Bhutan

Bhutan. Fan-bloody-tastic. The country with an official measure of Gross National Happiness has made me immensely happy.

Started with a great flight out of Kathmandu (once we managed to extract ourselves from Kathmandu airport, no mean feat), in smallish plane (think Aer Arannn or Qantaslink) with a lowish cruising altitude so we were below-but-felt-level-with a broad sweep of the Himalayan range including Everest for most of the trip. Played “guess which one is Everest” and regretted not having done more research.

 

Had a hint that Bhutan was maybe going to be civilised when we managed to get a snack and a glass of wine on the hour long flight.

Then came a very interesting landing, we got lower and lower among the hills and along the valleys, then another bank/turn, then lower and lower, another swoop/wobble/adjustment, lower still, surely touchdown will be any moment, another turn/adjustment. There was about one metre of stabilised approach before landing, I was very grateful I'd had the presence of mind to pop one of my precious diazepams before the flight. After landing we discovered why the dodgy landing – there's no flat land in Bhutan and no straight bit in the valley so you just zig-zag all the way in. Julia – were you a pilot when you came here? You didn't warn me about this!

If you can have this view of the runway from a car halfway up a hill you shouldn't be able to land.

Anyway. Between the warm welcome, beautiful countryside and the Valium all was quickly well with the world again. The prettiest airport terminal I've ever seen. Built in the mid 70s for the coronation of the King – it was the first time Bhutan had invited lots of overseas dignitaries and journalists so they needed somewhere to land.

 

Then we zoomed through lovely immigration, delightful customs and were met by excellently groomed (in national dress) guide and driver. We haven't gone completely soft – a guide is mandatory and the drivers seem to be thrown in for free.

Were whisked away for quick run through the national museum to get an overview of the country. Here Karl fell in love with yet another animal – the tiger cat. There were a couple of stuffed exhibits. I don't even know if these are real animals. They're the size of a cat but with tiger-like (or more like cheetahs?) patterns. Insanely cute if they exist.

Then were brought to the prettiest hotel I've ever seen and stayed in the prettiest room. It's a 19^th century house of the former ruler/mayor of the district.

 

Decorations are a bit Mongolian in style - like a huge, square ger. The guide & driver said “don't worry about your luggage, just leave it” as we got out of the car. We thought “great, a bit of spoiling”. Then later saw a couple of young female housekeeping staff lugging the rucksacks (Karl's is nearing 20kg at this point) upstairs.

So Bhutan's a small country with a small population and somehow amidst neighbours of India, China and Nepal manages to be quiet, organised, clean, polite and generally functional. People seem well educated with good English (universal education since the 60s), they seem bright, interested and switched on. It's mainly rural and not well-off but has made great progress since the 50s with income, infrastructure, education and health. Top income source is selling hydroelectrically generated power to India. Second is tourism - “high value, low impact tourism”.

Sometimes hotel room views are just lovely.

 

The King spent the last few years convincing the population they wanted a democratically elected government so now they've got one (since 2008). They still clearly have a King and his photos are everywhere. Our guide tells us it's currently the 4^th fastest growing country in the world! It might just work – this is just small enough, with just enough income, just enough government control to survive the developing nation phase and quickly become a really, really great place to live without too much upheaval, overdevelopment or foreign influence.

Our guide doing one of the poses they learn in guide school. In national dress which is their version of a suit for formal occasions/work etc.

We had already picked out all the places we wanted to see so we just sat back and let the guide and driver decide when and how we were doing everything. It's nice to be babysat sometimes. Spent the days driving through beautiful, forested valleys. Hills, forest, hills, forest, river, forest, house, forest, village, terraces, forest, forest, cherry blossom, forest forest, distant snowy mountains, forest........

 

Currently 75% of the country is under forest and the government has decided that it must remain at a minimum of 60% and will limit development accordingly. The four principals of Gross National Happiness (as devised by the now-retired previous King in the 70s) are preservation of culture, preservation of environment, sustainable development and good governance. Pretty sensible really.

Pitstop - corn roasted on/in an open fire.

Picnic by the river.

Villages are pretty with traditional style houses surrounded by mainly paddy fields.

Ground floor is for the animals, middle floor is for family living and the top floor/attic is open under the roof and used for drying crops and for storage.

The downstairs cow-room.

 

They like to decorate the outsides of the houses with symbols/deities for protection and good fortune. A famously popular painting is of a phallus - to ward off evil spirits and for fertility.

Every house should have a phallus on the wall.

 

Rice is a cash crop as they grow high quality red rice locally and then buy cheap imported rice to eat. The crop is generally harvested by hand (cut, threshed, and the remaining straw made into stacks) but with some pedal-driven threshing machines and the very occasional engine-driven one.

Cutting rice by hand.

 

 

Threshing by hand, a family affair.

 

Drying rice.

 

Chillies are another major crop, they have just been harvested for this year so they are everywhere drying on roofs – bright red mostly, some green and white. They eat the chillies - the glorious chilli-cheese dish gets served with every dinner (big chillies, cut lengthways in two, seeds intact, cooked in a cheese sauce).

Some villages grow apples which they export, mainly to Bangladesh.

The atmosphere of the villages and the work is so pleasant it would almost (only almost) make me want to sell up and start a simpler life. The villages seem pleasant, clean, with nice houses, the work is done in pleasant surroundings and climate. I know it's still a relatively hard life but it just all seems so pleasant here......I could just stay.

Field of rice and farmhouse.

 

There's even a really good Bhutanese weissbier (Red Panda) brewed here by a Swiss family. Why leave?

Popular pass-times here include archery and darts.

Men playing a local (and lethal-looking) form of darts. Lots of cheering on your team-mates and dancing and singing to celebrate scoring is involved.

 

Came across a couple of games of archery – a huge sport here as they have their own traditional version. Got caught by surprise by the whoosh-thung of the arrows flying by our noses the first time before the kindly army players suggested we take cover behind the screen.

Whoosh-thung.

 

The wooden screen protecting me (but I suspect not all of me) from the arrows.

The target.

Behind the screen.

Visited a million gompas (monasteries) and dzongs (combination of monastery and civil administration, a traditional form of administration in Bhutan, a bit like a Russian kremlin). Beautifully and insanely elaborately decorated.

Punakha dzong.

Inside.

Artists learn their trade in a 4 to 6 year course after school. Those sculptures above are hand made and painted.

Student at the national traditional art college works on a Buddha face.

Studious young monk.

 

Caught a local football game; the high school vs. a club team from the next town.

Karl joins our guide and some monks on the sideline.

Coordinated our visit to catch a festival at a monestary. The local farming families came along in their mini-tractors. The monks and local school students performed traditional and religious dances in the courtyard of the monestary.

Locals arriving.

Monks performing.

 

The audience.

 

Local students perform a traditional dance.

These two boys enthusiastically danced along with every performance.

 

 

Back in the ?15th century they invented a type of suspension bridge made with chains. Chains and a tiny bit of wire mesh. Apparently these are the original chains so there was no way I was crossing this. I take the prayer flags as a sign that there is doubt about the security of the bridge.

 

Karl's a braver man than I am.

 

 

Monestaries always seem to be built on improbable hilltops that should be impossible to get to. We climbed to this one in Paro. The myth is that the founder flew up here on the back of a tiger and that the monastery was built with the help of celestial beings. We went up the hard way.

Crammed into the rockface.

 

On the way up.

At the bottom pointing at the monastery.

 

On our final night we visited a farmhouse for dinner – as well as chilli-cheese Karl bravely tried some chilli tripe as we sat cosily on the floor around the stove.

 

Also took the opportunity to have a traditional hot stone bath at the farm. Very clever this. You divide your wooden bathtub in two with a wooden screen that allows water to flow through. Then you heat stones in a fire until they are glowing red, then you drop them sizzling into one end of the bath so you get a steaming hot bath! In a barn with a vague smell of cow. It was great.

Stones in one side, person in other.

And a woman comes by intermittently to offer you more glowing stones which she drops in with her enormous tongs. She didn't seem to be at all perturbed by naked Karl in the bath.

 

 

Finally we left wonderful Bhutan. Flying out of Paro and more great views of the valley with the mountains in the background.

 

The airport really is the only flat bit in the country.