Day 10: Thimpu

The whole day was spent sightseeing in and around Thimpu. It rained, but not very hard - more of a drizzle really. First stop was the post office.



What's going on on the steps there is a school project. The pupils (in purple and blue) were setting up a health check - they were planning to measure people's height, weigh them and take their blood pressure. They want to study whether the more sedentary modern lifestyle is causing health problems.

After that, we visited the school for tradtional crafts - painting, embroidery, metalwork, carving, weaving.





The embroidery was very fine work, a combination of applique and stitches so perfect that the back was as neat as the front. All the trades seemed to be six-year courses. And they were treated as trades - there was very little creative work. The emphasis was on the perfection of technique by copying traditional designs. The idea is that graduates can set up in business in their chosen trade.

In the drawing class one boy showed us his worksheets for just one design. He copied it in pencil, using set square and protractor to get the angles and proportions right, then painted over the lines in black ink using a brush so fine it was just a couple of hairs. The teacher marked in red where the design went wrong. Each copy had fewer and fewer red lines, until finally one was awarded a tick - perfect! Then it was on to the next design. This was the first year of the painting course - we didn't get to see any actual painting, which was a bit disappointing. I think all the classes we visited were first-years.



After touring around the classrooms it was on to the school's shop, where I bought some paintings and a necklace. The paintings are lovely - the ones I got for myself are a buddha and a wheel of life. The necklace was a last-minute whim purchase - I thought it was ceramic beads. But later on I realised it was wood and bone inlaid with coral and turquoise, with silver spacers and beads. The fastening is a cunning slider made by knotting the cord. Very, very nice!

The decoration above the shop door caught my eye:



A fertility symbol - you see them everywhere. Didn't see any for sale though!!

Next stop was a folk heritage museum. According to the itinerary we should have visited the national library but it's closed at the weekend. It was the same with the national museum in Paro - we were there on a Monday but it's closed on Mondays.





The actual museum at the folk heritage museum was also closed, but we still got to see the best part - a traditional house. It was pretty interesting - the animals were kept in the ground floor, the second floor was storage, then upstairs from that the kitchen, livingroom etc, plus a chapel room, and then an open upper floor under the roof, for drying hay, veges and so on. It was all very airy and open and sturdy, and all the implements and furniture were nice too - plain and practical, apart from the chapel of course, which was hung with brocade banners.





Outside there was a water-driven prayer wheel and flour mill, plus fields of rice, corn and other vegetables, and apple trees.





After that we did some more shopping, this time at the Handicraft Emporium, a wonderful big shop chock full of goodies. Oh to have a huge suitcase and unlimited funds!! Some of the group went a little mad in there: Christine bought a whole Bhutanese outfit - the skirt, blouse, jacket and belt. She looked really lovely in it. She also got an incredibly beautiful embroidered jacket - soft cashmere hand-embroidered all over with flowers in jewel colours. Judy gto a jacket too.

Back to the hotel then to offload our booty and have lunch - another tasty feast. And on to our next hightlight, the Tashichhodzong, "the fortress of the glorious religion". It's a giant complex, housing both the offices of the king and of the head of the monastic body. It was built in 1962 after the original place burnt down - a real hazard when everything's built of wood.

For the visit to the dzong, Tshering put on his special shawl, or kabney, the colour of which (white) shows his status as an ordinary person. Various other colours and styles and methods of tying show gradations of status and authority. He pointed out a soldier who was wearing a gho rather than a uniform, but who was wearing a sash that showed his military authority.



There were other rules too: no hats or head coverings of any kind, including umbrellas (though I couldn't help but notice this didn't apply to soldiers in uniform, whose berets stayed firmly on). It was still raining so this caused consternation in the group, some of whom had a horror of getting even a wee bit damp. We did a lot of hovering under the eaves and dashing across courtyards. There's a little film on youtube that shows Chotse Penlop, the new young king, at Tashichhodzong - you can see some of the elaborate shawls the high ranks wear.

Back on earth, after our bags were searched we were allowed through to the courtyard. Here are some of my photos:













No photos in the main temple of course, so I took a lot of very careful mental snapshots, because it has just been repainted for the young king's coronation in November, so it is looking particularly spectacular. It's a huge space - double or triple height in the centre and with a deep mezzanine. The ceiling height soars even in the mezzanine, so the whole effect is light and airy. Three walls are covered in images of the Buddha - paintings on the back wall and part of the side walls, and glassed-in niches with little statues on the rest of the wall space.

In pride of place is a huge golden Buddha, a shimmering vision at least two storeys high. Curving over him is an archway carved with animals and flowers and leaves, painted in vivid colours in stunning detail. In front of the Buddha are two low thrones, one for the king and one for the head monk. They are carved with dragons, gilded on a red background with touches of white highlights - again, in gorgeous detail and skill. The cushions are yellow brocade silk.

At either side of the Buddha are the Bodhisattva - the Buddha before enlightenment - and the future Buddha, Maitreya, both statues gorgeously painted. In front of the altar were the offerings, including the lovely butter ornaments the monks make. Here's a link to a photo of some Tibetan butter sculptures to give you an idea of how beautiful they are.

The benches for the monks are covered in rugs and brocade, very plush-looking. The overall effect is intensely decorated. It reminded me of some of the cathedrals I've seen in France.

There was no chanting going on while we were there, because it was Sunday - the monks' day off!

Back in the bus, we stopped on the hill to look back at the dzong:



Our next stop was to view a real oddity, the national animal. It's the takin, an animal so unusual it took DNA research to show that even though it looks a bit like a goat or an antelope or a musk ox, it's more related to sheep.

Needless to say, the myth of the takin is much more entertaining: it was created by a visiting lama, Drukpa Kunley ("the divine madman"), in the 15th century. A crowd of devotees wanted him to perform a miracle, but he wanted to eat first, and demanded a whole cow and a goat. He scoffed the lot, leaving the bones. And then he stuck the goat's head on the cow's bones and voila! With a snap of his fingers there was the takin, which immediately started grazing. Kunley was renowned for his ability to enlighten people, particularly women ... and he's commemorated in the many, many phallic symbols you see in Bhutan.

Anyway, the takin we saw were in a nature reserve. The story goes that there used to be a zoo, but the king decided zoos weren't compatible with right living, so all the animals were released. But the takin didn't take to freedom and ended up roaming the streets of Thimpu looking for food. So a nice low-key reserve was created for them and they live happily in fenced-off fields.

No pix of the takin, but here are some very cute puppies instead:



The final stop was rather nice - a chorten or stupa built to commemorate the late king. None of my photos were any good so I won't bore you with them ... have a look here. It was really nice to visit. People come and walk round the building saying prayers. The atmosphere is tranquil and contemplative. People of all ages were there, from grannies to school kids, all just circling the stupa quietly or spinning the prayer wheels off to the side.

We went out to dinner, to a restaurant called the Bhutan Kitchen. It was a nice place, with low tables and low stools, and a man playing a dulcimer. Sadly most of the food we had was carefully de-spiced, but there was a fully-charged dish of chillies and cheese, yum! We had a lovely evening, really nice.











And so to bed... but not before I'd joined a few of the others in the Druk's cocktail bar. What a bizarre place! I had a pina colada, which made the barman's night - he loves making cocktails and hardly ever gets to do it. And no wonder! The bar had the most hideous, oppressive decor, with weird ugly colours and mad industrial furniture - steel tables and stools with bicycle seats. But the drink was great! The best pina colada I've ever had.

And the excitement didn't end there - there was a mini-riot in the street outside the hotel very late on, with a lot of shouting and screeching (in English, I might add, so not involving locals), and that set the dogs off. Between that and the hard beds, I don't think anyone got much sleep.

Day 9: Phuntsholing to Thimpu

All aboard for the white-knuckle ride!!



The road from Phuntsholing to Thimpu was the most thrilling journey I've ever made. It's very narrow, clinging to steep, forested hillsides. Because it's the main trade route to India it's also very busy, with laden lorries travelling both ways, plus buses and private cars, and the increasing tourist traffic. So, the Bhutanese government decided to widen the road. This is no mean feat, as you can imagine. Blasting is out of the question, because of the risk of landslides. So the extra width has to be drilled and chipped and dug out of the hillside by hand.



Work started a year ago and will take another five years to complete. Bhutan has only a small population - 650,000 - and a high employment rate, so labour has to be imported from India. The hundreds of workers strung out along the road live in encampments of shacks. They use the many mountain streams as their water supply, grow vegetables and even keep cows and chickens. They get 100 rupees a day, plus free medical care, education for their children and staple foods: rice and lentils. They are on six-month contracts, which they can renew.

In return they work very hard, in dangerous conditions, men and women equally. Despite the risks, they are amazingly cheerful and friendly, waving and smiling as we went by. We were held up by a bulldozer at one point and I had a chat with some of them - as much of a chat as you can have without much shared language! Many were having their meal break, tucking in to tiffin boxes of rice and curry.







Because the road is so dangerous, it's closed from 4pm until the morning, and closed all day Sunday as well. Tshering said that means if you are heading for Phuntsholing, say, and you don't get to the shut-off point until 4.15pm, you're stuck until the morning.

He told us about a terrible landslide last year, I think it was, that swept away a road workers' camp, killing about 30 people. When the rescuers got down to the wreckage, far down in the gorge, they found three lorries that had gone over the edge at some point in the past and not been reported.



Once the road has been widened, retaining walls are built, and then drainage gutters are built at the bottom. The designing was done by German engineers and it's supervised by Bhutanese.



We did see some of these walls that had already been damaged by landslides, and sometimes there were rocks strewn across the road. On one particularly exciting stretch, there was an overhang of rock and earth with actual trees growing in it that looked as if it would crash down at any minute. We had to wait to let a whole stream of traffic go past.





And of course on the other side was a sheer drop over a very crumbly-looking edge, with a very long way to go to the bottom.



I loved every terrifying minute of the roadworks, a stretch of about 100km of the road. Gopal says he drives it about twice a week in the tourist season. "My wife is not very happy, but I like it," he says cheerfully.

We stopped for lunch at a "tourist cafeteria" - once we got through the roadwork section we passed quite a few villages with tempting-looking restaurants, but it seems they've set up a special watering-hole just for visitors. Oh well, it was very nice, and the proprietor was completely charming, alternately solemn and giggly.

There's a huge highlight coming up in November in Bhutan - the coronation of the king. It's a bit complicated, because there are kind of two kings at the moment. The senior king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, abdicated last year in favour of his eldest son, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. This was after he'd made the country a democracy. "Many people didn't want democracy," Tshering explained. "But the king insisted." So in November, Khesar is being crowned and it's a huge deal. There'll be a big influx of visitors and everyone's looking forward to it. The cafeteria boss giggled when we asked if he'd be going to any of the celebrations. "I'd love to, but I think I will be too busy!"

After the coronation, Khesar will be going on a grand tour of the country, visiting every little corner to get to know everyone. He already spends a lot of time trekking and so on, and is fantastically popular. Lots of people wear buttons with pictures of the kings on them - young people mostly have Khesar buttons.

More fascinating facts about the Wangchuks: Singye has four wives, all sisters. They each have a house and Singye visits; there are ten children altogether. The wives are all great friends, we were assured. You can spot a member of the royal family - they drive Range Rovers and their number plates read BHUTAN. Sort of the ultimate vanity plate.

It's not just royalty that can have extra spouses: regular folk can have two. Yes, that's right ladies: you can have two husbands. Both Gopal and Tshering said they thought one wife was plenty, thank you very much.

So, after a nice lunch we piled back in the bus. The drive took about nine hours in the end... I think so anyway. The road was now less thrilling, but just as interesting. We passed through settlements of farmhouses set amid fields of red rice, sweetcorn, various greens, fruit trees and flowers. The houses looked solid, snug and secure, all with red chillies drying on the roofs.



We also saw our first dzong, or fortress. Can you spot it?



Buildings are all constructed in traditional style, using wood and bricks and stone.



Only the roofs are modern - traditionally they were covered in wooden shingles, which had to be renewed every few years. But this uses too much wood, so now roofs are either iron or locally mined slate. Bhutan is mostly forest, but conservation rules, so timber exports are banned.

Another traditional feature is clothing. Here's Tshering in the men's outfit:



It's called a gho, and it's all in one piece - you kind of climb into the kilt part and pull the jacket up. The sash, or kera, is separate, and so is the white part, an undershirt with very long sleeves that fold back over the gho sleeves. When we first met Tshering he had the jacket down and the arms tied around his waist - he was wearing a polo shirt under it. The crossover forms a big pouch that men use as a big pocket - wallet, mobile phone, hanky ... it all goes in the pouch. For some reason most men wear argyll socks. The women's dress is a long wraparound skirt, a kira, worn with a blouse (wonju) and a short jacket (toego).

Tshering says the traditional outfit is the equivalent of a business suit in the west - it's something you wear to work or on formal occasions. The only time it's compulsory is when you're visiting a dzong. School uniforms are all traditional style outfits, but girls wear sweat suits for athletics and so on. The big exception is soldiers and police officers - none of them are wearing the gho.

At last the bus trundled in to Thimpu, where we had time for a little stroll around before dinner. The hotel was another Druk, with those board-hard traditional style beds, argh. But in every other aspect it was lovely. We were smitten with the waiters - when they came round offering second helpings they seemed disappointed if you said no thanks - "Ah..." and overjoyed if you said yes. "Yes! Yes!"



Thimpu is a big country town, but is growing fast, with a huge luxury hotel springing up and a couple of new housing estates have recently been built. All traditional style of course. But it's still got a down-home flavour, with the main street lined with little shops and traffic at the main roundabout conducted by a policeman in a rotunda. They did experiment with traffic lights, but drivers got too confused and no-one liked them, so they went back to the personal touch.

Day 8: Kalimpong to Phuntsholing

I could have spent a week in Kalimpong, it was such an easy-going place and I'd love to have explored some more. But in the early, early morning we were off, back down the hills to the hot plains.



This journey was billed as six hours but actually took much longer because the road was so bad. Not the hill roads so much - BRO was there to protect us! The signage got more bombastic and self-congratulatory. [more road signs] But also caring:



More splendid lorries



We crossed a high bridge at the foot of the hills and got off and walked across to admire the view - spot the people in this shot.



And soon after that we were making slow progress along a badly potholed road past tea plantations. It was baking hot on the plains, so although the pickers look tranquil, they were working hard.



We were supposed to stop for lunch en route, but pushed on, pausing only for a toilet break and for a minor accident - more on that later. One of the best things was passing through the busy little towns and villages on the way. I would love to have stopped and looked at all the shops. They were hives of activity. We saw all kinds of craftspeople at work, making wooden and bamboo furniture and tin trunks, weaving baskets, making pottery and iron beds, repairing cars and bicycles, making clothes; and there were shops galore of course. And the transport was varied too, rickshaws and bicycles and tuktuks and cars and lorries and handcarts. I saw one lovely bicycle rickshaw that had a little cart at the back instead of the usual two-seater arrangement, and into the cart were clambering half a dozen tiny schoolgirls, all in uniforms and pigtails, heading home for lunch.

We were bumping around too much to get any decent pictures, but I managed to get a little film of one town.



As I said, the road was pretty bad, and the drivers had to keep their eyes peeled. At one point our car went across a bridge and hit a concealed pothole with a great BLAM, followed by a clanging crash as the retaining bolt on the spare wheel snapped off. Luckily the car behind wasn't following too closely so didn't hit the wheel. And because the wheel was bolted on to the bottom of the vehicle it fell off flat on its side rather than on the tyre (you'll remember the horror of a loose tyre bouncing towards you, Mum!). We pulled over and the drivers manhandled the wheel into the back of our car, where Gurmay was sitting - he looked very uncomfortable with his knees up to his neck, but ever the diplomat insisted he was fine!



At long last we arrived at the border town - Jaigaon on the Indian side and Phuntsholing on the Bhutan side. Gurmay joked that you would be able to see the difference as we crossed the border - poverty on one side, wealth on the other - but in fact the whole area is thriving because of the cross-border trade. The border itself was low-key, with just a few guards standing around, and our formalities were actually done later after we got to the hotel.

At the hotel we said goodbye to Gurmay and the drivers, who then faced a six or seven hour journey back to Darjeeling and then, for Gurmay at least, only a day off before heading back to Bagdogra to meet another tour group. And we met our Bhutan team: the guide, Tshering, and Gopal, the driver. Yes, just one driver. Gurmay had phoned ahead to make sure we had a bus rather than jeeps, to save Tshering the chore of juggling seating arrangements. I was a bit disappointed; it was a nice little bus, to be sure, but not as much fun as the jeeps and it made us more of a "tour group".

The Druk Hotel was a bit of a step down in standards too. The service was lovely, the food good and the building very nice... but the beds were so hard! I asked Tshering about this later and he confirmed that hard beds were traditional in Bhutan. A thin little mattress on a board... argh! My hips were aching after just one night.

After a very late lunch we boarded the bus for our first Bhutan visit - to a monastery, where else! Very nice it was too, up on the hill overlooking the town and the river beyond, surrounded by trees and drifts of prayer flags.







After a rest and a very nice dinner (including our first taste of ema datshi, Bhutan's classic chilli and cheese stew - super-hot chillies in a yak cheese sauce - the recipe is here if you want to try it. John, you would love it!!) a few of us ventured out for a walk, just to stretch our legs after the day's long drive. It was interesting peering into the shops, but we were nervous of getting lost and the pavements were rough - Linda has problems with her balance - so we didn't go far.

I slept very well, despite the hard bed!

Day 7: Gangtok to Kalimpong

After all too brief a stay in Sikkim we were off to Kalimpong, back in India so we started out by retracing our route back to the border and then after travelling along by the river for a while, began climbing. And climbing and climbing, in sharp hairpins and even a corkscrew. We climbed 3,000ft in a very short space of time, up from the steamy valleys to the cooler hills. There was a heavy military presence here - close to the Chinese border - this time the Bombay Sappers. A huge barracks, everything ship-shape and immaculate soldiers on guard.

And then, as we drove on, the most amazing thing hove into view: a golf course, somehow carved out of a steep slope, with stunning views across the deep valley to distant hills and mountains. I didn't manage to get any photos, and we didn't pass it again, but there are some photos here that give you an idea.

We went straight to a monastery, the Zong Dog Palri Fo-Brang Gompa, also known as the Durpin monastery. It was perched on the top of a hill, with wonderful views of Kalimpong rather marred by a forest of phone masts. Everyone in India seems to have a mobile phone, even monks!


We were allowed to take photos in the temple, a rare privilege.




As you can see, it was gleaming clean and furnished with padded benches for the monks. As an even bigger treat, we were then when prayers began. I took a little film from outside to capture the beautiful chanting.









And so back to the hotel, the Silver Oaks. Here's Merle on the wonderful terrace.


There was a famous TV guru staying there too - I was too shy to take his photo or even gawp, but he was a classic guru: long flowing hair, long flowing white robes, stately progress through the hotel to the terrace, entourage trailing behind, and then holding forth rather pompously while the acolytes hung on his every word. There was a film crew with him as well.

After lunch in the splendid dining room we were off again to yet another monastery, Tongsa Gompa, the oldest in Kalimpong, built by the Bhutanese in 1692 but razed by the Gurkhas and rebuilt in 1922. Very beautiful paintings here. It's the base of yet another reincarnated lama, this time a 10-year-old who lives in Nepal. The altar was decorated with the most delicate and colourful butter sculptures, along with bowls of biscuits, bread, fruit and puffed rice. People bring the food as offerings; it's blessed by the monks, who can then eat it. A couple came in for a blessing while we were there, and then nibbled on some of the food that had been blessed as well. Afterwards we saw them outside spinning the prayer wheels. The atmosphere was really nice, relaxed but respectful.



The next stop was quite bizarre: St Theresa's, a Catholic church designed as a gompa. The walls were painted with the stations of the cross done in Buddhist style, with Jesus in saffron robes and his mother sitting on a lotus blossom. Sadly the paintings were crudely done, so the effect was weird and ugly.

The absolute highlight of the day was the market. I had thought Gangtok's market was special, but this was even better. It runs down a street that widens out into a large covered area. You could get anything there your heart desired, I'm sure. There were clothes stalls with a sewing machine handy in case you needed alterations; hardware and kitchenware stalls; fruit and veg galore; a butcher and a fishmonger; spices and tea; jewellery and beauty products. And all in a relaxed, friendly, cheerful atmosphere. I could have stayed all day.















I noticed something there I'd seen in Darjeeling as well - the water system. Everyone seems to have their own individual pipe, rather than sharing a common mains supply. Must make for some interesting days for the plumber...



Which reminds me of another thing: I never came across any nasty smells in these hill towns. Food scraps are often left in the gutter, to be disposed of quickly and efficiently by the dogs. The toilets are pretty primitive by our lofty standards, but again, no smell, no reek of drains or sewage. It all felt very clean and healthy. Some of the party were squeamish but I felt very relaxed about hygiene - I even drank tap water, crazy reckless fool that I am!

We walked back to the hotel from the market, enjoying the relaxed vibe of the town. No-one seemed in a hurry; even when jaywalking across the main street they're ambling.

Dinner was a very nice buffet meal, after which I caught up with some much-needed sleep in anticipation of an early start.