Trails and Treasures

Bhutan began to modernize its roads in 1961 and completed paving the first section of a national highway in 1962.  As of 2008, there were just over 1,000 miles of national highways and about 1,500 miles of paved roads.  Now these statistics are a bit misleading if you’re thinking in terms of U.S. highways.  Most of Bhutan’s national highways wouldn’t meet the criteria for U.S. county roads.  The minimum width is 8.2 feet.

A local road near Paro

National highways are usually wider, but rarely can two trucks pass each other while keeping all wheels on the pavement.

Trucks Passing on Bhutan Road (from RAO)

In addition to being narrow, the roads are extremely uneven.  Note the waves in the above picture and the potholes and patches.  According to a World Bank report: “Road building practices in Bhutan use mostly obsolete technology and follow the archaic practices of the mid-20th century. Road construction and maintenance is labor intensive and marked by low productivity and high costs. This results in poor quality roads that have high levels of roughness, poor serviceability, and a short life.”  What an understatement!

A great deal of the work is done by hand.  It’s not unusual to see a group of women sitting alongside the road using rocks to break up larger rocks into smaller rocks. I saw only two types of equipment being used in road construction and maintenance.

Repaving a local road in Thimphu

Clearing an avalanche

 Where are the graders?

Contrary to the photo with the passing trucks, most roads do not have more than a center line, if that.  Absolutely no shoulders and few guardrails that would actually stop you.

No lines, no guardrails

 There’s also a small army of women with no-handled twig brooms who sweep the roads and clear the gutters, when they exist. 

Roads conform to the topography.  Bridges are built to span rivers and streams, not provide a direct link from point A to point B like on many of our superhighways.  As a consequence, roads meander in and out of ravines and around mountains.  A straight stretch as long as a football field is a rarity.

Climbing a mountain by road

Lots of switchbacks

As a consequence, there’s no such thing as a short road trip timewise.

At the end of 2006 there were about 30,000 vehicles on Bhutan’s road.   More than 60 people were killed in traffic accidents in 2006.  I saw one accident with no injuries–two trucks collided on a curve.  (See–no lines!)

You're in my space!

After about a half hour, drivers waiting in the lines of cars to get by took things into hand and removed a couple of the concrete side posts on the other side of the road.

In general, most drivers were quite polite.  There was a lot of honking to let others know you were coming and to get cars, trucks, people, and animals to move to the side, but compared to Nepal and India, it was quiet–probably because there were so few cars on the road.

A Yak on the Road

Animals roam freely

Not everyone owns a car

Thank You!

Mask

I am not a shopper, and I’ve reached the age when it’s time to think about decreasing, not increasing the size of my collections.  My “big” purchase in Peru was a hand-woven, over-the-shoulder water bottle holder for day hikes when I don’t want to wear a pack.  It’s useful and didn’t take up much room in the suitcase, but I bought it primarily because it was woven by a woman I met in Nina’s weaving village.

Bhutan is not known as a shopper’s paradise, so I figured I didn’t have to worry about being tempted.  All the guidebooks say that if you want to shop, do it in Paro or Thimphu.  So I shouldn’t have been surprised when, during my orientation lunch in Thimphu, Pelden asked me if I had any specific shopping goals.  Once we left Thimphu there wouldn’t be much opportunity for shopping. 

Since I wasn’t interested in bringing home a kira or even some hand-woven fabric, handmade paper, paintings, woodcarvings, or other typical craft items, I said that I collected dolls.  I had never seen or read anything that mentioned dolls in connection with shopping in Bhutan.  I thought it was a safe answer, and, sure enough, there were no dolls in the government-sponsored shop for tourists that we visited.  But Pelden was not to be defeated in meeting the desires of his client.  He knew of a small shop where they sold hand-crafted items made by students; it was a relatively new project designed to provide the means for young, rural women to earn some cash.  So–I now was in a position not unlike the one in Peru.  What should I buy? 

I don’t know whether to call it a doll or a diorama, but it’s very evocative of Bhutan.  The only problem was the odd shape, but that was no problem for Pelden and the saleswoman.  They took a hairdryer box and modified it to fit.

Woman weaving diorama

Once the doll was purchased, I didn’t have to visit another shop.  On my last night in Paro, I did go to a shop near my hotel to buy some postcards and t-shirts.  In between–well, there wasn’t much, but I did take some photos at a stall in the Thimphu market, primarily for the colors.

Table of Wares in Thimphu Market

Turquoise

Mask

One afternoon at my hotel in Punakha, after a large group of Japanese tourists moved in, a display of jewelry suddenly appeared in the lobby, but I avoided temptation.

A Turquoise and Coral Necklace

A Heshi-like Beaded Necklace

Remember my posting on Cusco’s market?  Well, in Bhutan I went to two markets–one in the city of Thimphu and another in a rural town.  The city market had a roof and stalls; at the rural market the vendors simply staked out a spot in the town’s central parking lot–just like at home.

One big difference between the market in Peru and the Thimphu market was potatoes versus rice.  There were numerous vendors selling several kinds of rice in Thimphu.

Rice Vendors

Rice came in several colors–mostly white and red.

White and Red Rice

I’m not sure what this was, but it certainly looked like cornflakes.

A Substitute for Cornflakes?

While the rice was typically being sold by the grower, those selling fruits and vegetables probably had to haul them in from India since it was February.   There was an amazing variety of vegetables.  Some were very familiar–

Broccoli

Cauliflower

Some vegetables were more unusual–

Mustard Greens

Sugar Cane

White Turnip

 and some I can only guess at what they were.

Peas?

There were some fruits for sale, but not many–except for bananas.

Bananas

 One could also buy incense–a type of juniper known locally as sang.  (I have no idea why the banana is there.)

Sang--incense twigs from a type of juniper

Now, let me tell you about chilies–in my next post. 

Western-style education was introduced into Bhutan in the 1960s when the third king placed an emphasis on improving the country’s literacy rate.  Forty years later, according to the CIA’s World Factbook, 47% of the country’s population age 15 and over can read and write.  But, although Bhutan boasts that there is no sex discrimination within its boundaries, the literacy rate for women is only 34% compared to 60% for men.  Since about 3/4 of the population live in rural areas and subsist on agriculture, attending school is not easy even at the primary level for many young children.  At the secondary level, most students have to board, making it a costly proposition for rural families who lack the funds and need the labor.

One way for girls in poor families to obtain an education is to join a nunnery.  In Thimphu, I visited the Zilukha Nunnery in the Drubthob Goemba.

Courtyard of Zilukha Nunnery

Unfortunately, as the picture indicates, I never saw a nun–just sleeping dogs and another tourist with a guide.  But, in looking around on the internet for information about this nunnery, I found some interesting “facts”.  The quotes are because there are a lot of discrepancies in the numbers I found.  According to the Bhutan Nuns’ Foundation,  there are 21 nunneries in Bhutan with about 1,000 nuns.  I found articles about girls as young as four and women as old as 80 joining a nunnery. 

According to the foundation website,

“Girls and women in Bhutan become nuns to seek a peaceful, selfless and spiritual life. They are inspired by the belief that as nuns they can contribute to the well being and happiness of all sentient beings through direct action or, at the very least, through their prayers. There are also those in the nunneries who have come purely for refuge from extreme poverty, overwhelming social challenges, loss of family and deprivation. Many have also joined and many more will continue to find their way into the nunneries in search of alternative education. While a few of them come from the middle class, the majority of them come from poor homes and receives no support of any kind from their families.

For most of Bhutan’s nuns, life is very harsh. Most nunneries are located in very remote areas.  They often lack clean water, electricity, bathrooms for sanitation, and adequate nutrition in their daily meals. If a nun becomes ill, she often must hike for three hours or more to reach the nearest health center. Basic living conditions usually are very poor.  Nuns often lack basic essentials, such as a dry room for sleeping and private places to study and perform daily meditation practice. The physical structures of many nunneries are seriously dilapidated and some are even structurally unsafe.

Unlike the monasteries for men and boys that are beneficiaries of state or private support, nunneries in Bhutan receive no government funding.”

The executive director of the Foundation is Tashi Zangmo, a young woman born in rural eastern Bhutan who managed to obtain a Ph.D. in education from the University of Massachusetts.

I also found a blog entry by someone who did manage to meet some young nuns at a nunnery outside of Paro.  It’s worth reading.

Assuming you’ve been paying attention, you probably have cursed  me for using unfamiliar terms.  So let me try to explain a few terms related to Buddhist structures.

A goemba is a monastery.  They typically were built in remote locations where monks could find peace and solitude.

A lhakhang is a temple, a place of worship.  It may be just a room (as in chapel)  or an entire building (like a cathedral with multiple chapels).  Monasteries and dzongs typically have one or more lhakhangs.

A stupa is a mound-like structure containing relics.  In Bhutan, most stupas are called chortens.

A chorten may be erected in memory of someone (and not contain a relic) or it may be built in some inauspicious place to ward off evil spirits.  In Bhutan, there are three basic styles of chortens: Nepali-style, a large classical stupa-shaped structure of whitewashed stone with Buddha eyes; Tibetan-style, a smaller structure where the rounded-part flares out instead of in like a dome; and Bhutanese-style, a square structure.

The National Memorial Chorten in Thimphu was built to honor the third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk who died in 1972, by his mother.  It contains no relics.  The king himself had initiated a project to put into tangible form the three traditional pillars of Buddhism: the Word, Body and Mind of Buddha.  He had the Commentaries of Buddha, the Tanjur, transcribed in letters of gold to represent the Word of Buddha and had 1,000 statues made to represent the Body of Buddha, but he died before completing the Mind of Buddha which was to be represented by a Chorten.  Thus, his mother completed his goal by erecting the chorten.

National Memorial Chorten

In the garden area between the gate and the chorten stands a Buddha in a small pavilion.

Buddha in Garden of National Memorial Chorten

Some years ago the fourth king decided that holding animals in captivity was not in keeping with Buddhist principles, so the gates of Thimphu’s tiny zoo were opened wide.  Bhutan’s national animal, a type of goat-antelope called the takin, preferred the city’s garbage cans over hunting for food in the wild (surprise, surprise), so they were reincarcerated.  A few reindeer and barking deer share their large, fenced enclosure on a wooden mountainside above the city.

Takin

Takin

 Want to see one in person?  Try the San Diego Zoo.

Barking Deer