Bhutan 2014: Dochu La and Serchu Nature Trail

Early this morning, May 5th, a trio of horses trotted past the front of the Zhiwa Ling.

Today our guide Tshering showed his firm grasp of timing. The road between Thimphu and Punakha, which reaches an altitude of 10,200 feet (3116 meters) at Dochula, is undergoing a much-needed widening, and so is closed during certain hours. Tshering has scheduled our departure from Paro with this in mind.

Note: you will encounter spellings of Dochula, Dochu La, and Dochu-la. La is a syllable of many meanings; in this case, it means a pass. It is also an honorific or polite suffix, as in, "Ben-la, please close the door." It can also be used for emphasis, such as "Let's go, la!"

Before leaving the Zhiwa Ling the three of us attended a blessing ceremony to inaugurate our journey, in a shrine room on the third floor presided over by a resident monk. This shrine room has in its bones a history much deeper than the Zhiwa Ling; for example, much of the wood is originally from the Gangtey Gonpa (monastery) and was obtained when it was renovated. Joan and I had visited Gangtey both during (2005) and after (2009) its renovation. The shrine is not a tourist attraction. The blessing ceremony was very moving, even though we understood not a word.

Here is the Zhiwa Ling monk. He usually is full of smiles, but when he agreed to have his picture taken, he became very serious. The windows of the shrine room are visible in the upper left.

The ceremony also blessed a string of prayer flags that we were to put up in the pass of Thrumshing La several days hence. It is important to place them during an auspicious day, so we are to string them on our way out.

The road to Punakha skirts the southern end of Thimphu, the capital, and then starts climbing. We arrived at the end of the line of waiting vehicles only five minutes before the road opened.

The road is none too wide to begin with, but for all practical purposes it's the only way to move between Thimphu and Punakha. It carries heavy truck traffic in addition to passenger vehicles.

The first fifteen or twenty minutes at the pass was a steady rush of vehicles. All the tourist buses pause here to disgorge their chillips (the Bhutanese word for "foreign tourist"), who view the 108 chortens commissioned by the eldest Queen Mother to commemorate the deceased of the 2003 campaign to expel Indian separatists from southern Bhutan. If the weather is good there is also a panorama of the high Himalayas. This happens mostly in winter, and today it was misty.

I took this photo of the pass after the rush, from the steps leading up to the Druk Wangyal Lakhang, a new temple dedicated to the 4th King of Bhutan, the father of the current king.

This image was taken later, from ground level, with a couple of straggler tourist buses in view.

Visitors can walk among the chortens; there is a gate. To be respectful you should walk in a clockwise direction.

Each chorten displays art of carved and painted slate.

The lakhang was locked at first, but the guide for another family found the caretaker monk, who opened the temple for us all to visit. Photography of the interior was not allowed, of course, but I must remark on the contemporary style of its artwork. There are two levels of gallery, and, to quote from a longer article,

the mezzanine gallery, not found in other Bhutanese lhakhangs, depicts the story of the Wangchuck dynasty in aesthetic splendour. A genealogical mirror traces the royal lineage that identifies His Majesty King Jigme Singye Wangchuck as the 18th direct descendant of Pema Lingpa. The gallery draws on scriptures, mythological accounts, historical texts, oral stories, and artistic creativity to narrate the historical details from the time of Jigme Namgyal.

I wish I could have shown this gallery to you.

Here is a panoramic view of the temple exterior, which is set on the top of a rise next to the pass.

Another view of the central section.

After Joan and I visited the lakhang it was time for lunch. Both the restaurant and the temple were new to us on this trip. In this picture, the restaurant is on the right while slightly higher and to the left is a compound with accommodations for the royal family.

The interior of the restaurant was bright and inviting.

After lunch it was time to push on. To work in walking on a day with lots of driving, and to synchronize with road openings east of the pass, Joan, Tshering, and I were walking on the Serchu Nature Trail twenty minutes after leaving Dochula.

The trail began through the caretaker's farm, but then began working its way up and down through several ravines.

There were footbridge crossings.

Joan spotted several birds, but none in a good position for my camera. This jack-in-the-pulpit, however, posed for me. Click to enlarge.

The color of this himalayan birch was an impressive sight for us North Americans, accustomed as we are to paler varieties.

Kaka and the van were waiting for us at the end of the trail, and we drove on to Punakha. We paused for some photos of the dzong, but did not linger. This dzong was the seat of Bhutan's government until the capital was moved to Thimphu in 1955, and continues to be the winter home of the monk body and Bhutan's religious leader, the Je Khenpo.

One of the glories of visiting in May was seeing the jacarandas in bloom.

Punakha dzong sits at the confluence of the rivers Mo Chhu and Po Chhu. We drove up the valley of the Mo Chhu to our hotel for the next two nights, the Uma Punakha.

While checking in we paused for a down-valley view from the terrace.

The pigs traveling with us on this trip, Thelma and Louise, approved of the view from our room.

The room was well appointed but smaller than the one in the Zhiwa Ling.

We were warned by the staff member showing us the room that the thermostat would be deactivated if the power went off. Joan and I didn't think much about this until the power flickered off for ten to twenty seconds several times the first night, necessitating a walk over to the thermostat each time. If this happens while you are asleep, you'll awaken to a stuffy room.

Tomorrow would be another active day, starting with a rafting trip down the Mo Chhu.

Bhutan: Two Days to Trongsa

A five-cent summary of our itinerary in Bhutan would be: get quickly to Trongsa, have the six-day/five-night trek, and then visit most of the bypassed sites on the way back (Phobjika, Punakha, Thimphu, Paro). This post will be the story of getting to Trongsa. (Side note: transliterating Dzongkha, the national language, to English is imprecise. You may see the name 'Tongsa' as well as 'Trongsa', for example, if you go on to read more about Bhutan.)

Now, an observation about my reporting. It's difficult to provide a "just right" amount of information, and some places or events may fall by the wayside, especially if I don't have any photos to accompany them. For example, we paid a brief visit to Kyichu Lhakhang (a 7th Century temple) in Paro, but I didn't mention it in the previous post. Overall, I'll be providing plenty for you to read.

We left Paro after some brief AM activities -- shopping/browsing for most of us. Jim and Jillian went to Kyichu Lhakhang to light candles and engage the resident monk to perform prayers for a friend of theirs in ill health.

The 'lateral road' that connects Bhutan west-to-east was expanded to two full lanes between Paro and the capital, Thimphu, in time for the coronation of the 5th king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. (It was a generous single lane with pullouts, like the rest of the lateral road, in our 2005 visit.) We paused at Tachog Lahkhang, a temple established by the iron-bridge building monk of the 15th Century, Thangtong Gyalpo. At this spot is one of his iron bridges, restored with original links from other iron bridges he constructed in Bhutan.

The temple is private, maintained by descendents of Thangtong Gyalpo. It was on the other side of the river as well, so we did not visit.

We drove on past Thimphu, and our skillful driver Tshering soon had us at Dochu La, the pass between the valley of Thimphu and that of Punakha. (La means pass in Dzongkha, Chu means river.) This pass, at 10,000 feet, has a long history. Today there are 108 chortens, erected either to commemorate the expulsion of Assamese rebels from Bhutanese soil by the 4th king Jigme Singye Wangchuck and the Royal Bhutan Army, or to speed the passage of the souls lost in that action, depending on the emphasis of your source of information. The high peaks were clouded in this day, but the view was still spectacular.

Here's a closer view of one of the chortens.

To the uphill side, a forest of prayer flags fluttered and whipped in the breeze.

At the edge of the road, a wall of prayer flags.

Here are our intrepid trekkers. From left, we have Jen (Jennifer), Joan, Ben, Jillian, and Jim. I felt the odd man out, being the only one whose name didn't start with 'J'.

This was also our first trip in which we were the oldest participants; usually we have been contemporary with or younger than the majority. A sign of things to come?

Heading down from Dochu La to the town of Wangdiphodrang (or Wangdue Phodrang) meant the loss of over a vertical mile, one curve at a time. The dzong and old town (matchbox town) of Wangdiphodrang sit on a bluff overlooking the river. After some years of planning and wrangling, the town is being moved to a less perilous location upstream. We stopped for a leg-stretch and perusal of the shops jammed between the roadway and the cliff. Here, we see two girls having a tea party with the river below.

 There's only one place to park in the old town.

Then we went on to our hotel for the night, the riverside Chuzomsa Resort. The rooms have a balcony overlooking the Dang Chu. Here's a shot from ours:

A view of the balconies ...

The dining hall ...

Joan and I were the 'birders' on this trip. I put the word 'birders' in quotes because we aren't fanatic ... no life list, for instance, and inadequate memories. But we did carry binoculars, and I managed to get a few pictures now and then (when they would hold still). Here's a Little Forktail looking for dinner outside our room.

The next day we began our drive to Pele La, the next pass, 11,000' high. Not far from the top we got a good view of some of the high Himalayan peaks (those below 20,000' feet may not even be named!).

Zooming in ...

Looking back on the road.

And then we arrived at Pele La, and another opportunity for a stroll. Here the stupa is in the Tibetan style.

Looking ahead, down into the valley and across to the mountains.

Not long after beginning our descent, we passed some yaks who had come down to the "low" altitudes for the winter. This photo was taken either from the bus door or through the bus window; the yak are supposed to be skittish.

One feature of the Bhutanese landscape appears to be demons and demonesses and the temples and stupas that were used to pin these beings down if they could not be converted to the Buddhist teachings. Here is a view of Rukubji, where the temple holds down the head of a snake demon.

A little further down the road is Chendebji Chorten, another demon subduer. This demon had been terrorizing travelers and pilgrims passing between Trongsa and points west, until the chorten was built (in the Nepali style) in the early 1900s.

Chendebji also has a mani wall and Bhutanese style stupa.

In mid-afternoon our goal, Trongsa and its famous dzong, were in sight from a viewpoint. With the winding mountain roads, we were still 20km from the dzong, but we knew we didn't have much further to go.

A zoomed image ...

We could also see our lodgings for the night across the river valley, the Yangkhil Resort. (Resort gets used interchangeably with Hotel in Bhutan.)

Our two days of journeying were over, and there was enough time left in the afternoon to dump our stuff at the hotel and then tour the dzong, ahead of the Trongsa Tsechu (festival) that would begin next week.

But I think you've had enough for now! Touring the dzong and the start of the trek will be the next post.