A Descent in Bhutan

(Click on photo to enlarge)

 

The Trek

We squished over the shit-strewn yak meadow and started day three of our trek. Mist was softly cascading around us and then bouncing upward in slow motion. It was ten past seven. Within an hour, maybe less, I was lagging behind with only Ian and Sonam watching over me – at least that’s how it felt. I had caretakers.

I could not take more than five steps without gasping for breath, head dizzy, heart pounding. I kept going for another hour before deciding I could not keep up or keep going. 

There was a consult with Razzu and Brendan. They already knew things about me, probably from Marian. One part of me knew that they were being helpful and responsible but another part still felt irked. I did not need anyone, as kind and unpatronizing as they were, to confirm that it was a good idea to descend. Perhaps I was afraid they would try to convince me otherwise?

Another hour and we were back at the spongy yak meadow. Sonam found our duffels and a porter and we set out, squishing again over the meadow in the opposite direction.

The Rescue

The steep descent was difficult – rocks, mud, streams, rain – but I was breathing easier. It took two hours to reach what Sonam called the farm road. We had seen some horses and cattle on the way down and could make out a roof far down through the forest. But it wasn’t the farm I envisioned, just a few low-roofed cabins leaning and holding each other up. The downhill road was rutted and rocky. It sloped off to the side losing its edge to small landsides here and there. There was no sign of comfort anywhere.

I was weak and shaking. Sonam was on his phone making arrangements for a car. We had met a man and woman on the descent.  They were going up the mountainside to herd down the cattle we had seen. Another small indicator of what a wuss I was. 

They told Sonam that there was a tree across the road and that we would have to walk past that spot. There was no option. One foot in front of the other. On and on. At least it was downhill. We passed a spot where there were some fir branches halfway across the road. “Wimps. They could have moved those. Hell, I could move them.” 

On we went, turned a bend and saw the biggest roadblock, save what a landslide or earthquake might do. Twenty-five feet high, fifteen feet wide and deep. – a giant’s pick-up-sticks. It was a mass of sawn lumber, logs three feet in diameter plus branches and slash. There were some metal cables and gear around. Our best guess was that it was an abandoned or suspended logging operation.

Gangol helped me around the mass on the steep downward slope through thick, pungent sawdust. On we went.

At a bend in the road with a steep drop off and an open view of trees, mist, fog and more trees Sonam decided to run ahead to meet the car that was coming. “Wait here.” There was no option but to wait.

We waited in silence each under a plaid umbrella, the heavy circles of rain isolating us in our thoughts. After an hour we decided to walk. It was the only way to deal with the chills. It was about one o’clock and the porridge we had seven hours earlier was long gone. We shared a chocolate bar – Lindt dark chocolate with chili – and set out.

I was dragging my feet and my poles. Ian was striding ahead and Gangol held back to keep an eye on me. More rocks, more ruts, more streams crossing the road. At a bend in the road, far down ahead of us I saw Sonam in his red pants, white tee shirt and brilliant smile waving to us. Then a red pick up truck. I came to a halt, didn’t take another step. The truck passed, made a laborious u-turn avoiding the crumbling road edge and the rocks, and pulled up beside us.  In a flurry of activity and Bhutanese we were piled into the truck and Sonam and Gangol ran off. They were going back up the mountain to catch up with the group. Later we learned they got to the camp at eleven o’clock that night.

I was in the front seat and Ian was in back with two other men. They spoke for a few moments in Bhutanese. The driver turned and looked at me. “Madame, you have had a very difficult day.” I was speechless at his empathy and kindness.

We drove through the forest for what seemed a long time, rocking, twisting and jolting from side to side. The truck rattled, groaned and splashed along. The driver and the two men in back talked and laughed. I sat numb, achy and relieved.

The windows were fogged up inside and wet with rain outside. The driver used the wipers sparingly. I wiped my window and saw that we were following a fast flowing river. Eventually, signs of habitation – houses, livestock, machinery.

At a cluster of low lying buildings, a man stepped out and gestured for the truck to stop. The driver talked to him briefly and turned to me. “A service of kindness to humanity.” Such elegant language and a stunning contrast to our appearance, fatigue and poor manners. Neither Ian nor I introduced ourselves or showed any interest in who the men were.

A family stepped forward and I realized we were giving them a lift in the back of the pick up. The man was carrying an infant bundled in folds of pink fleece. I asked to hold the baby in front with me, out of the rain. We drove on as far as we had come already. My pink bundle got heavier, as babies do. I shifted her around a few times. She was quiet and observant.

Of course the driver asked me, “How many children do you have?” and then, “Oh, I’m sorry. That is why you want to hold the baby.” I held my tongue. On and on we went.

 The Tea Shop

“We will stop here for tea, then you will walk.” I thought, ”No, I will never walk again.” But I opened the door, passed out the pink bundle to her mother, unfolded myself and walked into a rustic general store cum liquor store cum tea shop.

The three men from the truck, the family with the baby, a woman who seemed out of place and various others settled down with tea. The parents showed off their little girl, passing her around and kissing her chubby cheeks at every opportunity. The mother sat on the wooden bench with us and nursed. She was wearing a hair band with sparkly cat ears. 

We were given some tea and noodle soup. Ian asked for chili and they gave us some black pepper and advised us to use it sparingly. It numbed our lips, tongues and even our palates. The mother was putting heaps of it in her soup. I asked her about it. “Yes, it makes your mouth vibrate.” As though that was the point.

The Main Road

Back in the truck. I was very relieved that the driver’s prediction that I would walk was only a joke. Here we were driving. After a short steep drive though, we came to the junction with the main road. There were rocks across the junction and alas, it was true, we were walking again.

That’s when I paid more attention to the out-of-place woman. She was walking with us. She hung back with me. Something told me she was urban and didn’t belong on this country road. She wore a red plaid sarong and a pink satin Bhutanese blouse – short, boxy, crossed over in front, no buttons but held closed with a brooch between the breasts, wide sleeves with deep cuffs. She had a purse, jewelry, a good haircut and no walking poles. Ian and I were muddy, wet and bedraggled, which is probably why her appearance struck me. I wondered who she and the two men were but still did not ask.The road was shiny, new, black asphalt with iridescent water beading on it. It was easy to walk on but soon came to an end where the river went over the road.

We crossed the river on a narrow concrete structure, perhaps the beginning of a bridge, that lead onto a dirt road. The road was under construction with deep, deep tire tracks, a squishy raised center and high sides that were sometimes hard-packed and wide enough to walk on but then narrowed or disappeared completely. 

The mud was a pasty yellow-brown that made me think of baby shit. The well-dressed woman was very solicitous. “Be careful.” ”Go slowly, slowly.” On and on until I wanted to tell her to shut up. Meanwhile she was slipping and sliding in her fancy sarong and red plastic flip flops. A scene from Dante’s inferno – the Indian road crew, dark-skinned, scrawny, men, women and children, hard at work amid the stink of asphalt, tar, mud and the noise of the yellow monster machines all overseen by the Indian military guy in his clean khaki uniform and beret.  We picked our way through and came to ‘our’ vehicle. The five of us got into the SUV and drove more – down, down through villages, a general store cum bar every mile of so

The Highway

Ian and I were silent watching the passing scene. We arrived at a junction in a built up area, more town-like than anything we had seen since leaving Paro.

“We will change vehicles here,” the woman said.

The man exchange a few words and some bills with the driver of the SUV and we got into a clean, tidy, small, blue subcompact car, men in the front, women in the back.

We were on a two-lane highway going through rice-green paddies and random fields of wild violet cosmos. Lots of cautionary English signs– Alert Today, Alive Tomorrow, Eager to Last, Then why Drive Fast? After Whiskey, Driving Risky.

The woman offered us food – pre-sliced white cake in foil packaging. Finally, I asked, “What is your name?”

“Dengo.”

“I am Katherine.”

She smiled and nodded.

“Did you come for us?”

“Yes.”

She told us how Sonam called her in the morning when we decided to descend. She and the man who was driving work for Mountain Journeys Tours and Trekking. They drove to the junction we had just left, hired the man with the SUV, walked through the inferno-like construction, hired the man with the pick up truck and came to get us. A bona fide rescue mission or, as the pick up driver said, a service of kindness to humanity.

Epilogue

 

The last night of our tour was in Paro. Razzu announced that the Bhutanese company, Mountain Journeys was putting on a celebration dinner for us. The bus pulled up to a large house in a residential area and we gathered at the back of the house under high patio covers. I looked around and there was Dengo. We were at her house. She and her husband, our rescuers, are the owners of the trekking company and were at home in Paro when they got the call about our distress. They also had a very long day.

Before the Descent

It surprises me how little I remember or rather, what odd things I do remember. We had a long wait at Kathmandu airport. Because we were in a tour group I didn’t even know our departure time or the flight number. I guess it’s that thing, ‘Control what you can and let the rest go.’

Paro

 

Black knee socks on shapely, muscular legs topped with a comfortable looking kimono with very deep white cuffs, the national uniform for Bhutanese men. It sounds casual and leisurely but after seeing many men dressed like that it takes on an official, regimented look.

We drove past souvenir shops on our way to lunch and the first thing I noticed, and exclaimed too loudly, was the huge, shiny red dildo fully equipped with testicles. Not a sex toy, a sacred icon. After that we saw penises everywhere – painted on houses, on altars in temples and gripped under the arm of the money collector at a festival, the well-worn head and single eye poking out at me.

We had the compulsory visit to the market. A young woman sat amid her produce, tee shirt pulled up to mid-chest, engorged breasts exposed, long brown nipples pointing down with her infant latched on, mother hands-free staring vacantly into the distance.

More chili than I’ve seen gathered in one place – big ones, small ones, chopped, dried, fresh, powdered.

Our first Bhutanese buffet –braised cabbage, potato/cheese, veg and non-veg momos, boney chicken, very watery clear soup and the national dish, chili peppers that could blow off the top of your head. We had several variations of this meal.

Our Paro hotel room had blue on blue hand-painted walls with random gold and silver Chinese characters and medallions. Burgundy and gold satin decorative strips on the beds that I used to cover the TV screen. All in all, a trip.

 

The Pre-trek Sampler  

 

We set out early, seven-ish, to hike to the Tiger’s Nest, a monastery perched on a sharp rock cliff. It is iconic. Check any tourist brochure of Bhutan and you’ll see the Tiger’s Nest. We arrived at the teashop part way up about ten. I looked up, pointing. “Sonam, how do we get from that sharp peak on the left over to that sharp peak on the right where the monastery is?”

“Oh Madame, we descend many stairs on the left and then go up, up, up.”

I decided not to go. I would wait at the teashop. Foreshadowing!

Sonam set me up with a cup of tea and some biscuits and I gazed way up to the Tigers Nest. I was feeling icky – weak, a failure, a spendthrift (it cost a lot of money to get here), a quitter. I spent about 30 seconds on that and then shared my biscuits with a clever dog. Within minutes, roiling mist and cloud obliterated the Tiger’s Nest. I smiled, gave the dog another biscuit and listened to the birds. I left when large groups of sweaty, panting hikers showed up.

I descended slowly. Luckily I ran into our two drivers, Kandhu and Kato, going up the mountain with tea and biscuits for the group. They gave me the key to one of the vans and I waited there for almost three hours. The day hike that was supposed to be four hours took more than six. More foreshadowing.

After the Trek 

Thimpu

Dengo and her husband, whose name I never learned, took us to a hotel in Thimpu. Ian was embarrassed about his muddy boots and insisted on taking them off before walking into the lobby. I didn’t tell him that his socks were as muddy and wet as his boots and he left prints all through the lobby and up to our room.

We took the elevator to the fourth floor. When the doors opened we were in an unlit, undecorated, seemingly abandoned part of the hotel. The Shining came to mind. A young woman led us down dim corridors and around corners until we ended up at the door of what I thought of as ‘the last room’. All the rooms on the second, third and fourth floors were around an atrium that looked down to the reception area on the first floor. Our room was so far back we could see all the clutter behind the reception desk.  There were lights at our end of the hotel. It took us awhile to find the switches.

       

We were lucky to get a room at all. We arrived two days ahead of schedule and the Thimpu Tshechu was underway. The festival is a four-day event comprised of dance performances that memorialize and honour the monk who brought Buddhism to Bhutan. 

To the uninformed it looks like a party but it has important religious significance. For believers, simply witnessing the dances brings merit and blessings. Apparently the Royal Family, politicians and VIP’s attend.

Everyone was in their festival finery, a kaleidoscope of colour, jewels, weaving, embroidery, make-up and colourful cell phones. Why wear one necklace when you can wear four?

We got there early, accompanied by our minder, Khandu. He got us a spot on the shady side of the huge monastery courtyard. As the morning wore on and the sun rose higher people folded whatever kind of fabric they had to put on their heads. 

The obvious thing was to wear a sunhat but we learned later that hats are not allowed. But we didn’t learn why! I guess the same reason, or lack thereof that, back in the day, women were not allowed to be bareheaded in a Catholic church.

Masked clowns are part of the festivities. It was one of them who pointed his two-foot wooden penis at us demanding money. The clowns or Atsaras have many roles steeped in tradition and religious belief. Money collection is not one of them.

After Khandu took us to the festival and then to an authorized, sterile tourist restaurant (yet more cheese potato, cabbage and momos) we gave him his ‘walking papers’. He was leery of leaving us on ‘our own’ but we convinced him we would be fine and he happily drove back to Paro where he lives. Ian found a lovely Indian restaurant (unauthorized) that we went to for two meals. It took a while for us to realize that tourists always have minders in Bhutan and we were colouring outside the lines!

Punakha

The small corner of Bhutan that we saw is a string of valleys, like pearls on a necklace. Paro, Thimpu, Punakha – populations, 20,000, 80,000, 30,000. There is a road connecting them that our guide said was Highway #1 going East and Highway #2 going West. A good joke – but maybe not.

The dilapidated two-lane road twists and winds through forested mountains. Water runs across it in places seeking lower ground. The edges crumble away on the drop-off side and small landslides are common. The road is under construction – “double laning” it’s called. The Indian crews, who, we were told, are West Bengali, live in meager tents on the roadside, a cook tarp and a clothesline here and there, some small children. Men and women break rock with pick axes building retaining walls ten or twelve feet down, thirty feet wide, the tops crowned with squat concrete blocks like jack-o-lantern smiles.

We went over a pass at about 10,000 feet. There was a big parking lot, restaurant and a religious enclosure with many stupas, large and small. An elderly monk was leading a chant for a large group of Asian tourists. They were Japanese, Taiwanese and Korean. 


The stupa site was a Victory monument commemorating A Bhutanese victory over Assam militants. Sounded confusing to me.

Our first stop in Punakha Valley was a monastery/temple where women go to pray to have children. I figured it was low risk for our group. The walk to the temple was a gentle upward slope through paddies.