Mouse count 75. No
great stories to report, so instead:
Bhutan fact: Bhutan only
became (an absolute) monarchy in 1907. The present king is only the fifth king
of Bhutan. The fourth king is still alive and relatively young. He abdicated to
ensure a smooth transition for his son. He also wanted his son Jigme, the fifth
king, to oversee the peaceful introduction of democracy. Bhutan officially
became a democracy in 2008.
Well, we’re already past the half-way mark of our year in
Bhutan. When we first arrived in Bhutan,
Justine and I both admitted that we’d had those, ‘what have we done’
feelings. A year seemed such a long time;
how could we possibly survive? Now, I’m already feeling moments of sadness at
having to leave Bhutan at the end of the year.
It’s often an infuriating country - why can’t restaurants write their
menu up on a board just to give us a clue what food to ask for! But it’s also a
breathtakingly beautiful country and the people really are amongst the
friendliest you could meet. Though I regularly crave much of what the West has
to offer (bacon, roast pork, a nice glass of red wine) I wonder how long I
would be back in Australia before I start to miss my life in Bhutan. Ho hum.
The Bhutan school year only has two terms, the big holiday
is in the winter because much of Bhutan is so cold that the kids cannot attend
an unheated school. So as the 2 week holidays
approached, our excitement levels increased. We were to be re-united with our
fellow chillip (foreign) teachers at
a ‘retreat’ in Bhutan’s mysterious east. According to my trusty Lonely Planet,
Bhutan’s east is the most densely populated region but it is still the
‘hinterland’ and many tourists simply don’t make it out that far because of the
time spent travelling on the long and winding roads. The main language in the
east is Sharchop so the official language Dzongkha isn’t much use - luckily
English is widely spoken. The east is also home to several minority tribes with
their own distinct languages and costumes.
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Crossing the Thrumshing La pass at 3750mtrs
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It was an extremely leisurely start to the holidays, The
Bhutan Canada Foundation – the charity who organised our placement in Bhutan,
had arranged for a bus to pick us up. We live right on the main east-west road
and so they arrived at our doorstep. Several of our fellow teachers were
already on board and the fun seemed to increase each time we picked up another
teacher.
Our first night was just up the road at the River Lodge in
Chamkar, Bumthang. Mr Pema Dawa who runs this establishment has been incredibly
helpful to me over the months, particularly when I needed to get back to
England for my father’s funeral. I was very pleased to give him two desk flags
for his collection (England and Germany). I’d picked them up on my most recent
trip to Thimphu which was awash with World Cup fever. I thought the flags were somehow poignant; England
the team I hoped would win the World Cup but never thought they would for a
second. Germany, the team I least wanted to win (haven’t they won it enough
times already) but whom I thought probably would. Incidentally, in a triumph of
head over heart, I put my money on Germany in our school’s betting pool.
Unfortunately, 3 other teachers picked Germany too, so we will have to share
our jackpot.
The following morning we were up at 5.30am to allow for an
early start on the long drive east. As usual it’s not because of the distance
that it takes so long, it’s because the roads are so winding that the bus
rarely exceeds 40kph. Although its summer, Bumthang is still quite cool and you
often need to wear a jacket during the day. As we headed east, we had to cross
a range of mountains that runs north-south from Tibet. Once crossed, the vegetation grew denser, the
variety of trees increased, the mountains grew higher, the valleys narrower,
the temperature rose and ..... surely that’s not cannabis growing wild at the
side of the road!
We finally arrived at the Lingkhar Lodge in Trashigang
around 7pm and there we were reunited with many more of our colleagues who
teach out east. Sadly, 3 of our gang have already returned home for various
reasons, and one teacher simply couldn’t get away from her school on time to
attend. The Lingkhar Lodge is the height of luxury by any standards and our
suite was probably the most fancy place we have stayed anywhere in the world.
The second day was Canada Day, we visited Trashigang Dzong (local government building & monastery)
and were kindly shown around by the Dasho. I was interested to see that as he
stood up to leave his office, he put on his patang
(sword) which he told me he must wear at all times when walking around the
dzong. He had a good sense of humour and said he would protect us all with his
patang. I had another bout of ‘tummy trouble’ and so was very pleased to return
to our fancy room with a proper toilet.
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| At the Trashigang Dzong |
That night we celebrated Canada Day. The Canadian teachers
kicked off the evening with a stirring rendition of the Canadian National
Anthem, closely followed by Brett Parish singing an a Capella version of
American Pie. Nancy (the BCF Director) had very kindly supplied some wine and
it was wonderful to once again taste a nice glass of red. It was great to catch
up with the teachers we hadn’t really seen since our orientation in Thimphu. It
was also good to get to know some of the ‘2nd year’ teachers better.
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| Happy Canada Day |
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| Temporary Canadians |
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| Oh Canada, our home and native land..... |
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| Lois decorated American Kevin! |
That night all the conversation was about what we would do
after our 3 night stay at the Lodge. We had originally planned to do the Merak
Sakteng Trek which would take a minimum of 3 days. We’d actually dropped out at short notice
after being convinced that it was too adventurous for novice hikers with 3 young
children in the monsoon season. Fortunately (for our consciences at least) a
vital bridge had been washed away and that meant that nobody could do the Trek.
The walk began in glorious weather and jackets were quickly
removed and tied around waists. Right at the start of the trek there is a
stunning, terraced rice field. The gentle slopes soon turned a little steeper
and the grass quickly turned to mud, not a few puddles here and there but deep,
squelchy mud that tries to suck the boots off your feet. Unfortunately, the
precarious state of the track meant having to stare down constantly to choose
the least muddy route, rather than look around and admire the view.
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| Here come the girls! |
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| First stop to catch our breath and admire the view |
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| Mmm, I don't think I'll drink that water |
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| Mmmmmud |
Of course, being the monsoon season, it wasn’t long before
the rain began to fall, but because it was still so warm, nobody bothered to
put their jackets back on. It wasn’t long too before we began to experience the
East’s famous leeches. On that 3 hour trek, I had to remove 7 of the suckers
from my skin, most were simply on my fingers and quickly removed before they
could do too much harm. But at one rest stop I found one close to my belly
button, it had already swelled to quite a good size and the wound itched for
nearly a week afterwards. All our kids had leech encounters too and I was proud
of how well they reacted to the thirsty little blood-suckers. I was also proud
of them for simply walking up the mountain in such tough conditions with little
complaint. The last 15 minutes, was completed under torch light; we were wet, a
bit cold, sore and fed up. We were all very pleased indeed to arrive at the
monastery. We’d phoned ahead to let the monks know we were coming and they’d
allocated us 3 rooms for the night. By the time we’d all sat around talking for
a while, comparing leech and blister stories we all realised we were hungry and
it was getting quite late.
Nobody understandably wanted to move but fortunately hunger
triumphed over exhaustion and Justine, Sarah, Jess and I headed off to the
kitchen to make soup with the supplies we brought with us. The kitchen was very
poorly equipped and they only had an electric rice cooker for cooking. Sarah
said we should simply boil some water and throw all our ingredients in. I was
very doubtful, but we had little choice and so we chopped the veggies and
chucked ‘em in.
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| Souper Sarah cooking up a storm |
While the soup simmered, a group of young monks gathered
around us. They were just as interested in us as we were in them. Justine
proceeded to teach the monks some classic western songs including: Heads and
Shoulders, Knees and Toes; and the Hokey Pokey. Now that was another night of
magic for me and a memory I will treasure for life. I tried to film some of it
with my little camera but the room was very dark. I hope it works ok on the
blog and you can get some sense of the magic that we felt.
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| Hokey Pokey Spectators |
Continuing that magical note – somehow the soup turned out
to be really delicious and everyone was full of compliments. Choki Dorji was
still with us and by now he was handing around a bottle of Arra (local hooch) which
is particularly popular in the East.
The following morning the monks took us on a tour of the
monastery and we duly left our donations at the altar. The walk back down the
mountain was a little easier this time, a lot less leeches but still plenty of
mud and rain. The taxi was waiting dutifully for us back at the bridge and we
happily climbed aboard in our filthy, soggy clothes. For the Divers, it was the
beginning of a couple of night’s stay in Trashiyangste at Ash’s house, but the
rest of our motley crew headed off to Lhuentse to visit fellow teacher Keith.
Would we ever see those guys again?
(To be continued.)
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| Mud, sweat and cheers, we made it! |
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