Our arrival back in Paro was on New Year's eve. We knew we had an early morning the next day to climb to Taktsang, or Tiger's Nest, one of the most sacred temples in Bhutan, perched 2300 feet above the valley floor. Joan and I had a special interest in this visit, because in 2005 our group had squeezed the Taktsang hike into the end of a day that started in Thimphu. Several of our group had reached the main viewpoint, across a deep gorge from Taktsang, but failing daylight meant that there was no time to visit. Now, on New Year's Day we would visit the site sanctified by Guru Rinpoche. What an auspicious way to start 2010! It dawned clear, calm, and frosty at the Zhiwaling.
After breakfast, Tshering drove us to the parking area for Tiger's Nest. We were in the shade for the first part of the hike, and gloves and jackets were the order of the day. As both we and the sun climbed higher, our bodies warmed up with the exertion, and once we hit the sun line it was time for me to stuff a layer or two into the daypack. At one switchback there was a look-ahead to our goal.
As we climbed higher we could look back down into the Paro valley.
Halfway up there is a teahouse, providing hot drinks, sweet crackers, and a pit stop. We regrouped and caught our breath for the second half. Here is a view of the teahouse among the trees, just before we reached it.
When most of the climbing is done, you reach a shoulder where there is an open ground with prayer wheels and prayer flags. Here you see the view as I'm about to reach it; the ground is still frosted in the shade.
A view of the grounds.
The prayer flags glowed in the early morning light.
From here until the main viewpoint the trail was a rolling level. Along the way there is a shrine dedicated to the previous Je Khenpo (religious leader of Bhutan).
He was born up here.
Tsewang told us how the Je Khenpo's body had gradually dried out, or otherwise gradually transformed itself, after his death; there had been no embalming but there was no decay. Tsewang has seen the body himself. At the threshold of the viewpoint, Jillian proved to be a soft touch for the canine pilgrims.
We paused for a group photo with our goal in the background. (Did Namgay stay up late to see in the new year?)
You could look back and see the teahouse.
After a few steps there was a temple dedicated to Yeshe Tsogyal, a female disciple and chronicler of Guru Rinpoche, who gained Enlightenment while on retreat in this spot.
This is slightly out of order, but here is a good view looking back at Yeshe Tsogyal's shrine and our path down from it towards the gorge crossing.
From those steps, the temple was tantalizingly close.
A view looking out from the middle of the gorge.
Many have come this way over the centuries; today, we were among the first.
And now we have a pictorial gap, for no photographs are allowed anywhere at Tiger's Nest. There is a guardhouse just before you reach the complex, and everything -- walking sticks, day packs, camera, and, we discovered when we tried to walk on, even binoculars must be left behind at the little plaza beside the guardhouse. This intense security may be partially due to the "southern Bhutanese problem" and suspicions about the accidental fire in April 1998 that destroyed Tiger's Nest. (The temple was rebuilt with donations from all over the Buddhist world and reconsecrated in March 2005. I can't imagine the difficulty of rebuilding up here.) Soon after entering we visited a large stone with an imprint or depression. The visitor is encouraged to stand at a starting line, close his or her eyes, step forward, and attempt to put their own thumb into the imprint. The rock-slab floor is uneven so it's no easy matter! None of us made it. Then we visited three shrines of the several in the extended temple. A young girl, part of a family of what must be caretakers, unlocked each shrine room and administered the blessing water. We had an opportunity to sit and absorb some of the silence at the second shrine. At the final shrine we received a miniature dorje from a monk, on a string to be worn as a pendant around the neck. It is a reminder of the supreme indestructibility of knowledge. After an hour or so we left the Tiger's Nest. It was an immensely satisfying visit after having fallen short in 2005. Here are a couple of looking-back views, with better light now that the sun is higher in the sky.
One our way back down to the teahouse, there was a good view down to our hotel in the valley. This picture is zoomed-in to magnify the hotel.
At the teahouse we regrouped yet again, and had hot tea, and were visited by avian pilgrims. My best guess is that this is a rufous sibia.
Near the bottom of the trail, now in bright light, were three water-powered prayer wheels.
After lunch at the Zhiwaling, we did some shopping in Paro. Joan and I spent most of our time at Chencho Handicraft, a workshop and outlet for weavers, invariably female, from more rural parts of Bhutan. Later we also spent some ngultrum at the hotel gift shop, which also had marvelous fabrics. Sadly, part of the afternoon was also dedicated to repacking. No longer would our luggage be slung into the back of a bus, but tomorrow it was going into the hold of an aircraft, with all of the reorganization that implies. Our trekking group had a private farewell and recap dinner. Most of us started with Dragon Warmers, a drink that (we were told) was invented by a Yangphel Adventure guide. Bhutanese army officers receive a liquor ration -- sounds very British -- named Dragon Rum. A Dragon Warmer is based on hot apple juice, with Dragon Rum (or any rum that is handy) and a little lime and honey added. Cinnamon optional. Tsewang gave us a slide show based on the pictures he had taken of our last two weeks, and it was warmly received. After dinner, each of us had a chance to speak to our experiences on the trek, and we were universally appreciative. Tshering played a couple of traditional tunes for us, and sang as well. (He's a very talented guy as well as an expert snowball thrower.)
Eventually the evening wound down, and we all returned to our rooms to finish packing. It was our farewell to Jen, who had an extremely early flight in the morning. Jim, Jillian, Joan, and I were on a late morning flight, so we were able to keep normal hours. At the airport, both of Druk Air's Airbus jets were on the tarmac; Jen's flight to India had already returned.
After a refueling stop at Bagdogra (the planes do not take off with full tanks of fuel, because of the challenging location) we found ourselves back in Bangkok. At 4:00AM the next day we took the shuttle to the airport, and were through initial security by 4:30! Because of the "Christmas bomber," there were additional pat-downs or wandings at the gate in both Bangkok and Tokyo, but everything worked as well as could be expected. Note: there is an origami museum/shop with some astonishing exhibits across from gate 26 at Narita. Our luggage did not make the two-hour connection in O'Hare; the baggage recheck area after customs was swamped and the staff told us to just drop off the baggage carts and keep going. This spared us from doing laundry on our first day back, and the luggage arrived home safely 23 hours after we did. It is difficult to summarize such a varied and richly packed journey. We experienced trekking, flora and fauna, cities and villages, home visits, architecture, crafts, dances and festivals, temples and shrines. Not to mention butter tea, ara, and the fiery chili and cheese national dish, ema datsi. Joan and I were blessed with great traveling companions and skilled and thoughtful guides. It will take a while to digest the trip, but writing this blog has helped that process along. Inevitably I will have omitted some things that I should not, but no casual account such as this can be comprehensive. Joan and I intend to return to Bhutan in a few more years, this time in warmer weather, to enjoy more of the flowers and birds. We've done November and December now. And we have every intention of going again with Geographic Expeditions (as long as they use Yangphel Adventure Travel). To all of you who have kept up with this account, may I say "Kadinchey La" (thank you).
Thimphu was our destination, and it meant climbing back up to Dochu La (10,000 feet). We stopped at the same place for lunch as we had heading out, just a short walk (one bend of the road) from the pass, and the clouds felt magnanimous, granting us peeks at the high ranges. Here is the wide-angled view from my camera.
Here is a zoom-in.
Then it was back down the mountain, to check in at the Taj Tashi hotel and freshen up before heading out again. The Taj is an international-class hotel that was just a construction site in 2005. As we pulled in dancers and singers were there to greet us.
The lobby, and all the rest of the hotel, was breathtaking. The display in the lobby included a gingerbread house, stacks of gaily wrapped boxes, and a creche.
There were only a few guests in evidence, probably because it was off-season, and during the holidays, and because of a big drop in tourist bookings due to the economy, particularly high-end ones.
Our first destination was the national Textile Museum. No photos here, but a stunning collection. One gallery is devoted to the various ethnic costumes from around Bhutan, displayed on mannequins. Large and larger religious hangings adorn one high wall. Adjacent to the gift shop, you can watch women weaving on traditional hand looms. The resulting fabrics dazzle with their colors and intricate patterns; some of the weaving for the royal family takes place here, and some of the items on display are on loan from the royal family.
After leaving the Textile Museum we went to the traditional paper-making factory. Here the paper is made from the bark of the daphne plant, which results in a durable and insect-resistant paper. Such a paper can be used for religious texts, envelopes, paper lanterns, and inventive artwork, such as the bookmarks with embedded flowers that I bought. In checking YouTube, I found a video (not mine) that just has to be from this factory.
Then it was time to change into our dinner clothes. Geographic Expeditions/Yangphel Adventure Travel had arranged a dinner with five Bhutanese to complement our five trekkers. These were, in the order printed on our list,
Mr. Tenzin Dorji, Chief Research Officer, Royal Privy Council
Ms. Sonam Choke, IT Graduate, North Bangalore University
Mr. Wangay Dorji, Head, Bhutan Infocom & Media Authority
Mr. Ugyen Yoeser, profession cyclist
Mr. Kharma Lotey, Bhutan director, Geographic Expeditions/Yangphel Adventure Travel.
Ugyen had originally been scheduled to be our trip leader, but had a conflict (big archery tournament) and we were lucky enough to get Tsewang Rinchen.
As the seating worked out, I spent much of my time with Tenzin and Wangay. These gents work hard to represent and develop Bhutan; as middle-aged professionals they represent, I feel, the progressive edge of Bhutanese administration, which is sometimes sluggish (imported from the Indian interpretation of the British bureaucracy). Tenzin, as a member of the Royal Privy Council, basically works on whatever project the royal family throws at them. Wangay's duties also seem far ranging -- overseeing media censorship, checking cellphone tower coverage -- just about anything to do with media or telecom. He had the whole table laughing at his experiences traveling abroad and encountering officials who thought his Bhutanese passport was obviously something made up. The South Koreans detained him, thinking him a likely infiltrator from the North, until the Korean Information Minister rescued him. Sad to say, yours truly was too tired have the forethought to take a picture of our hosts. My bad!
Tenzin and Wangay also made it clear that persons with skills useful to Bhutan were more than welcome to volunteer. IT and medical professionals (both represented in our trekkers) would be among those at the top of their list. Typically you might receive a visa to consult for, say, three months and then tour for three months. At least, that's what I think I heard!
Back to the Taj Tashi and our beds. We awoke the next morning to find that yesterday's sunshine had disappeared. It was snowing.
Through our window we saw a canine friend standing lookout.
It turns out that if snow reaches the valley floor at Thimphu it is a big deal, an unofficial holiday. Tsewang delayed our departure for half an hour while he called to see what places/attractions would be open, and which would be closed. The manager of the Handicraft Emporium sleepily suggested that it might open at noon. (It didn't.) As we left the hotel, a musician was playing.
First we tried the National Institute of Traditional Medicine, but that was closed. Then Tsewang took us to the National Library. That too was closed, but Tsewang took off in search of someone to let us in. The snow had stopped after a couple of inches had fallen, and all over Thimphu snowmen were being made and snowball fights conducted. We were no exception. (Tshering has quite an arm.)
Our ever-resourceful Tsewang found a staff member who found a caretaker with a key, so we were able to briefly visit the ground floor of the old National Library, adjacent to the new. The focus of this visit was the largest book in the world, a visual study of Bhutan spearheaded by Michael Hawley of the MIT Media Lab. 5 feet tall and 7 feet wide, weighing over 130 pounds, it's certified by Guinness:
Jillian posed to give the book some scale.
You can purchase a coffee-table version of this book from Amazon. Joan and I have a copy, and it's a treasure. You can also purchase a full-size copy from Amazon, but the price seems to have jumped from $15,000 to $30,000 at some point.
Next we visited one of favorite animals, the takin, at the Motithang Takin Preserve. Here, in a photo from 2005, is the origin story of the takin. It involves the Divine Madman. (Click the picture to enlarge.)
Right away we found one of our friends.
The snow was a grand attraction, though. At the entrance there was a father-daughter team watching another family's snowball fight.
Namgay felt we hadn't had quite enough frozen sport yet.
Around the bend -- the preserve is high on a hillside, the top of which sprouts telecom towers -- was a grand view of the Thimphu valley.
Driving back down, we stopped at another viewpoint and got a good look at the Thimphu dzong, the seat of government and religious administration. The parliament building is just out of the frame, and a nine-hole golf course just in front.
As our bus continued down the hill, who did we see but Toh, our camp manager from the trek! Warm greetings were exchanged and plans for lunch were laid.
Our final morning stop was the Memorial Chorten, dedicated to the third king of Bhutan. The three-story structure is one of the central points of the city, visited by tourists, pilgrims, and people wishing to socialize. Here is a figure just inside the gate, carrying a vessel for blessing water.
The three stories of the chorten can be climbed, and shrines visited, if you have the time. (The stone floors were extremely cold in November 2005.) We circumambulated the chorten but did not go in.
A side building holds several large prayer wheels. Some of the older Bhutanese settle in here for a session of visitation while the wheels rarely stop spinning.
On departure I zoomed in on some of the artwork of the gate.
We, including Toh, had lunch at the best pizza shop in Bhutan. The royal family orders out from there, we're told. It was good. I had a plain multi-cheese pizza, but the Bhutanese fellows had beef and chili (of course, chili) pizza. Nobody ordered the day's special, yak meat with blue cheese and greens on top. (It might have been the greens.)
The first part of the afternoon was dedicated to independent shopping. Joan and I visited handicraft stores, art stores, and even a couple of bookstores. We encountered our fellow trekkers once or twice, and gathered together at the bus with our loot in mid-afternoon. It was time to bid adieu to Thimphu and drive back to Paro, our final stop. On the way out of town, I took a through-the-bus-window photograph of the largest Buddha statue in the world, under construction. It is more than a statue; it will be a complete complex.
And then we were pack in Paro, where we began this auspicious trip. One more day, and one more hike.
We arrived at the Phobjikha valley, and then at the hotel, as the light was fading. At the Dewachen Resort, the generators go off about 9pm. Largely because of the black-necked cranes, overhead electrical wires have not been run into the valley, and all must rely on solar-electric or generators. Our camping headlights were still in play! For warmth, each room had a traditional stove, which the staff would stuff with wood (they held no more than three or four chunks), splash the wood with kerosene, and toss in a match. These stoves roared ferociously for no more than half an hour before completely consuming the wood.
We awakened early the next morning for a pre-dawn hike to view the black-necked cranes as they themselves stirred for the new day. Crossing the valley in the glow of my headlamp, following the person in front of me, I was aware both of the uneven footing and the altitude. (The Phobjikha valley is variously listed at altitudes between 9500 and 9800 feet.) The frost was heavy, and I breathed deeply as we climbed a small rise to the observation point. Are those cranes down there?
Yes, they are.
The cranes did not fly away en masse, but chose to depart in groups of two, three, or four over the course of an hour. I was glad I wasn't "wasting film" as I took shot after shot in the muted light. Finally, one worked out.
Eventually we began to retrace our steps. Wherever the sun hit, moisture rose, creating wisps of fog that joined tendrils of smoke above the frost.
The far side of the valley was now in full sunlight. I was still standing in mountain-shade and frost.
Tshering drove the bus down to the school, visible at the far left, to take us back to the hotel and an eagerly anticipated breakfast. Afterwards, as we gathered to ride to the crane center, Jim broke out the hacky sack.
Here is a photo of the sign at the center, taken during our 2005 trip to Bhutan.
A view of the exterior, from this trip.
The crane center has information, spotting scopes, a 3-D relief map of the area, and a gift shop. There is a documentary on DVD about the cranes, which we all watched in the main area. Joan and I picked up a carved wooden plaque of two black-necked cranes that we had long regretted not purchasing in 2005. Our next destination in the valley was Gangtey Gompa (also spelled Gonpa). This monastery is one of the primary centers of the second most popular school of Vajrayana Buddhism in Bhutan, Nyingmapa, and the head lama is the ninth incarnation of Pema Lingpa, a famous 14th-century saint. In 2005 the monastery was undergoing a multi-year restoration. Here, we see a woodcarver at work then.
The front of the central building, being worked on.
The front as we saw it on this trip.
A closeup of the front entry.
Offices and monks' quarters were distributed in the outer buildings that framed the courtyard. Many of the monks were away on their winter holiday, but at least one had done some laundry.
We were able to view several of the rooms, including a shrine room. An older monk was carefully conducting an inventory in that shrine room; with the renovation many old religious items had been replaced by new, and the originals were property of the government. A thorough inventory was coming due soon. We walked through the adjacent village of Gangtey, where an outdoor darts (khuru) tournament was going on. Bhutanese outdoor darts are large, wooden, and have a five-inch nail or equivalent as the tip. I don't have a photo of this dart match, but here's a snapshot taken on our first day in Paro. It's a scale model of an archery range, without bows.
We walked back to the hotel on a nature trail, passing through pine forest, where we saw women gathering fallen pine needles, and by farms, where we got a peek at some cranes.
The one in darker plumage is a juvenile, so perhaps this is a family. Next, a quintessential Phobjikha scene with prayer flags, cranes in a harvested field, Bhutanese architecture, and a solar panel.
Next on the agenda was lunch. This may be a good spot to insert a picture of the dining room, on the second floor, and its view.
The exterior of the Dewachen.
After lunch we had our own miniature archery lesson. Miniature in that the range was along the first terrace in front of the hotel, and was nowhere near 100 meters long. Ten meters might be generous. The hotel staff and our guides had located a traditional cane bow and a few arrows, and we each took turns taking advice and aiming shots. Most of us got one hit, but it was difficult to find the sweet spot between pulling too hard (overshooting the target) and not hard enough. After archery we took another hike. This time, the bus took us across and down the valley, and we hiked back. We disembarked from the bus just outside a small community, where we met a man with a Bhutanese "lute" he had made. Namgay played it for us.
The instrument maker declined to be photographed, but this photo was of Namgay and was thus OK. Just inside the village, a chicken was inspecting the drying turnip harvest.
We crossed the valley and walked up the road on the other side, observing birds, dogs, crops, and kids.
Then our second evening in Phobjikha was upon us. I had not shaved since the start of the trek, and I decided that it was time to bid the itchy stubble adieu. But I preserved the evidence of a beard with mixed patches of brown and white. What a, umm, sight.
The next morning we took a short walk before boarding the bus for the drive to Punakha. And we had another good crane sighting.
I must mention how different Phobjikha felt after Trongsa. The valley of the Mangde Chu, cut by the river as the mountains rose, is like the impression of a cleaver whacked into dough. Phobjikha, a glacial valley, is much more U-shaped and expansive, extending on for miles and with tributary valleys that are smaller versions of itself. It's one of Tsewang's favorite landscapes of Bhutan.
