The climb to the Tiger's Nest Monastery

We are back at the Kichu Resort that I blame for my bout of nausea at the start of my trip so I am being careful with the food. Tiffany and I are back sharing but we have a more luxurious room with a little sitting room attached to the bedroom complete with a TV and tea making facilities. This time the hotel is nowhere near full so we were served dinner on our tables instead of a buffet. It didn’t alter the food as it was still 4 vegetable dishes with rice and an inedible meat dish. This time the latter was chilli chicken. It is such a shame that they just dice the chicken up with all the bones as the dish was quite tasty.

I slept fitfully as I was worried about the climb up to the Tiger’s Nest monastery perched high up in the mountains and only accessible by a 2 hour trek up a steep path. When morning dawned it was raining, which would make the walk quite hazardous. I was very worried as we set out in the van and seriously considered chickening out altogether but I had my hiking boots, poles and rucksack so it seemed a waste not to utilise them. When we arrived at the base of the mountain I put a brave face on it and dutifully set out with the rest. After 2 minutes I was at the back of the pack and that’s where I stayed. Mindful of my Senior Citizen status (or was I using that as an excuse to mask my lack of fitness?) I knew my only hope of getting up the hill was to take things slowly. Even still it was a fearful climb up a winding, rock-strewn, muddy and very steep path. I struggled valiantly ever up and after an hour I caught up to the others enjoying a cup of tea at the cafe with a good view of the monastery.  

As we sat and drank our tea the clouds moved in and obscured the monastery from view, the temperature dropped and the rain intensified. I was only half way and there was a stiff climb up to the second observation point followed by a steep descent down a gully and the final climb up steps to the monastery. My desire to see inside the monastery was not very strong. I’d done my bit getting this far, I thought. How much nicer it would be to sit in the warm cafe and read my book for a bit and then have a leisurely descent to the valley and persuade the driver to take me back to the hotel for a hot shower and a rest. What did I want to do? Slog uphill in the rain to view a miserable monastery or head down to a shower and peaceful afternoon? The decision wasn’t very difficult and I didn’t feel as if I had missed out so my group and I parted company.

About 4 hours later Tiffany arrived back at the hotel and headed for the bathroom. She had succumbed to the dreaded Bhutanese lurgy, which made 75% of our group laid low by some bug in this country.

I am now packing my bags and getting ready to leave Bhutan. I have my second Druk Air flight tomorrow back to Kathmandu. The plane leaves at 7.20am so it is going to be an early morning with no breakfast. Hopefully the weather will be good and we’ll be able to leave on time. So that is my Bhutanese adventure over. What an interesting country!

Bhutan's Queen Aunt

Snow at the top of the pass

We endured another long drive today back along the narrow road from Bumthang to Wangdue swaying side to side around the constant curves. A short way out of Bumthang we stopped at a handicraft shop that sold mainly woollen textiles. In the courtyard we met a tourist carrying off her booty, a carpet. I asked how much she had paid and discovered it had cost her $350. Things are not cheap here. Inside I had a look around and finally my gaze alighted on a long runner suitable for a large dining table. It was handwoven silk and was absolutely gorgeous. I fell in love with it and began to work out how much I was prepared to pay for it. I hoped I could get it for $20-30 and decided that my top price was $50. I thought that maybe I was a bit optimistic but nothing prepared me for the owner’s asking price: $800! I quickly fell out of love with it and went and sulked in the van.

 Nothing much happened for the first 3 hours after that and we stopped at a very nice hotel near Trongsa for lunch. I learnt that ‘sa’ is Tibetan for ‘place’ and Trongsa means ‘new place’. Lhasa, in Tibet, means ‘God’s place’. It was gorgeous weather and we sat outside with hats and sunglasses on to avoid being burnt by the strong Himalayan sun and consumed a very pleasant meal. There was the usual rice and potatoes, mixed veg, a plate of spinach and an edible chicken curry. The food is looking up and maybe my early dislike of it is because I became sick early on.

We set off again on our journey and had a moment of excitement when a police car with red flashing light appeared. I expected it to be followed by some wide load vehicle but instead it heralded the arrival of a royal motorcade. Five vehicles followed carrying bodyguards, servants and the Queen Aunt. I was sitting on the road side and I could see the royal personage clearly in the front seat; eyes closed, head lolled back, mouth slightly open and fast asleep. The Queen Aunt was the favourite wife of Bhutan’s retired 4^th King. The 4^th King married 4 wives, all sisters, and the current 5^th King is the son of wife number 3. Apparently the 4^th King was told by an astrologer that he had to marry a daughter of his enemy’s family. The 2^nd king had killed someone in this family and it had brought bad luck to the royal family and both the 2^nd and 3^rd kings had died young. Unless the 4^th king made a propitious marriage then he would die young too. The 4^th king had a girlfriend at the time whom he wanted to marry but he had to give her up and marry the 4 sisters instead. He palmed his girlfriend off on to the Prime Minister and given Bhutan’s scant regard for marriage formalities probably continued to have his bit on the side.

As we continued our journey along the road, the weather started to change and we could hear thunder and saw lightning breaking across the mountains. Soon the rain started and the road turned to mud and became slippery. The temperature dropped dramatically as we climbed up to a pass and it started to hail. We closed all the windows and put the heater on, which made the windscreen fog up. Our poor driver was steering round the bends with one hand whilst frantically wiping the mist off the inside of the window with the other. This was quite a feat given the nature of the road and the steepness of the drop if he oversteered or missed a turn. You would think things couldn’t get any worse but they did. We were headed up and over a high pass at 3400m and as we climbed higher the hail turned to sleet then to wet snow and finally into snow proper that was settling on the road. At the top of the pass it was snowing pretty heavily. It was with a great deal of trepidation that our driver started down the hill on the other side. We crawled down the road trying to stay as close to the inside as possible. This was one road you did not want to slip and slide on, as even a tiny skid would see you barrelling over the edge of a precipice and falling 3kms down into the valley below – yes, it was that deep and with nothing except trees to break your fall to the bottom. Fortunately the road quickly lost altitude and the snow melted into rain once more and we were safe.

We only had one other little drama on the way down when we were stopped by 2 well dressed men in ghos. They told us that their vehicle had broken an axle and they wanted to hitch a lift for themselves and their stranded tourist passenger. We were happy to oblige and the lady we had met at the handicraft shop near Bumthang came aboard complete with her carpet. We were able to give her and her guide a lift to our hotel where a fresh car was waiting to transport her to her hotel. The poor driver was left with the stranded vehicle and the difficult task of mending a broken axle.

We arrived back at the vegetarian hotel and were quickly installed in our rooms. Once again Tiffany and I were given separate rooms so we didn’t have to share. This time I had a heater in my room so I didn’t have to use my sleeping bag. Having had a good breakfast and lunch, I didn’t want much dinner, which was fortunate as the food wasn’t brilliant here.

Life in Rural Bhutan

Rural Bhutan

We had a 2 hour drive further East along some more windy, precipitous roads. It really makes you feel as if you are on a horizontal roller coaster as you sway incessantly from side to side. Bhutan is certainly no place to be if you suffer from motion sickness. Oh poo! The power has just gone off! I was safely plugged in charging my computer but now I can’t see the keyboard so have to move to the window. That means the Internet will have gone off as well. The trials of technology in a Third world country!

We were heading to the village of Ura which required us to go over another 3,000m+ pass bedecked with prayer flags. The village was nestled in a valley and looked quite prosperous with fairly newly built substantial 2-storey houses together with a loft for hay for the animals. Each backyard was well stacked with firewood but as we got out of the van a chill wind blew making it the coldest place we had encountered so far. We had a look around the local temple and our guide pointed out a newly built monastery on the opposite hill. Whoever planned that wasn’t thinking straight; surely a monastery should be built next to the temple?

We could only look at the outside of the temple so we headed off to walk through the back streets of the town. We followed a narrow stone path between the houses and gently swaying in the breeze from the eaves of every dwelling was a pink wooden phallus. A number of dogs barked protectively as we walked past but we didn’t worry as the dogs here are all pretty placid and friendly.  Apart from the 3 old women doing a religious circuit of the temple we didn’t see anyone else. The only people left in the countryside in many places are the old people because the young people leave and go to work in the towns of Paro or Thimphu. The Constitution promises equal economic investment in all parts of the country but inevitably the rural areas suffer a brain drain. So many people in Bhutan are becoming well educated and this is only going to get worse because there is a big emphasis on education and all the children are encouraged to go to school and stay in school. There is free education up until year 10 and then children can apply for scholarships to continue their studies.

We left the town and looked for a place to pull over on the windy road and have our hot picnic lunch. Just because there was no restaurant available we were not going to forgo our usual meal. We would have been quite happy with a cheese roll and an apple but Sring, our driver, produced a large, colourful plastic bag from the van and proceeded to unpack our lunch. He had a big bowl of rice and 4 tin containers stacked in a heat preserving container each with our usual favourites of vegies and curry. In this part of Bhutan we have discovered that the potatoes are really nice and we had a plate of wedgies. There was a meat curry that for the first time was actually edible. The meat was tender and didn’t have great lumps of fat and gristle attached so we tucked in with gusto.

Once we’d finished Pruba threw the remains to the waiting crows and we set off for the burning lake so called because of some legend about a butter lamp remaining lit when it fell into the water. We only had a short walk from the parking place down to the river bank, which was strewn with payer flags and had a small temple nearby. We were back at the hotel by 3.30pm in time for more cheese and biscuits before dinner. I had the hotel guy come and get my fire going in the room for me. It seems to get through such a load of wood and I’m forever stoking it up. The bed is right next to the stove and it’s almost too hot to sleep there with the fire roaring but there’s no way to turn the fire down. Once the wood burns out the room rapidly cools.

A dog's first ball!

Valley of the black-necked cranes

Monks at the Trongsa dzong

I had a difficult night largely because of a rock hard pillow. Within minutes my ear was hurting because it was so hard and I quickly gave up on it. That left me with no pillow so I had to make do with my jumper rolled up. Today I’ve nicked the cushion out of our vehicle so I’ll have that tonight. As predicted the fire quickly went out under my inactive guardianship but I was only just starting to feel the cold when the alarm went. Not that I had had a great deal of sleep because I was woken about 5am by the Chinese contingent, who had been so noisy at dinner last night, hauling their bags like steamrollers down the corridor.

We were served breakfast this morning instead of getting a buffet breakfast and were just given eggs and toast. At most of the other places we have had fruit juice, cereal and a cooked breakfast and toast. It is the only meal of the day that I look forward to and my stomach finds acceptable so it was rather disappointing to have such a sparse offering.

Today we were sightseeing in and around Bumthang, which is a small town in central Bhutan with about 34,000 inhabitants. The main street looks like a set from a Wild West film with wooden buildings housing shops and bars. In the afternoon, we hit the town in search of crackers, to go with our Swiss cheese, stamps, water, bananas and a ball for the dog. Our hotel has 2 dogs and one goes around with a stone in its mouth and loves you to throw the stone so he can retrieve it. We felt sorry for him and so scoured the town for a ball. Ideally we wanted a tennis ball but couldn’t find any balls at all until finally we found a couple of squishy rubber balls. He will probably demolish them rapidly but at least he will have had the chance to know the pleasure of having his own ball.

In the morning we visited 2 temples. The first one was very old and the paintings were in quite poor repair. The second one was well maintained but in one of the temples there was a Buddha with a very aggressive face. It immediately freaked me out and I had this overwhelming feeling of being in the presence of some terrible evil. Normally I don’t get these type of feelings at all and it’s usually my daughters who are psychically/spiritually sensitive but the feeling was so strong that I had to leave immediately and get far away from the temple and the buildings. Fortunately I had my cross around my neck and I held it in front of me to ward off the potential evil much as you see vampire fighters do and I felt protected but it was really unsettling.

After the nasty evil temple we went to the dzong but didn’t stay that long because we’d reached the stage of once-you’ve-seen-one-dzong.... We returned to the hotel for lunch for our usual meal but today they managed to destroy the potatoes for me by adding ginger to them. I hate ginger but that was one less dish I had to try and force down.

In the afternoon we visited a building that used to be the 2^nd king’s palace and has now been taken over by monks. It would have looked beautiful in its heyday with a lot of rich lapis lazuli blue in the decorations but sadly it hadn’t been cared for or renovated and the wood was decaying and the painting fading. Such a shame!

From there we went to the Swiss cheese place where we were able to buy some emmentahl and some soft cheese – hence the search for crackers in the town. Once we returned to the hotel we were able to have cheese and biscuits with our tea and feel half way normal. We also gave the dog his ball, although at times the opportunity for some cheese won out over the ball. He proved remarkably able at running after it and catching it and we bought him 2 so he can be given the second one once he’s destroyed the first.

After dinner our guide is talking about taking us to a dance place to see the ‘real’ Bhutan. He keeps talking about men giving girls 100 rupees to dance for them and with them so I’m not sure that this is the type of place that I will be comfortable going to. I suspect that I will be the party pooper and decline to go. Relationships in Bhutan don’t seem to be formalised like they are in the west. Our guide is on his second ‘marriage’ but from what we can gather he doesn’t seem to have been through any sort of ceremony with either of his wives and certainly hasn’t divorced the first before he married the second. There seems to be a certain laxness here when it comes to sexual relations. Perhaps this is a reflection of the phallus culture??

Endangered black-necked cranes

Black necked crane model

Bhutan's main road across the passes

We had an early start today as there was a big journey ahead of us. We were heading to Bumthang in central Bhutan along the only road available; a thin, windy rapidly deteriorating road clinging to the precipitous hillside. We had 180 kms to go and it was going to take 6-7 hours. That works out at an average speed of 25-30 kph and believe me you would not want the driver to be going any faster!

We left Wangdue and started to climb through beautiful forest with rhododendrons in bloom by the roadside and an occasional full flower magnolia tree. It was a beautiful drive if you forgot the constant bends, the hazardous drop to a valley floor too far below to see and the worry of on-coming traffic. After an hour our journey came to a sudden stop at a road block. Work was being done and the road was only open at certain times. We had to wait for three-quarters of an hour for the road to open and then negotiate our way over a rugged non-bitumen surface and dodge around the maintenance equipment. We were soon on our way to the Gangtey Gompa Valley where we hoped to see the endangered black-necked cranes.

After climbing high up into a 3500m pass we descended into the valley and our guide announced that, having been in contact with the Information office in the valley, most of the cranes had already migrated to their summer breeding area in Tibet but there was one crane left behind. How are we going to find one crane in a whole valley, I thought?

The cranes are actually big birds more like a cross between a flamingo and an emu. They have long legs and a delicate neck like flamingoes but quite a stocky body like an emu. They are also big at 1.5m tall.  We made our way to the Information Office where we had to check in and low and behold they had their telescopes already sighted on the poor, lone left-behind crane! We were able to watch him picking his way across the valley floor and it was an amazing sight. As well as a black neck he also had a black butt while the rest of him (or her) was white. Little is still known about the birds and their migratory patterns haven’t been fully worked out yet. There’s only about 5,000 or so left so they need protecting. When the cranes are in residence the villagers are not allowed to make loud noises or fish in the river. This is a good start to protecting their winter quarters but for them to survive their summer nesting habitat needs to be protected in Tibet and that’s down to the Chinese government. Quite what this crane was doing all on his lonesome nobody could say. I suspected that he was on a long leash tethered within telescope distance of the Information Office but nobody would admit to it. He was certainly useful from a tourist perspective otherwise few would get to see this amazing bird.

We drove a short way out of the valley to the Gantey Gompa monastery, a Buddhist complex with monks quarters, school and meditation centre. It was a lovely monastery and we were able to wander around freely. In one of the temple rooms there was a special ceremony going on to scare away evil spirits. The astrologers had deemed this a suitable day to perform the ceremony and about 10 monks were sitting around intoning from their texts and occasionally making a fearful racket with their traditional instruments. There were 2 long trumpets, 2 clarinet-type instruments, 2 huge drums, a conch shell and umpteen percussion instruments. In the midst of everything was a young incarnate llama sitting on a foam cushion because he had a higher status than the other monks.

We climbed up out of the valley and back on to the ‘main’ road again. We had to make our lunch stop by 1pm or there would be no food for us. Not that I was particularly bothered. Food has not been a highlight of this trip. We basically eat exactly the same meal for lunch and dinner everyday. It is always a buffet and the food is the same with little variety. I crave fish fingers or lasagne but no – it’s rice and vegetables again with inedible meat.

We drove for another couple of hours over 2 more passes to the town of Trongsa which boasts a magnificent dzong that used to control the whole of eastern Bhutan. It looked impregnable sitting high up above the valley and was a huge edifice. Once again it was used as part admin area and part monastery and we were able to tour around it. An added bonus here was all the macaque monkeys roaming around outside. Most of them didn’t make it into the dzong as the monks had put lots of thin branches at the top of anything capable of being scaled by a monkey to impede their access.

From Trongsa we still had another 3 hours and another blocked road before we reached Bumthang. For the last half hour we were driving in the dark and given the nature of the road that was a worry. The only saving grace was that the cover of night blocked out the precipitous hills so you were not constantly reminded of imminent death if you missed a turn. Fortunately our driver did a magnificent job and managed to deliver us safely to the last hotel we will stay in in Bhutan. (On the way back we stay in the same hotels).

For a change Tiffany and I have a room each, which will be pleasant. It is quite cold here and we have an old-fashioned wood burning stove in the room. I had someone come and start mine for me but I have the task of keeping it alight all night – fat chance! I am going to use my sleeping bag again as the room is bound to cool as the night progresses.