Day 11: Thimpu to Paro

A bit tired and jaggy from lack of sleep, we piled on the bus bound for Paro - where Tshering assured us the hotel had softer beds. First of all, though, we paid a visit to Thimpu's weekly vegetable market. It's in a temporary venue at the moment, because the market proper is being renovated.

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.

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.