Land of the Thunder Dragon - Part 2

We spent the next couple of days in Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital.  It bustles by Bhutan standards, as more and more younger Bhutanese move here to get jobs that don't involve field-based toil. The first thing we did was drive up to the Buddha Dordenma statue, a 169 ft colossus - the largest sitting Buddha in the world- which peers down on the city.  All of the funding for this came from a donor in Singapore, so no public money wasted. It's a good view up there too.

We went inside the statue, as it is also a temple, and saw about fifty young monks chanting scripture communally. None of the monks or nuns we met on the trip mind staring openly at the curious foreigners, especially if they have green hair.  Let's have a look at that Burmese hat again.

A slightly mad old man in one of the dzongs thought it was a cat. 

Looking down, you can see what passes for sprawl here on the city.  If you look at the picture, the large building is a dzong, the second largest is a government building, and if you look closely on the middle-right of the photo you'll see the royal palace.  A modest building by palace standards, it reflects the kings' wishes that public money is not spent unnecessarily.   It was the fifth king's birthday while we were there (and his wife had just given birth to king number six the week before), and while there are celebrations aplenty across the country, the king made sure that fuss (and cost) was minimal.

We were then taken to Motithang Takin Preserve, which has a slightly amusing history.  It was once a zoo, built by the third king to house examples of all of Bhutan's native animals, only to be closed by his wife after his death as she deemed it not very Bhutanese to keep animals caged up. The animals were set free and most of them buggered off.  Unfortunately the Takin were a bit too domesticated by this point and took to hanging around the streets, hassling people for food.  So it was decided to round them all back up again for their own good.  In case you've not already googled it: The Takin is the national animal of Bhutan (it used to be the yak, but they binned that because it is boring).  It is a type of local goat-antelope said to have been created by Drukpa Kunley - the "Divine Madman" - by gluing together the head of a goat with the body of a cow. We'll get back to Mr Kunley later, for he is both very culturally significant and possibly the only reason I would find religion.

I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation for this scene

An American lady was cooing over the Takin in the park, enthusing that they were "beautiful animals". They categorically are not; they look like avant-garde taxidermy.

"What am I?"

We went down to the city proper, to have a look around.  In case you hadn't realised, Bhutan is rather a religious place. You will not go far without seeing prayer flags strung up along the roadsides and across rivers and bridges; prayer wheels (to be turned clockwise) adorn the outsides of many buildings, being turned by hand, flowing water or the wind; stupas (structures containing relics, which are sites of meditation), adorn roundabouts, children's play parks and rice fields alike. Before making important decisions, be they business or personal, it is common to go to a temple and have a monk and lama roll dice to look for auspicious numbers to decide on the outcome.  When the king or the government commissions a large construction project, it will not start until a date which is astrologically favourable.  Things generally make more sense if you have a vague grounding in Buddhism before you arrive.  Personally, I had no idea what was going on and just followed our guide's lead in a fog of bemusement.

In the middle of the city there is the Memorial Chorten (a local word for stupa), dedicated to the memory of the third king.  We joined in with the procession as it walked (again: clockwise) around the stupa, which was actually quite relaxing.

This particular stupa is where one goes to pray for ill relatives.  Some of the prayers translate a little oddly though:

Indeed.

We were then taken to the local paper factory, where they hand-make the paper used for religious texts out of the local daphne bush. It's a diverting ten minutes and it's always good to see good craftspeople going about their work.

 

And obviously one of the staff is a Man United fan:

We were then set loose in town for a bit for a mooch around.  I haven't mentioned the national dress: the goh for the men and kira for the ladies.  The goh is a knee-lengh robe tied around the middle; the kira is an ankle-length dress, also tied around the middle.  It's required wearing for certain jobs and occasions, but people seem to wear it most of the time anyway.  It's part of their national identity and so they embrace it. It also keeps the Himalayan breeze out, which can't harm its popularity.  It's actually quite fetching.

None can resist the might of Frozen

One of the more photographed sights of Thimphu are the traffic police in the middle of town.  They did actually try introducing traffic lights, but the locals rejected them as impersonal and insisted on the blokes with the white gloves.

While there are shops which sell odds and ends, there are no supermarkets to speak of, so most of the weekly shop is done at the market.  Here farmers and traders ply their wares in a vast purpose-built sheltered concrete structure.

They sold chillies in quantities that whole towns wouldn't use in a year in the UK.

That takes care of Sunday lunch.

Before we left town, we were shown around the 'Simply Bhutan' living museum, where they've set up a compound with a traditional farmhouse and demonstrations of other aspects of rural Bhutan that they are worried are being lost as more kids flock to the city, despite 60% of the population living like that for real. Anyhow, they dressed us up in the garb:

I can think of no practical purpose for that hat; it barely covered my ears.
This is more indicative of my head than that hat though.

The importance of the phallus as a symbol of power and fertility was explained to us with a deadly serious face. It is tradition that new building have woodern penises hung from each external corner. Apparently the ceremony involved in placing said dongs on the roof generally results in everyone getting drunk.  Once again, this is attributed to Drukpa Kunley and his willy waving ways. I'll talk all about him when we get to Punakha, I promise.

Ah, an excellent harvest of cocks this year, it seems

On the way into the museum we were given the traditional greeting cup of ara  - a type of rice wine that is not unlike sake. It is made at home using a crude distillation process with fermented rice and a pressure-cooker type arrangement.  It's not completely unpleasant but I'll stick to the bottle of Druk11000 in a paper bag, thanks.

The picture above is your classic Bhutanese wood-burning stove, which has no chimney so it's a bit smokey.  Which reminds me: I don't think I was away from the smell of smoke during the entire week -there was a forest fire near Paro which was still burning when we flew out again; the temples and Dzongs are perpetually burning some kind of odd incense and cypress wood; and everyone else is making hooch in their kitchen on their log burners.

Here you see traditional Bhutanese ingredients consisting of chillies and not much else.

The national sport of Bhutan is archery, which they are somewhat fanatical about.  I got a chance to show johnny foreigner how we do things in the old kingdom and proceeded to demonstrate that I could not hit a cows arse with a banjo.  Chan did somewhat better in that she did at least hit a target, even if it was the wrong one.

This cheerful chap, Pema Tshering, has cerebral palsy and a spine defect and so can't use his arms. He was found by the Queen Mother in a village in the remote east and she brought him back to the capital to be trained-up by her charity after she's seen how he'd managed to carve a bow and arrow. He learned to paint and then to carve in the traditional woodworking fashion of Bhutan and now runs a workshop in the museum, selling quite exceptional carvings and paintings.

We also tried butter tea.  This is tea made by steeping tea leaves until the water turns black, before being strained and churned with butter and salt.  It is then sometimes served with popped rice.  It tastes somewhat savoury but not entirely unpleasant.

Chan told me that she didn't mind the tea so much as the rice floating around in it.  But then she doesn't like milk on breakfast cereal so her opinion is void.

To be continued.