The Kingdom of Bhutan

Kuzu-zam-pola!


For those of you who have never heard of this country (it's easy to miss), Bhutan is a small kingdom east of Nepal between China and India. Most notably, it's known for the use of "Gross National Happiness" to measure its development. We have always heard great things about this place but seriously considered not going when we found out that the government charges tourists a flat fee of $200 (low season) to $250 (high season) per person per night. While this includes very nice hotels, food, tour guide and a full tour itinerary, 5 days in Bhutan is the equivalent of 3 months in South East Asia when you add on the $350 round trip flight on Druk Air (the only airline allowed to fly into the country). In the end we decided to go for a few days to see what all the fuss was about.


Initially, our trip started off splendidly as our flight got canceled due to a cyclone going through India. Druk Air got everyone a room at Hotel De'l Annapurna which is one of the nicest hotels in Kathmandu. The rooms here start at $150 and to put this in perspective the night before we decided to really spend big (after sleeping in dirty $4 rooms) and blow a whole $10 on what we thought was a top notch place. We were stuck in this super nice hotel for 2 nights with all of our food covered and a tv. This was fantastic as we haven't lounged around watching tv since we left home 3 months ago - so we took the opportunity and got caught up HBO movies and all the Indian music videos we have missed ;) , out of 60 channels about 30 had Indian music videos.


Finally, the cyclone passed and the skies cleared up for our flight. The view from the plane was spectacular and we got to enjoy the Himalayan mountains in clear weather with a nice close up of Mt. Everest. As we flew over Bhutan we got a first glimpse of how beautiful the country really is - very green with little houses sticking up here and there. There are only 700,000 people that live the whole country, same as San Francisco.


Few really interesting things worth noting about Bhutan. The people here are indeed very happy and love their kings. Bhutan became an official entity just 100 years ago when one of the regional leaders combined all of the small areas and became the 1st king. They have just crowned their 5th king who is only 28 years old and got the crown early from his father who served for over 30 years starting at 18. While in Nepal the Maoists are still fighting out for the top seat (after taking down the royal family), people in Bhutan actually complained when the 4th king decided to create a democracy and give power to the people. Almost everywhere we went we saw pictures of the 5 kings. The locals also told us about how generous the 5th king is - he spends a lot of time traveling the country and when he comes across a poor family who can't afford their kids he sort of financially adopts them and sends the family money until they grow up - we were told he personally supports 6-7,000 kids.



Another really cool thing is the focus of the country on keeping their land clean. First off, once a month one person from each family is assigned to spend the day cleaning their designated street in the community. Also, June 2nd of every year is a plantation day when every student, farmer and government official receives a tree sapling from the government to plant. Our guide was saying that he has about 16 trees he has planted through his school years. Schools and medicine are free in the country and if a student scores well after secondary education (high school) they are are able to attend gov't college for free. Lastly, it was true that when the government tried to install the first electric stop light in its city capital the people rioted and threw rocks at it until it was taken down - so the intersection still has a man in a little booth with white gloves directing traffic.


Apart from being very clean the country itself is gorgeous. It's full of mountains and its towns are always deep down inside green valleys. The buildings all look the same throughout, filled with beautifully detailed window and door frames. Also most of the people still wear the traditional dress - for men its usually a robe that comes down to their knees and raps around their waste. They wear this with black shoes and knee high black socks. The outfit also has big white cuffs on the sleeves. The women wear beautiful silk blouses over a long wrap that they secure with gold shoulder clips and a high waste belt.

The first day we hiked for a few hours up to Tiger's nest, Bhutan's famous monastery built into a mountain cliff with a 3,000 ft drop off below. The hike was beautiful and the monastery itself was spectacular - some of the walls even curved around the cliff.

On the trip we learned a lot about Buddhism including reasons behind all of the beautiful prayer flags that we have been seeing all over the mountains in Nepal and Bhutan - the Buddhists believe that the wind will carry the prayers down to people. We have also learned about all of the stupas (which hold precious stones) and are there to remind people to pray - most of these have sadly been plundered over the years.

At the end of our first trekking day we came across a 15th century monastery high up in the mountains with no towns for miles. When we went for a quick look one of the teenage monks invited us to stay for tea and we were able to learn a lot about their lives. This specific monk was only 13 years old and has lived in this monastery for 2 years with 6 more to go. This monastery had about 15 monks of varying ages (some of them just 7-8 years old) and one head monk / teacher. They usually spend their days learning prayers and studying (most monasteries are teaching English but apart from that it sounds like there is no math, science or other school subjects). After completing school they go to a special college and are then expected to go off into the mountains for 3 years, 3 months and 3 days to meditate - their families (and strangers) usually bring them food. This was really interesting for us but we were both a little sad to learn that most of the monks didn't choose this path and were instead given up by their parents who couldn't afford to keep them. They can only go home to see their families and friends every so often so the first few years can be tough on them.

On our trek we also came across a small farm community and our guide kindly asked the farmers if we could check out their house. This was really neat. In these houses the downstairs area is always for the animals while the family lives on the second floor. Most houses have just one big room that has a stove in one corner and a little fire pit in the middle. The one house we went into was absolutely bare with no furniture. They had a large piece of yak skin that they lay out and sit on during meals and at night all of the family members sleep around the fire pit on the floor. The upstairs area is usually open and is used to dry grains. This house also had a little shrine where the family worshiped. After the visit we got to try some home made wheat wine from one of the women living next door - there is a reason why we have had the runs for the last 3 months straight; we will try just about anything.

The second night we camped near the animal husbandry in a small village and went to visit a primary school nearby. The teachers were very kind and asked us if we would come back the next morning. This was quite an experience. When we came back the next morning we were treated like honorable guests. At the morning ceremony the head teacher told the students what a special day it was and asked us to come up to the stage and say a few words about ourselves and our country. We also got to hear the kids sing the national anthem and say their morning prayer to the god of wisdom (I like this god; it has a sword in one hand and a book in another. Everyday the students pray that the god uses his sword to cut through their ignorance and give them knowledge from his book of wisdom). After the morning ceremony we were asked to stay to judge the school's English reading competition. We were very impressed with the level of English from all of these kids (some were just in 4th grade) and impressed to learn that all of the classes in the school (except their local language class) were taught in English. The Bhutanese people are normally very shy and I think we scared these kids half dead but they were happy at the end because we both gave them near excellent marks for their reading.

On our trek we also got to try betelnut, which is a hard nut rolled inside a betel leaf with lime stone paste. Everyone (especially little old ladies) chew on these constantly and swallow (or spit) the red liquid. This concoction is supposed to be mildly intoxicating. The taste was interesting and the mixture (once broken up) was a bit overwhelming as it spread throughout your mouth.

Wow, for a 5 day trip this entry is longer than our two months in Africa. On our last day we got to visit Thimphu, the capital of the country. Here we visited a traditional paper factory, where they make very impressive products, the likes of which you might find at your local Papyrus store. This was very interesting as there were hardly any machines involved. In the corner were 5 ladies separating the steamed plant into little pieces, then one man rolling out the sheets and another ironing them to dry.

Overall we were very impressed with Bhutan and can see why the government has decided to charge so much for people to come and visit. Nepal is filled with hippies from all over the world, crashing and smoking dope for months at a time and polluting not just the streets but the people - you can't walk anywhere without hearing "taxi?, rickshaw?, hashish??". There are also a lot of little kids on the streets begging for money and spending their little earned income on glue that they melt into a bag to get high off. There was none of this in Bhutan; the prices in stores are all fixed and the shop keepers smile and only said hello and goodbye (it was a nice break to not have to barter and negotiate for every last thing).

Well, enough rambling. We are burning a few hours this afternoon waiting on our Indian visa to get done. Tomorrow we take a bus to Lumbini (where the Buddha was born) and then we cross over into India where we plan to spend about a month.

Lots of pictures on facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2023446&id=1081248185&l=120a3fc206