And Miles to Go Before I Sleep Part Two

The next day, as we are preparing to leave Thimphu in order to get back to Taktsi in time for our classes on Tuesday, I get a text message from Francoise Pommaret on my phone informing me that due to heavy, torrential rains from what we are all fearing is an early arrival of the monsoon, the road block we so easily navigated outside of Trongsa on our way to Thimphu has completely collapsed. In fact, it seems a large chunk of the mountain, loosened by heavy rain, has dropped down into the valley taking a sizeable section of the road with it. They anticipate at least a week before the road is passable. Since there is only one east-west road in Bhutan, we are now faced with a choice—either find a guest house to hole up in for a week during peak tourist season (an unlikely gambit) or commit to a three-day drive down to Gelephug on the southern border of Bhutan and back up to Taktsi. After weighing our options, we decide to make the drive. After all, we’ve never seen southern Bhutan, and I am anxious to get back to Taktsi to continue working with Lopen Tsering Chorten, who is my new research partner and a brilliant reader of Tibetan texts. We will miss an additional day of our classes, but at least we won’t miss the entire week (or more, given Bhutanese notions of time—who knows when the road will actually be cleared). I feel sorry for the tour companies, as many of the tours are calculated to get tourists from one guesthouse to another on time. Having the only road to Bumthang (the major destination) blocked, means a huge pain in the neck for most of the tours. We leave Thimphu in the mist and weave our way back up the Dochu-la pass. Although I have now crossed this pass multiple time, I never tire of how different it looks every time. Today, it is cold and dark with high thick clouds shifting to release shafts of brilliant light down into the valleys below.

Dochu-la in Clouds

Arriving back at the CNR guesthouse, we get an early night’s sleep, knowing that the next days’ driving will be long and arduous.

The next morning dawns mostly sunny and warm at this lower altitude. Having discovered the night before that there was no hot water in our room, we’ve been told we can shower in a room upstairs (the same room we stayed in two days previously). The mystery, of course, is why we could not stay in that same room and have the hot water available? There’s no point in asking. We merely take our towels in hand and climb the stairs to the room with warm water. It’s an easy drive to Wangdi, the point at which the road diverges, one branch heading east and the other south. For the first time, we take the road south. Almost immediately the road degenerates into a pit of mud, bumps, streams, and pools of water so muddy that it is impossible to tell how deep they are until one is half-way through them. We have entered the beginning of the Punakhatsangchu hydro-electric project. Because most valleys in Bhutan are so narrow, the construction for the project has consumed the entire valley for a distance, we learn, of at least 25 miles. Labor camp after labor camp perches above the churning river, while enormous piles of sand, stone, rubble, and construction materials are heaped along the river banks or safely fenced behind high chained fences.

Beginning of Punakhatsangchu Hydro-electric Project

The actual project is astounding. Instead of one hydro-electric site there are two—the Punakhatsangchu 1 and 2. In both cases, the water is diverted into tunnels running beneath the mountains for a distance of up to 20 kilometers after which point the tunnel plummets downward for about a kilometer, shooting the water with tremendous force into giant turbines from which the power will be generated. This project has been under way since 2006 and is projected to be completed by 2016.

Diverting the Water

As we make our agonizing way along the mostly-destroyed road, we can’t help but marvel at the scope of the project as well as at what has clearly been a complete transformation of a peaceful mountain valley as enormous influxes of Indian laborers set up their camps and working places along the banks of the river. The project is one of at least four such hydro-electric projects in Bhutan. Two are finished. This one has at least four more years, and the final project along the Mangde chu river is the one nearest to us in Taktsi. During the days, we often hear the sounds of blasting as they begin the process of tunneling beneath the steep mountains. These projects represent the future of Bhutan. Without selling hydro-electric power to India, Bhutan’s only source of revenue would be tourism.

From a Distance

It takes us over two hours to drive 25 miles over the worst road I have every driven in Bhutan, which is saying something! By the time we finally emerge from the shadow of the project, I feel like a ping-pong ball that has been bounced around inside a metal cage for hours. I just want to pull over and lie down, but we have hours more driving before we reach Gelephug. Happily, the road, though still potted and broken in many places, now feels like a super-highway. We enter a long section of road that swoops and dives down through a gorgeous pine forested section of mountains. The main noticeable change in our drive is the fact that the road almost continuously angles downward. Bhutan’s geography is almost entire mountainous but for a thin strip along the southernmost edge, the area we are heading for, which border on the Indian plains. We take turns driving and eventually find a spot above the river under a tree for lunch. I’m regretting wearing long pants and a long sleeve shirt, entirely necessary where we were, but clearly increasingly unnecessary the lower we descend. Some dogs come bounding over hoping to partake of our lunch of leftover pizza, apples, and peanut butter. We feed them some old bread instead.

Rest Spot with Dogs

A warm wind whips up the river valley, both delightful and somewhat oppressive in its steady consistency. At a certain point, we cross over the river and again begin to climb, this time in a long steady ascent through the Himalayan foothills. The country is gorgeous—green, lush, sparkling with recent rain. Over our heads the clouds gather and at intervals we drive through sheets of monsoon rain. But gradually we catch glimpses of the plains of Assam below us.

Rain in the Foothills

Chris is hopeful that we might see a  wild elephant, since this is the part of Bhutan in which wild elephants have been rampaging, trampling farmers crops and generally making nuisances of themselves. I am more anxious just to get out of the car. Finally, we reach the checkpoint that marks our entrance into Gelephug dzongkag (district). The young Bhutanese man at the point is beside himself when Chris comes up to present our documents. He regales us with stories about how difficult this assignment, his first since he graduated from high school, is. So many Indian nationals whose visas must be processed and work permits issued. He offers to feed us dinner, but we decline hoping to reach Gelephug town by dark.

Plains of Southern Bhutan

For the first time in Bhutan, I find myself driving along a long, straight, paved stretch of road. I actually am able to get the car into fourth gear—a small miracle, but must often downshift in the fading light to avoid the ubiquitous crowds of school children who walk along the main road after being let out from school at (hmm) 6:30pm! These children have an uncanny ability to sense that our car carries an unusual load—foreigners—and they literally stop dead in their tracks to stare and call out after us. I wonder how many foreigners they’ve actually seen in their lives. Gelephug is not a popular tourist destination in Bhutan. But when we finally reach the town itself, even though darkness is nearly complete, we can still see the forests of banana trees and palms that line the brightly lit streets. The town is small, but orderly and bustling. We find our hotel and lug our bags inside, gratefully collapsing into the VIP room for a dinner of chicken, rice, the usual veggies cooked in butter and mushroom soup. This seems to be the classic tourist buffet menu. It has little flavor and, for me, little interest. I still cannot understand why tourist buffets all over the world have this tendency to whitewash the food, as if tourists have no interest in eating anything that falls outside their blandest expectations. Since I will be co-leading a tour here in Bhutan in about two weeks, I know I will get more than my share of this kind of food, and I’m not remotely excited.

A Different Environment--Gelephug

After dinner, we turn on the air-conditioning in our room and collapse in bed. Even at night, the air is sultry, humid, and hot. Coming from the higher altitudes, it’s a bit of a shock to the system, though I do think that given a bit of time, I’d adjust happily. Early the next morning, we are on the road. Almost immediately, we begin the long day’s climb back up into the mountains. Chris is sad to leave the plains without seeing an elephant, but we both note the wide culverts and broad riverbeds filled with stones. In this dry season, almost no water is running through them, but it’s easy to imagine how much water must come surging through this area during the monsoon.

Dry River Valley

It’s stunningly beautiful and I really wish we could linger and explore some of these remote villages perched on the ridges of the foothills, glimmering in the sun. We pick up a woman and her two children who flag us down. She climbs in the back of our van with a large bundle of banana leaves. Since we encountered her half-way up the side of what appears to be a mountainside devoid of human habitations, we can’t figure out how she and her children happen to be there. But as usual in Bhutan, one cannot assume that people are not living in even what appears to be most remote area.

Prayers of the Dead

At the same time, one of the things I love most about this country is just how under-populated it is. It makes me happy to know that there are places left in the world where one can be entirely surrounded by wilderness, where there are no sounds of airplane or cars or peoples’ voices or industry of any sort. Some basic part of me is deeply at home in such silences and this is certainly one of the most attractive and compelling elements of Bhutan for me. My soul can actually relax here. Even in the middle of downtown Thimphu, which can seem especially busy and noisy, if one awakes in the middle of the night, there is silence—that deep, thick, heavy silence of mountains in the darkness, where only the trees lift up their dark branches to the high, Himalayan stars.

Foothills Stupa

As the day wears on, we again find ourselves driving through torrential rains. People are complaining that the monsoon has come far too early this year, another sign, it seems to me, of the ever-more-obvious signs of global climate change. These heavy rains are especially dangerous in Bhutan, since the mountains are so steep. When the soil is moistened to such a degree, landslides become a daily event. With human habitations and basic infra-structures perched so precariously on these same mountain slopes, it’s not hard to see how transportation and communication can be so easily disrupted.

Precarious Road

We eat lunch at a perch high over the Mandge chu river. Not a single car passes us. In fact, we’ve seen only about three vehicles since we left Gelephug. This must be one of the least traveled roads in Bhutan, which is somewhat too bad, since it is so amazingly beautiful. The lower hills gradually merge into the higher peaks and the landscape changes from tropical to semi-tropical to pine-forested and back to Himalayan high-altitude jungle. Everywhere flowers are blooming in glorious abandon—white, yellow, pink, red, purple. I wish I had a book of flowers to find all their names.

Canopy of Flowers

We are somewhat apprehensive as the afternoon wears on since a friend has warned us that the last 40 kilometers of the road to Taktsi from the south is absolutely terrible and often impassable, especially if its been raining, which it very obviously has been doing a lot of. And, true to her words, we encounter a long section of road that is nothing but mud and ruts, but compared to the 25-mile stretch we did the day before, this seems fairly mild. Nevertheless, it is dark by the time the driveway to Taktsi and ILCS campus comes into view. We’ve been driving steadily for nearly 10 hours! Classes are first thing tomorrow morning and sleep is essential.

Trumpet Flowers

And Miles to Go Before I Sleep...

New Snow

We leave Taktsi early in the morning before the birds begin to sing. Across the valley, the mountains glimmer under their mantles of new snow. A deep silence lingers in the valley, encasing the new blossoms erupting on the bare branches of the trees. We drive as quickly as is possible on the twisting, treacherous roads in order to reach the first road block about 45 minutes outside of Trongsa on the road to Thimphu. There are two major road blocks along the Trongsa-Thimphu road where it appears that the entire side of the mountain has given way, plunging down into the steep valleys and leaving the road a mere hint carved into the slopes. As a result, road workers shut down passage on the road for long periods of time in order to rebuilt the road. Coming from Trongsa we must reach the road block by 9am in order to get by or we have to wait until 12:30, which makes reaching Thimphu in one day an even longer journey. As it is, if we make it through this first road block, by the time we get to the final pass over which we must drive to Thimphu, we will have to wait until after 6pm to be allowed to pass.

Just Past the Roadblock

We skate through the first roadblock and continue on. Much later in the day, we arrive in the deep, wide valley of Lobeysa and the College of Natural Resources where we are spending a couple of nights. Lobeysa sits at about 3,500 feet, about 4,000 feet lower than Taktsi. Hence, here spring has arrived. The air is warm, soft and wind swirls through the wide valley. The market is filled with fresh oranges. Flowers are coming up everywhere and the pine forests in which the College of Nature Resources is located are fragrant with the poignant smell of pine.

High Altitude Rhododendrons 

Spring Flowers

More Flowers

We settle into the guesthouse to await the arrival of the School for International Training’s study-abroad students, who should be arriving shortly. The next day, I am to give them a short lecture on the Chimi Lhakang, the temple initiated by the Dukpa Kunley, the Buddhist saint on whom I am writing my dissertation.

Signs of Drukpa Kunley

When morning arrives a large group of us walk up to the Chimi Lhakang and sit under the large Bodhi tree that shades the temple. I give a short presentation on Drukpa Kunley and the history of the Chimi Lhakang, but the best part of the lecture comes when we convince the Bhutanese guide for the SIT students to repeat some of the oral stories he was told about Drukpa Kunley as a child. These get everyone laughing, including the Bhutanese students from the College of Natural Resources, who have come along for the lecture. And in fact this is one of the best parts of this project—the oral traditions of Drukpa Kunley. For me, this element of my project will be the most challenging, but likely the most rewarding, as it will require me to travel to local villages and hopefully convince people there to tell me their stories. Obviously, this is not something I can do alone—the language barrier alone would make it nearly impossible, never mind the politics of being a foreigner simply arriving in a remote village. Happily, I have made contact with a number of people from these areas who are willing to facilitate these meetings. However, since I have committed to teach English poetry for the first half of this semester at ILCS, my ethnographic wanderings will have to wait until later this spring. After the lecture is finished, we all go inside the temple to receive a blessing from the ten-inch carved phallus and bow and arrows of Drukpa Kunley. The SIT students seem a bit taken aback by this—a blessing from a carved penis? Most of them are not particularly interested in Buddhism and this whole event must seem a bit odd. But they dutifully bow their heads for the blessing and receive a palm-full of blessed water to sip and splash over their heads. I try to pry some information concerning the texts stored in the lhakang from the local monks, but the only monks available look to be about 8 years old and know nothing at all about the texts. Soon we are all on our way back to the local restaurant catering to foreigners at the entrance to the long trail up the lhakang for the obligatory buffet lunch. Chris and I take our farewells and begin the drive up the long Dochu-lha pass to try to get to Thimphu by early evening. Again, we skate through the second roadblock without delays. As we descend into the Thimphu valley, the sunlight suddenly turns red. It is only 3pm, but the light is much like it would be at sunset, a kind of ochre brilliance that slides up and down the mountain slopes. Finally, as we come around one curve, I am able to see that the sun is obscured by huge plumes of smoke. From our vantage point, it appears that the entire Thimphu valley must be in flames, but as we continue our descent, we are relieved to note that the fire is behind the mountains in which Thimphu is located. It’s not clear how much danger there is to Thimphu itself but at least it is not currently on fire.

Waterfall

That night we stay with a friend at Royal Thimphu College, the only private college in Bhutan, located south of Thimphu up on the mountain slopes. It’s a beautiful location and the facilities are lovely—a welcome change from the chaos and ongoing construction of Taktsi. But the next morning we are up early to meet the head of research from RUB, who is accompanying us up to Tango Monastery where we will meet my new friend, Tulku Ngawang, a young man who is considered to be the reincarnation of Lopen Norbu Wangchuk, who was the third principle of ILCS in the early days. Tulku is bringing us to meet the highest reincarnate lama in Bhutan, His Holiness Gyalsey Tendzin Rabgye, who also just happens to be a reincarnation of the grandson of Drukpa Kunley. The day is gorgeous, cold, clear, and blue, the only downside being the clouds of smoke that continue to rise over the ridges, occasionally blocking the full brilliance of the Bhutanese sun. As we approach the base of the mountain upon which Tango Monastery perches, Dorji calls Tulku. He is on his way down to meet us and to perform a Rab gNas—or blessing ceremony—for a friend’s new car.

Royal Thimphu College

We decide to seize the opportunity and ask Tulku if he can also bless our new car, even though it is very dirty from the long road the endless plumes of fine dust that take the place of thick, sticky mud in the dry season. He is more than amenable and we are told to open all the doors of the car and to provide some offerings for the short feast that will take place as part of the blessing. We also have some silk scarves and a small, golden prayer wheel that is solar powered to put on the dashboard. I love these little golden prayer wheels. Most Bhutanese cars have them and I was insistent that we buy one too. But since we have not yet mounted it, it is a perfect object to be blessed before pasting it to the dashboard. A group of monks arrange a small altar with food and drink offerings, incense, scented water, and some texts. Tulku sits with them and they all chant from a short text. After a bit, one of the monks gets up with a bunch of lit incense that is smoking and walks over to our car. He passes the smoke over and throughout the interior of the car and then goes over to Tulku’s friends car (which is far cleaner than ours) and repeats the process. The same procedure takes place with a vase of purified water, which is poured over every surface of the car, both inside and out. After these ritual purification, the monks and Tulku chant some more and Tulku plays the ritual instruments that signal the protective deities to come and inhabit the cars. When he finishes, we are all served a small cup of tea and a small plate of the food that was on the shrine, which is now considered prasad, blessed food. We barely have time to lock the car before Tulku is hurrying us up the trail to Tango so that we will not miss our audience with His Holiness. While he insists that he walks very quickly and we might not be able to keep up with him, in fact he talks so much on the way up that it takes us over an hour. But as we walk I listen to him tell stories about his past lives. These are tales he’s heard from the disciples of his past life, and they are quite fascinating. Apparently, many of his past lives were famous astrologers, who prophesied for lay-people. Most monasteries have their own astrologers, but Tulku’s past lives were known for their accurate predictions. I told him we should write such stories down, before they become lost in these dark mountains.

Tango Monastery

The audience with His Holiness takes place in a beautiful house built high above the monastery with a spectacular view facing down the Thimphu valley. The house is one of the nicest I’ve seen in Bhutan, with wall-to-wall wood paneling and thick soft carpets. His Holiness is only 19 years old. He is a skinny young man with thick coke-bottle glasses and a bald head. But his radiant energy fills the room as soon as he enters it. As I hold out a scarf and kneel down for his blessing, I give him a very traditional Tibetan greeting given to high lamas. He gives a peal of delighted laughter and looks straight at me through his thick lenses. “Thank you!” he says loudly in English with a big smile. I like him immediately.

His Holiness' View

Through Tulku and in my own halting Tibetan, I explain my project to him. He’s thrilled and tells me that this project is very important. Drukpa Kunley has been deeply misunderstood. The tales of his drinking and lechery have led people to think that he is merely a jokester.  But, and at this point His Holiness looks very seriously at me, he is, in fact, a Buddha. He blesses my text and my project and tells me to send any questions I have to him through Tulku. I am delighted. The audience could not have gone better and I feel fully accepted into the Drukpa Kagyu world of which Drukpa Kunley was so much a part. Hiking back down to the car much later in the day, I feel blessed by the place as much as the people. Finally, after nearly a year of being here, the doors are truly opening, psychologically and well as physically.
See next blog for continuation of this trip...

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!)

Tooth Relics, Maruti Suzuki, and Roasted Squid Flavor

Our plane swoops down through valleys burned brown by the winter sun, sprinkled with dark green clusters of pine trees. Above the silver wings of the plane, white snow peaks pierce the dark blue of Bhutan’s sky. From this altitude it is easy to see that Bhutan is a country entirely dominated by mountains, from the highest glacial peaks to the foothills stretching down into the Indian plains, there is not a single flat surface to speak of. This is my second time flying into Bhutan, but there is a dramatic difference arriving in February from my first arrival in July. No monsoon clouds obscure the incredible views of the Himalayas, nor do they cushion the dangerous and dramatic landing Bhutanese pilots must make on a daily basis. While home for the holidays, I read in a magazine that the airport in Paro, Bhutan is the most dangerous airport in the world for planes to land. I kind of wish I’d never read it. But our pilot, Captain Senge Wangchuk, maneuvers our plane flawlessly through the steep valleys, finally touching down gently onto the runway, a strip of blacktop known to be the only straight stretch of road in the entire country. I am first off the plane at the back entrance. The sun is warm and a gentle cool breeze stirs the grasses by the side of the runway. Out the front entrance of the plane, a procession of monks in red robes is proceeding down the moveable stairway. A guard motions me to wait as a red carpet is unrolled from the base of the stairway all the way across the tarmac to the open door of the airport building. A host of official looking Bhutanese in full formal dress hurry across the pavement and line up on either side of the carpet with their hands held in front of them palm to palm and their heads bent as the lead monk passes between them. Another group of monks stands near the end of the carpet and the eerie sounds of Tibetan monastic music—the long jaoling trumpet and shorter horn—echo across the airport. I join the line of bent over Bhutanese officials and quickly learn that we have shared our flight with a famous relic of the Buddha—one of his teeth—enshrined in a small golden stupa about two feet in height. One of the senior lamas in the group carries the stupa in his arms down the stairs. As he walks along the red carpet, everyone bends his or her head down to the level of the base of the stupa. I do likewise and quickly feel a sharp bonk on the head as the lama and his procession pass by me. 

After the procession has disappeared into the recesses of the airport reserved for very important persons, I hear from a friend who was sitting in business class that the relic had its own seat. It was tucked in carefully with a bunch of airplane pillows and bucked with two seatbelts. It is the personal possession of the fourth King of Bhutan and had been taken on tour to sites in Thailand so that Thai Buddhists could receive its blessing. I reflect that there was obviously no way that our plane was going to go down, no matter how dangerous the landing! Welcome back to Bhutan, I think, delighted to arrive in such auspicious and, indeed, humorous circumstances. In fact, the whole situation—the warm weather, the sunlight, the snowy peaks, the relic—all make me feel so much better about coming back. I’ve been dreading our return. Not because I don’t like Bhutan, but because I now feel tremendous pressure to get my act together here and get some real work done. It’s been impossible to progress very far with my dissertation so far and that is clearly the result to two factors: the first is that Bhutan is a country that functions through relationships. One cannot arrange anything from outside the country if one is unknown inside the country. Getting to know people, forging relationships, making friends, colleagues and business relationships is the only way to have doors open. This has been my first challenge here and the past six months have mostly been spent engaging in exactly this activity. The second factor was the infrastructure, or lack thereof, in Taktse at ILCS. Not having electricity, water, or a reasonable work environment, not to mention internet connectivity or even phone service much of the time, did not lend itself toward productivity. But things have changed now. The relationships are in place and that alone will hopefully serve to advance my work situation dramatically. As we wind along the twisting road to Thimphu with a friend—one of the young lecturers from ILCS who has come to pick up Matt, our friend who was in business class—I reflect on how different it feels to return to a place, even a foreign place, that one has come to know. There is great comfort in knowing where to shop, where to sleep, how to get around, and how to find the things one is looking for. There is even more comfort in meeting up with new/old friends and being reminded of how much I appreciate Bhutanese people—whose warmth and spontaneous generosity are simply part of their basic make-up.

Since the semester at ILCS is slated to begin on March 5^th, Chris and I have arranged to stay in Thimphu in a guesthouse so that we can prepare for our teaching and I can get back to work comfortably. Since I too will be teaching for the first half of the semester (a poetry course, no less!), it is imperative that we find some quiet time to get back into work mode. The other main objective is to buy a car. The ethnographic element of my research will require me to travel to remote areas in Bhutan that will be unreachable by bus. In addition, living in Taktse, a good hour or more from the nearest town, has been very isolating. Having our own vehicle will give us the run of the country and tremendous freedom to come and go as we wish, as well as to visit parts of Bhutan we’ve been wanting to see.

Our guesthouse has a couple of rooms with attached kitchenettes and we happily install ourselves on the top floor beneath the eaves in a small “apartment.” Outside on the roof, flocks of doves coo and murmur and wind sings in the branches of a group of large pine trees outside the window. We are both feeling the altitude. After nearly a month at sea level, I’ve lost all the conditioning I worked so hard to achieve while living here. Even walking up the stairs to the apartment (five floors) feel grueling. Jet lag too finally takes its toll after being held at bay for three days while we played in Bangkok. By 5pm, we collapse into bed, sleeping through until about 6am the next morning!

The next morning I meet up with Sonam, who has offered to take me to the Thimphu hospital so that I can try to get a series of tests done. I had tried to do these same tests in Bangkok, but the price for all the tests came out to being somewhere around $600 USD! Since health care is free in Thimphu, I figured I’d try again here. Sonam has a friend who is a nurse at the hospital, and again, knowing someone makes all the difference. Upon our arrival Karma takes me into an examination room, enabling me to bypass the long lines and endless processes of getting this or that form filled out and signed. I explain that I am hoping to get a thyroid test and various other blood tests. I’ve been experiencing a lot of fatigue and a kind of fogginess that doesn’t lend itself to thinking “academically.” Since thyroid disease runs in the family and I’ve already been told that I have the antibodies, I want to test my levels. Sadly, they don’t have the reagent to test thyroid. (I ask when they might get it, but Karma has no idea. He can only tell me that it will arrive at some point. Sigh). But he draws blood for a series of other tests and tells me he’ll get me the results by the end of the day. The entire process has taken about 20 minutes by the time Sonam and I walk back to his car. Clouds, which have hung gray and heavy over the city since dawn, are beginning to lift and the sun slants down in gold and pink columns of light. Sonam realizes that he has locked the keys in the car. He is remarkably unfazed and explains to me that this happens to him a lot. Karma attempts to help us by first producing a sheet of x-ray paper that we attempt to slide down between the window and the door, hoping to trigger the lock mechanism, without success. Next, he provides a ruler. We repeat the process, but the ruler is too short. Finally, Karma brings a key to someone else’s car (as if, miraculously, this might somehow work on Sonam’s car) to no avail. So, we give up and walk back to town.

Since I return from the hosptial so early, I am able to catch Chris before he goes to try to buy a car. Because we arrived back in Bhutan on the weekend before the biggest holiday of the year—Losar and the 5^th King’s birthday—there is only one business day in the week, which means that we have only one day in which to get this done. I am skeptical that one can accomplish anything like this in only one day in Bhutan, but we have to try. First we have to get licenses to drive. This requires a letter from ILCS and a couple of different ministries. Thankfully, our friend Yeshe has a friend (!) who works there and Tashi (the friend) is able to fairly quickly issue us temporary permits. It will take a week for the permanent license to be ready. Next, we head to Zimdra Motors, one of two automobile dealers in Thimphu. We already know that we want to buy either a Suzuki Wagonr or a Suzuki Ecco van—a small van with a good amount of interior space. I know Chris wants the van, due to his younger days when he owned a full size van in which he placed a mattress for sleeping out in the forest, etc. I am more inclined to the Wagonr, which is quite compact but has good head room and more interior space than many of the tiny cars on Bhutan’s roads. But the choice will come down to price—we want the cheapest car! That turns out to be the van, surprisingly and we are quickly the owners of a new Maruti Suzuki Ecco van, white in color, with rain guards on the windows, a stereo, and seat covers. The van has to be driven up from Phuentsoling so we cannot even see it or test drive it—an unthinkable situation in the USA if one wanted to buy a car, but we go with it. I even name the van—Khandro—“sky-goer” or one who travels through the sky. Since Bhutan’s one east-west road travels far up across high mountain peaks, it seems like a good name. (Way to personify one’s material possessions, thereby increasing one’s sense of attachment…). And oddly, after all my travails trying to get permission to pay for plane tickets in Bhutan using local currency, the car dealership refuses to take US dollars, insisting that we convert our dollars into ngultrim—go figure. At this point, given that we don’t actually yet have the van in our possession, I can’t quite absorb it. But I do have moments of delight that even though we’ve had to buy a car, we now have so much more freedom. It really makes me feel like we actually live here. Cars here are quite cheap by American standards, and we are told that we might even be eligible for a 30% rebate on the cost if we get a letter stating that Chris pays Bhutanese taxes through his salary, which, in fact, he does. 30% is well worth pursuing. We still have to register the vehicle (one building/department) and have plates issued (another building/department). We also have to get insurance, supposedly simple and can be done through the dealership. There are only two insurance companies in Bhutan—one a government-owned business that used to be the only company, and now a new private company that is giving the government one a run for the money. This is good news for us, since we are told (ahem) that insurance actually works now, i.e. if you get in an accident, you will eventually get money for repairs or medical expenses. “Eventually” is, of course, a bit of an unknown.

When we get back to our apartment later on that evening, Karma is waiting for me with my test results. It turns out that I am anemic. Hmm. He suggests that I eat lots of greens and fruits. When I do some research, I realize that I’m going to have to find ways to get more iron. Supplements aren’t really something that has caught on here yet, but I manage to find an iron supplement in liquid form that tastes something like tangy oranges. I also note that some of the most potent sources of dietary iron are organ meats (out of the question – blech) and seaweed (not readily available in Bhutan, I’m guessing). But to my surprise, when I head into the local “gourmet” (very loosely defined) store, I discover packaged sheets of dried nori imported from Thailand. There appear to be different flavors, but since all the writing on the package is either in Thai or Japanese, even after some moments of scrutinizing it, I cannot decipher the flavor. So, I just buy two different kinds. Later on, when I open the packages for an afternoon snack, I find myself quite enjoying the first flavor even while I have no idea what it is. The second package, however, tastes distinctly like roasted squid, or something like that. Sure enough, when I read the package again, I discover clearly written in English, “roasted squid flavor.” Who, I ask you, wants to eat anything that tastes like roasted squid? And how do I make sense of myself, living in Bhutan far from any ocean, eating packages of seaweed with roasted squid flavoring? Life is often profoundly mystifying.

(Pictures to come shortly)

And a note to my readers--I am sorry for the long delay in postings but assumed that writing about my winter break back in the US was likely to be far less interesting than adventures in Bhutan. Now that I'm back, I plan to continue blogging--after all, there is so much more about to happen!