It's the middle of the night and cold!

We got up at 2.45am to go to the dzong for the special ceremony of raising the thangka. This is only done once a year at this festival as the thangka is very old and very sacred. We had hoped to see the procession bringing the thangka from the dzong but they started earlier than advertised and by the time we arrived the thangka was already being raised up the side of a building. It was a pretty impressive piece of tapestry three storeys high and almost as wide.

I managed to score a comfortable seat on some stone steps covered with cushions but our guide soon sent for us and we went down to the dzong to see the procession of the high llama. It was ages before it began and was really just a row of people hurrying to the arena area above and certainly not worth giving up my comfortable seat for.

We went back to the arena and took up position high up above the arena. The ceremony was in full swing with lines of people waiting to touch the thangka and get a blessing, the monks sitting in rows and the llama intoning with the occasional clash of symbols. Buddhist ceremonies are very long drawn out and not that interesting to the uninitiated but quite atmospheric. I vacillated between being really privileged to be part of this cultural experience and ‘what am I doing here bored in the cold at 4am in the morning’. We left at about 6.30am and the crowds were pouring in – maybe 20,000people would be there as it was the last day of the festival. Somewhere in the crowd was Leonardo di Caprio – probably sitting in the VIP section.

We went back to the hotel for a rest and breakfast before heading out to a ruined dzong, fortress. It burnt down in the 1950s when the butter lamps set the wood on fire. Bhutan is full of dzongs as they were the fortresses guarding key areas against attack. It wasn’t until 1907 that Bhutan became an hereditary monarchy and was unified under the first king. They are now onto their 5^th king who is a constitutional monarch but it was his father, the 4^th King, who was responsible for the national philosophy of Gross National Happiness. This is the guiding principal behind any laws – if it adds to the GNH then it is an okay law.

After lunch we went to the National Museum that had an impressive collection of thangkas but what amazed me the most was Bhutan’s stamps. They have only had stamps since the 1960s but have every world event covered together with anniversaries from around the world. Some of the stamps were 3D, some tactile with raised surfaces and the most recent are talking DVD stamps!

Our guide took us for a walk around his village. This meant a precipitous climb up a ridge and then a perilous descent into the village. All this with a description of a ‘flat’ walk. Memories of descriptions from our guide in Nepal came flooding back where ‘flat’ meant a steady uphill climb and ‘a little bit uphill’ meant a 2:1 climb. Perceptions are very different in the Himalayas. It was interesting seeing their houses and their method of construction. Some expensive houses are made of stone but most are of rammed earth with wooden windows. The latter are better in earthquakes. We went in our guide’s house where he was living with his 23 year old wife. He told us how expensive his lounge suite was and showed us the new kitchen equipment so there’s got to be some status attached to personal possessions. On the way home I started to feel seedy.

That night I was seriously ill and spent the whole night hanging over the toilet or sweating profusely in bed. Fortunately I had some anti-nausea medication with me (3 years out of date) but it seemed to work. By morning I was feeling half way normal although still delicate. I got to sit in the front seat of the car as we set off for Thimphu so I could make a hasty exit if required. Fortunately I am okay but not feeling like Bhutanese food at all. I stocked up on kit-kats and a packet of chips at the local shop. Not exactly nutritious but western and not curries.