Return to Taktsi

(Continued from previous blog...)

At Yangkhil Resort in Trongsa--Trongsa Dzong in Background

The next morning we linger in our warm hotel room sipping tea and enjoying the silence of at least one place in Bhutan from which the sounds of construction are not audible. I realize how rare this kind of silence is. Even in Taktsi, far, far out in the middle of nowhere, we are surrounded by construction as the building of ILCS straggles on. Our last meeting with the director of ILCS in Thimphu informed us that the ongoing struggle to maintain construction labor continues. We’ve been hearing about this problem since we moved to Taktsi, and slowly we’ve come to understand the reasons for it. The primary reason seems to lie in the fact that the construction workers, who are mostly Indian, are unaware of the circumstances of their employment. They are not told, when they are hired, that they will be living in an extremely remote area with no facilities to speak of, or that the cold and damp of the climate there will be shocking to their systems. They imagine they will be working in urban areas such as Thimphu or Phuentsoling and the arrival on a mountaintop in central Bhutan with nearly perpetual rain, wind, and freezing temperatures is surely demoralizing and shocking. I often note how very large buildings such as the student dormitories appear to have only 9-10 workers per building. It is no wonder that the project itself is years behind schedule. We learn from the director that only a few weeks ago, a group of eleven workers ran away in the middle of the night. They were found later walking on the long, dark road, carrying all of their belongings. When they saw the headlights of the vehicles coming behind them, they threw their things on the road and dove off into the thick, jungle undergrowth that chokes the steep slopes. Most were rounded up and brought back to Taktsi, but one remains missing and another died shortly after being brought back. I feel very sad upon hearing this.

The Only Gas Station in Trongsa

Pumping Gas in Trongsa

After repacking the car we drive the hour past Trongsa to Taktsi. The weather is the usual cold, gray, wet that seems to perpetually shroud this area. I wonder, not for the first time, why they decided to build a college campus in such an inhospitable place, and on top of that, why they decided to use an architectural style that is far better suited to a warm, tropical environment. The entire campus, including the residences for staff and students, is built out of concrete. The rooms are cavernous, with huge glass windows and no insulating factors of any kind. In a climate that is nearly always wet and cold, it is nearly impossible to heat these rooms and a cold wind is constantly blowing. This style of architecture seems to be at odds with much traditional Bhutanese architecture, which includes wood-paneled walls and wood floors, smaller windows, and thick stone or wood walls. 

Our Guesthouse in Thimphu--More Traditional-style Architecture

In any event, as we turn onto the three-kilometer driveway that snakes up Taktsi mountain to the campus, we are pleasantly surprised to discover that the road has been substantially improved since we left for the winter break. Before that, it was nearly impassable, and one of our main hesitations in buying a new car was the thought that we would likely destroy it merely in driving up and down the Taktsi campus driveway! Happily, this no longer appears to be the case. In fact, we have been informed that the road will soon be black-topped, and whether or not “soon” is a realistic time marker, it is certainly true that the road has been smoothed and rolled in preparation for paving. As a result, getting up the mountain takes about half the time it used to. However, as we arrive at the top and begin the descent to our residences, it appears that the road improvements come to an end. We later learn that due to the fact that there are four contractors working on the ILCS campus, contention has arisen as to which part of the road each contractor is responsible for. Apparently, the contractor working on the lower portion of the road refuses to grate or roll the part of the road that extends down to the staff and student residences. At least we only have to bounce violently up and down for about ten minutes!

We pull our car up the side of the staff residence and gather up armloads of supplies. But when we actually get to our door, we discover that the key does not fit the lock. In fact, the lock isn’t ours at all and we have no way to get inside. Chris puts in a call to the director, but there is no answer. In mounting frustration, I also call the director. When my first call goes unanswered, I call again, letting the phone ring and ring. Finally, the director answers my call. He informs me that he is in a meeting. Before he can hang up I tell him that we are standing outside our residence and that our lock is gone, replaced by another to which we have no key. He replies that he will send down the estate manager to help us.

Drying Meat

After a delay, the estate manager, a young man on a motorcycle, who, while very nice, is mostly useless, arrives. He runs off to find the new contractor, who has, apparently, been living in our residence. When they both return, they sheepishly hand us the one remaining key to this new lock. Opening the door, we are shocked by the mess that greets us. The floor is covered with mud, construction debris and small piles of garbage. We learn that none of the geysers (hot water tanks) work anymore and note that our new bhukari (wood stove) is covered with rust and dirt. While we gaze about in disbelief, the contractor calls in some workers to remove his mattress and the belongings of several others from upstairs. It becomes clear that a number of people, not only the main contractor, but likely his entire crew of Indian workers, have been living in our residence, using the bathrooms, and the woodstove. While this is disconcerting, primarily due to the fact that we were not even informed that someone would be living in our apartment, it wouldn’t be so bad if the place had been taken care of. Apparently, they even knew the dates we were returning, but the place is trashed and nothing works anymore. Our firewood, so laboriously gathered from the mountainside and chopped, is nearly gone. Since the apartment is such a mess that we cannot actually live there, we inform the estate manager that we will go back to Trongsa for the night. We ask him to make sure that someone does at least a preliminary cleaning and repair of the geysers.

Himalayan Jungle

We both feel terrible. There have been so many inconveniences with living in this place that this feels like the last straw. No wonder my ability to actually do any work on my dissertation has been so compromised. If even the basic living conditions are not in place, never mind having electricity, running water, or (god forbid) internet or phone connectivity, then how is it possible for any progress to be made? While I was willing to “experiment” with this situation for the past six months, I can no longer afford to do so. When we signed up for this situation in Bhutan, we had expected to be living in Thimphu. It was only at the last minute that we discovered the campus was being rebuilt in the middle of nowhere and that we would be expected to move there. But we were assured over and over again that the basic living situation would be workable. Over and over again we have been promised internet, or phone connectivity, or electricity, or running water and over and over again such promises do no more than create a sense of an ever-receding horizon that can never be reached. My advisor is breathing down my neck. I can no longer do this. Chris too is furious—more so than I have yet seen him. The construction that was to have been finished in the apartment (the entire reason we even left a key) has not been done and the little bit that was done was never cleaned. We drive back to Trongsa trying to determine whether or not we should just pack up and leave for Thimphu. We compare possible options. But the fact remains that we really don’t have anywhere to land in Thimphu. Chris needs a job and we cannot afford to just find some place to rent without that security. Plus, Chris’s contract is for a year—if we break the contract, even under these conditions, will that jeopardize our visas? I have yet to even begin the bulk of my research—after all this time, do I want to just give up? Plus we are both slated to begin teaching in just a couple of days. Our classes are planned and to leave would be to leave ILCS without two teachers. But at the same time we are really fed up with the living conditions and the endless empty promises. On top of all this, we both desire to maintain the warmth and congeniality of the relationships that we have worked so hard to forge in our time here. We want to stay in Bhutan, but somehow, the situation must change.

After arriving back at our hotel, we settle down to await the director’s call. And we wait and wait. He doesn’t call. That night I have the longest lucid dream I can ever remember having. In the dream, before it becomes lucid, I tell myself that this is enough! I don’t have to continue in this dream—I know it is only a dream. In that moment, I am suddenly freed. I am able to fly and choose the trajectory that the dream takes. I travel through multiple dreamscapes, always making solid decisions about what I want to happen. When I awaken in the morning, I feel a sense of liberation. I am tired of feeling trapped by this situation. One way or another, things must change. When we still have not heard from the director by 11am, Chris calls him. As it turns out, unsurprisingly, the estate manager has not even informed him of the state of our apartment or of the fact that we have returned to Trongsa. He is shocked to hear that multiple Indian workers have been living in our apartment and assures us that he only gave permission to the contractor to “set up an office” there. The whole conversation is painful. The director apologizes over and over and promises to make things better. He begs us to give him “one more week.” With nowhere to go yet, we agree although neither of us believes that anything will be settled in a week. If internet has not come in six months, how will it actually come in “one week”? In fact, it’s been one week, one week, one week for six months. But what else to do? It seems like a very dramatic statement to just pack the car and leave, breaking Chris’s contract and likely severing all goodwill, something we adamantly do not want to do. We agree to teach this semester, but it is clear to us that once Chris has fulfilled his contract, we will be looking to find a situation that will provide a central location in which I can easily access the resources I have finally been able to establish.

Chod Practitioners at Dungtshe Rinpoche's Kudung in Paro

Returning later that afternoon to Taktsi, we are met by the director who accompanies us to our residence. In spite of our obvious dismay the day before, no cleaning has yet been done. The estate manager, who promised us that it would be, has done nothing. The director calls him and soon a team of workers is sweeping and washing. We stand outside for a couple of hours while the director gives lengthy tongue-lashings to anyone and everyone. In some ways, it is humorous. While he is clearly upset, and he vents most of that frustration on the estate manager, the estate manager for his part just bows his head and takes his scolding, but later on is invited in to join us at the director’s residence for tea as if nothing ever happened. And this is the thing—no matter how incompetent or unsuited anyone is for a job here, they will never, ever be fired or replaced. Too much depends on who knows who and who is related to who for those kinds of activities, which might cause immense offense and long-lasting damage to interpersonal relationships, which are, in the long run, deemed more important. When I even suggest that the director might find a candidate for estate manager who would care more about the job and do a better job, my suggestion is met with stony silence. While this kind of condition is perhaps the single-most frustrating circumstance of living in Bhutan, it is something that one just must get used to. It is far too entrenched and imbedded in the kinds of obligations that exist between individuals for any change to take place. This society is founded on relationship between oneself and others, a virtue that I value and while I find aspects of it immensely frustrating, I am slowly learning that one must simply take matters into one’s own hands and make the changes that one wants to make oneself. Since our situation at Taktsi really cannot accommodate my needs at this time when I must be working on a dissertation, I must change that situation. No one else will do it for me. In the meantime, I will teach my class and give the best that I have to the students at ILCS. At the same time, I will pursue the relationships that I do need to get my own work done. Once my obligation to ILCS has been fulfilled, I will be free to travel to the locations where my collaborators are lined up to work on this text. Since I am only teaching for the first half of the semester, this seems entirely workable. And in fact, after two class periods, where I attempt to introduce my students to a short history of western, European literary history in preparation for our poetry discussions, I find that I have more of a routine established here than at all previously. Once a sunny day finally arrives and we are able to wash away the inches (yes, really) of mold from the clothes, blankets, and pillows we stored while back in the States, and dry them in the hot sun, we finally feel that we are “home.” And after setting up a new office space with a second heater, with my feet happily ensconced in my new UGG slippers, I am almost warm and comfortable. The next adventure is to return to Thimphu at the end of the week to consolidate relationships set for me by the RUB Head of Research, a wonderful, kind and helpful person who has connected me with some of the tulkus (reincarnations) at Tango Monastery, including His Holiness Gyalsey Tendzin Rabgye, the reincarnation of Drukpa Kunley’s (my dissertation subject) grandson and at Paro College, where I have been introduced to two Lopens (teachers) who are willing and interested to help me with reading Drukpa Kunley’s biography. It appears that doors are opening! 

Early Spring Blossoms

Virgin Drive

There are so many things to catch up on with this blog. I didn’t expect to become so busy so fast, but I suppose that is a good sign. The next series of blogs are an attempt to fill in the gaps over the past two weeks. I begin at the beginning, which is always the best place!

Memorial Chorten on Losar Year of the Male Water Dragon 2012

Prayer Flags over the River

Chris and I began our virgin journey in the new car on a hazy, early spring day. We were both a bit nervous about the drive. The single east/west road in Bhutan is a narrow, endlessly twisting strip of blacktop that more often than not disintegrates into pitted ruts and holes large enough to take out any car’s suspension with in a single moment. Have I mentioned that in Bhutan people drive on the left side of the road—so the driver’s seat and gearshift are on the opposite side of the car than what we are so used to? Driving is, therefore, very slow, especially in a car like ours where the motor is about the size of a lawn-mower. But happily, the car climbed easily up the long, serpentine pass of Dochu-la and I actually began to have fun wrenching the steering wheel from side to side while simultaneously attempting to see far enough ahead to stomp on the brakes if and when a huge dump truck was bearing down on us. As we crested the top of the Dochu-la, we were forced to stop for an hour while a giant excavation machine worked to clear the huge boulders and piles of mud and sand that had covered the road over the night in a landslide. This kind of delay is exactly what makes a 7-8 hour journey into a 12 hour journey. As we waited, we watched the mist slide through the needles of the tall pines that blanket the top of the pass and sipped Chris’s concoction of very strong, very sweet, black tea from a thermos.

Virgin Journey

Finally, we were allowed to pass and almost immediately, I pulled over to allow the convoy of huge trucks barreling down the twisting road to the Punakha and Mangde Chuu hydroelectric projects to pass us by. These huge trucks, driven by both Bhutanese and Indian drivers, have largely destroyed the roads, which were never built to sustain that kind of heavy traffic. They supply most of the traffic on the roads and almost never pull over to make room for other cars. As a result, whenever I see one, I just pull as far over as possible (usually this has to happen in a split second) and hope that the truck can make it past me. Many Bhutanese drivers, however, head straight for the truck, each driver only barely twisting the wheel at the last moment to avoid a head-on collision. Bhutanese drivers would be excellent candidates in “Chicken.” But such games are not for me—I just want to get there in one piece. Descending into the Punakha Valley, the air is warm and sultry, orange trees are laden with fruits, and the market is abuzz with activity. This time of year is the best time to be in this very low valley (for Bhutan—only about 3,500 feet), as it is not yet too hot, but winter has largely departed. It is this valley, in fact, where I hope to do the bulk of my ethnographic research, as it is the home of most of Drukpa Kunley’s activities in Bhutan and the locale for his temple, the Chimed Lhakang.

Leaving the Punakha Valley, we begin the endless ascent of the Pele Lha, the pass marking the division between western and central Bhutan, where one then descends down through the Black Mountains towards Trongsa and our home in Taktsi. About halfway up the Pele Lha, we pull over for a luncheon under pine trees laden with cones and interspersed with the vivid pink blossoms of what looks very definitively like Red Bud (my favorite blossoms of spring).

Calves Hoping for some Chocolate

We’ve been driving for about five hours and there is still a long way to go. The ascent of the Pele Lha is endless and the road is absolutely terrible, with plunging cliffs off to the left and steep rocky slopes extending precariously overhead, looking as if they may give way at any moment (as they have obviously so often done before) and bury the road in rubble. We make our way laboriously upward, often traveling no more than about 10-15 miles per hour. (Not that one ever travels faster than about 35/45 miles per hour in Bhutan!)

Approaching the Summit of the Pele Lha

Finally, we reach the summit, where a prayer-flag festooned chorten bisects the road and our car must circle around to the left in traditional circumambulation-style beneath thousands of fluttering prayers streaming away in the cold, mountain winds.

Photo by Jmhullot-Summit of Pele Lha

This pass is marked by an unusual kind of dwarf bamboo—not a pretty plant, but a striking one with its sharp razor-like needles. Descending the pass is far easier than our ascent, partially because the road is much better, still twisting and turning dramatically, but without the precipitous drop-offs to the side. Instead, we are treated to views of sloping valleys now bright with new green growth and just-blossoming fields of rapeseed flowers, brilliant yellow against the gray skies and green rice paddy fields. I love these high valleys, through which two breeds of yak also roam—one normal in size and the other a miniature version with their shaggy heads and long thick pelts—they are about the only living creatures that actually appear to be warm!

Warm Yak

By the time we began the approach into the Trongsa Valley, we were feeling quite exhausted. Happily, rather than continue on to Taktsi that night, I had booked us into a nice hotel for our final night out, and as a way to celebrate Chris’s birthday. The Yangkhil Resort (“resort” being the term used in Bhutan to designate almost any kind of guesthouse, but particularly one’s with their own restaurants), is located about a half-mile from Trongsa itself on the side of a mountain with a fantastic view of the Trongsa Dzong—the largest dzong in Bhutan perched on a spur of land that stretches out over the churning Mangde Chu River far below.

Trongsa Dzong

The Dzong is still an important administrative building, housing the headquarters of the government administration for the Trongsa dzongkhag. Historically, Trongsa town was a strategic central location for the control of Bhutan and for centuries it was the seat of the Wangchuk Dynasty (the Kings of Bhutan) and of penlops (governors) who effectively ruled over much of eastern and central Bhutan. It is also a major monastic complex, with around 200 monks. Even in the ever-present rain (which has made it reappearance as soon as we entered the Trongsa Valley), the Dzong is an amazing sight as it vanishes and reappears in the shifting mists.

Yangkhil Resort in Trongsa

Birthday Dinner

Birthday Brownies

After a dinner in the hotel restaurant, we collapse into the most comfortable beds I’ve had the pleasure of sleeping in while in Bhutan. Usually, beds are only slightly softer than wooden planks—I never knew you could even make a mattress as firm and hard as the ones I’ve encountered in Bhutan—but at Yangkhil Resort, the beds, while still very firm, have at least a modicum of cushioning and sleep comes easily after nearly ten hours of arduous driving. We are almost comfortable—only the anticipation of actually returning to Taktsi makes us both a bit nervous. The best part of this journey has been that we have done it entirely ourselves. No more bus--just the freedom of having our own car and stopping whenever we please. While buying a car is an expense that Chris's salary cannot afford, it transforms our way of life here. I can now go to conduct my research whenever and however I wish. Even the endless red tape of licenses, registration, plates, check-up's, and the "road-worthy permit" cannot dampen the sense of freedom we both notice! I don't feel very good about adding traffic to the streets (given that the car dealership in Thimphu told us that they are selling an average of three to five cars per day!), our car is not in Thimphu, where most of the traffic in Bhutan actually is and where the only congestion is. Instead, we are out in the wilds, and getting to town is now only a simple (heh, heh) one-hour drive.

(See next blog for the actual experience of returning!)