Farmers from all round the area come to town to sell their produce, plus there are importers selling goods from India - exotic fruit, spices and so on. It was still raining, and the market entrance was a sea of mud, with planks and bits of cardboard to walk on. The market itself was under tarps, so a lot of the photos have a blue cast.
The last pic there is a betel nut seller - a lot of people chew betel nut, a mild stimulant. You can tell because it turns their teeth and gums red. The seller wraps the nut with the leaves and lime powder. The fruit and veg looked delicious, nice and fresh.
Back in the bus we set off for Paro. En route we stopped at a famous bridge, Tamchog Chakzam, designed by the engineer monk Thangtong Gyalpo, who built iron chain bridges all over Tibet and Bhutan in the 15th century. The Paro bridge was washed away in a storm in the 50s and rebuilt.
The little cave in the hill behind the bridge is the mine where the iron ore came from for the chains. The bridge is suspended on heavy iron chains that go through the buildings and are pinned at the back. The bridge is made of wire mesh and bamboo slats - springy but secure feeling, nice to walk on. And of course it's festooned with prayer flags.
Paro is a nice little town, just a few shops and a laid-back feeling. There were dogs everywhere of course.
The whole Paro valley is beautiful, with fields of rice along the river, and houses and farms and scattered in the hills.
We visited the Rinpung Dzong next, crossing a nice covered bridge to get there.
It was massive, and rather gorgeous. Again it was raining, again we couldn't wear any hats or open our umbrellas, but still it was wonderful. Some things remain a mystery... this sign for example:
The paintwork was great, sometimes gaudy, sometimes subtle.
And there were grand views.
Bhutan's national sport is archery, so we were thrilled to see a match in progress just near the dzong. It's interesting to see that the national obsession with doing everything traditional style doesn't include the archers' equipment - they all had the very latest composite bows.
Here's a little film of the archers dancing.
The women, meanwhile, were singing too - to put off the men of the opposing team. Because it was raining they were in the tea tent.
We had lunch at a cafe in Paro, where some of the others tried the local beer, which wasn't a big hit. It was a white beer, yeasty and clouded. Downstairs from the cafe was a weaving studio and we popped in for a look. The women were working on the most amazing pieces, very intricate and embellished with extra threads woven in with a shuttle. I don't know what the technique is called, but the resulting cloth was stunning. And was selling for a stunning price too! Worth it, but well out of my league - we're talking £400 for a small tablecloth. Just looking, thanks!
So... time for another dzong. This was Drukyeldzong, which burnt down in the 1950s and hasn't been rebuilt... yet. It's possible it will be in the future, but at the moment it's just earth and stone walls and a few charred beams. Very popular venue for picnics, apparently.
The buildings around the dzong had some spectacular decorations:
And we passed a puppy with the comfiest bed in Bhutan:
Right! What next? Oh, I know, another monastery! This one was rather special, Kyichu Lhakhang, dating from the 17th century.
It was small, simple, lovely. The courtyard was especially nice, with a little orange tree.
But just as we were about to go into the temple, I got a nose-bleed. Amazing! I've never had one before and it came from nowhere (well, from my nose, obviously, but you know what I mean). Duncan is an anaesthetist and he advised pinching my nostrils for five minutes, while Judy gave me a bundle of tissues. Then they all went into the temple while I stood around outside, bleeding and pinching. It stopped just as they came back out. Apparently the temple is REALLY nice.
Back in the bus, Tshering said, "And now we will go to .... another dzong!" He was only kidding - we were going to the hotel, the Olathang. Very nice place, built in the 1970s. It has a stuffed yak, the only yak I saw (apart from the goulash). And the beds, while not exactly soft, certainly weren't as hard as the Druk's. Plus it had the best shower of the whole trip, so strong it nearly blasted me off my feet. The rooms had a hasp and padlock rather than a conventional lock, and were painted in traditional style - mine was red with blue beams and mandalas on the ceiling.
There was a bizarre surprise for us at the Olathang. There was a fascinating couple staying at the Druk in Thimpu, an elderly woman who talked and talked and talked and a slightly younger looking man who listened and listened and listened. Those with better hearing than me reported that she was telling her life history, with a lot of detail about her childhood and her mother. She apparently said she was 90, which she really didn't look. The man looked as if he would die of boredom at any moment. We had fun coming up with theories of who they were - we plunked for him being her therapist.
So who should be there at the Olathang when we walked in!!! And at dinner they were exactly the same: her talking and talking and talking.
That night I looked up my bumf on altitude sickness to see if nose-bleeds were a symptom, but they weren't. I noticed one odd symptom I hadn't heard of before: you can wake up in the night unable to breathe. But relax - it's just your body's auto systems adjusting to the lower oxygen content. And lo and behold, that night I woke up unable to breathe! If I hadn't read the bumf I would have panicked, it was a horrible feeling. But because I had I just relaxed and started breathing normally and went back to sleep.
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