide gave them some photos that a previous group of tourists had taken and then sent back. The villagers were pretty happy with this. The monk music left a little to be desired. It was a mix of both flat and sharp. The big horn was pretty good and sounded a lot like a tuba. Heather will tell you I am culturally biased, but don’t expect a hit CD from the Bhutan monks anytime soon. We then tried some archery. Our driver had an archery bow with him so we tried to pull it. There was no way on earth either Heather or I could pull the string back . Its crazy how much strength
Rural Bhutan
Steep hillsides and terracing everywhere. these compound bows take to pull – but I guess that’s why they can fire arrows 150m! After some shopping we headed to our hotel.
Tomorrow we fly back to Kathmandu and then Friday we start the trek home (going the opposite direction on the way back, meaning that we circumvent the globe on this trip!). Its been a fun trip.
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Richard
non-member comment
What a great trip