Bhutan: Serendipity on the road

First, a confession. I may have sounded knowledgeable in the previous post, rattling off place names such as Rukubji, but I'm not really that organized. I took a notebook along and wrote nothing in it! However, if I can remember the salient characteristic of a spot (snake head demon, iron bridge monk) I can usually Google a reference to ferret out those nagging specifics. A really good reference might merit a hyperlink.

We had time to visit the Trongsa dzong in the late afternoon. Here, Tsewang explains something while we are in one of the many courtyards.

Tsewang is wearing a white kabney, or knotted scarf, which every male is obliged to wear in official settings (in the dzong, the gallery of parliament, and so forth). Many grades exist: the king wears yellow, members of parliament blue, judges green, and so forth. The women wear a sash called a rachu, which also has color significations.

Here Tsewang is describing a Wheel of Life painting within the dzong.

And here a cosmological painting, with Mount Meru in the center, and the four directions.

In another courtyard, some laymen (with monks watching) are practicing for the upcoming festival.

A closeup ...

I couldn't imagine jumping up and down on those cold stones barefoot. They have tough feet in Bhutan, as befits such a mountainous landscape. We were told that one traditional standard of attractiveness in men was the size of their calves.

Google Maps/Earth has a good bird's eye view of the sprawling dzong.

View Larger Map

In the next courtyard, we came across monks rehearsing.

The time came to return to our hotel, have dinner, and repack. The trek would begin tomorrow, and we needed to reorganize so that the things needed for the trek would be together, and things not needed for the trek would be in a bag that could be left behind.

At dinner, Namgay showed us how to put on a gho.

Note that the gho starts at floor-length. Eventually it gets pulled up to knee length, and the extra material forms a huge pocket that hangs over the belt. Good for cell phones, documents, puppies ... whatever. It's also necessary to align the back.

The next morning, repacked, I got some good pictures of Yangkhil Resort. Here's the main office and dining room.

Here is one of the residential buildings; each has four rooms.

Off the patio next to the dining room is a water-powered prayer wheel, generating merit 24/7.

The early morning light was also flattering to the dzong as we left town.

We left Trongsa headed south, paralleling the Mangde Chu. We paid a brief visit to Kuenga Rabten, where the winter palace of the second King of Bhutan was built. It now has a caretaker and some young monks. Here is part of the contents of the library.

Because it was winter break, most of the monks had dispersed to their homes. A few young ones were playing darts (khuru) in the lawn.

We drove on, and serendipity struck, as it seems to often do in Bhutan. A village was having its local festival, a smaller version of the great tsechu that would start in Trongsa in a week. Here is a short clip of the dancers. Note the masked figure on the far left in the first few seconds; it's an atsara.

This term is usually translated as 'clown', but they do a lot more. For instance, if a dancer has a piece of costume come loose, the atsara comes over to fix it while the dancer keeps going. The atsara will also harangue audience members, especially chilip (which means foreigner, in a matter-of-fact, non-pejorative way). He's looking for donations to the fund for the festival and festival refreshments.

A closer look at the dancers.

The back of the atsara's costume.

Another view of the proceedings.

Everybody dresses in their best for the festival (except the chilip). Not only to impress the neighbors; for the young singles, it's a chance to meet and mingle.

We had six or seven miles to hike that afternoon, so after 20 minutes at the festival Tshering drove us on to the trailhead, where we had lunch and identified our trekking duffels to the porters. Our first trail lunch was hot and yummy, a good omen of things to come. Here's a photo of the trailhead.

This trail, known as the Nabji-Korphu trail, is Bhutan's first experiment in community-based ecotourism. Each village along the route was empowered to choose where the campsite was to be built, and each village supplies a guide, porters, and a campsite caretaker. Income from the trekking may go into a community fund, for schools or other improvements, or the jobs may be rotated among the households of the village. The government of Bhutan intends for the program to boost the economy of out-of-the-way places, and not to benefit a few lucky or influential individuals.

On this trail, each trekking group is limited to no more than 11 participants, and no more than one group may be on the trail at a time. In the next post, we set off.