It wasn’t my intention that there should be this long a gap between posts, but a long shoot came along, and work after all is work. Gotta make a living…
So I realized that I just about finished writing about the first day in Thimphu, and now so much time has transpired that I’m not sure I will remember all the details of the rest of the trip ☹
Day two began as lazily as usual. Throughout the trip, every single day I would resolve to make the most of the daylight hours, and that necessarily meant that we start the day early. But no matter how hard I tried, which in hindsight was not very hard, this remained a resolve. I like to pack a lot in a day when I am traveling, in an effort to collect as many experiences as I can, but the fact that I didn’t succeed this time around, says something about the laidback Bhutanese spirit, or perhaps the laidback spirit of my travel companion, or both.
At any rate, I gave in.
So we surfaced at nearly ten as usual, and made our way to the nearest travel agency, to figure out how we could make the most of our few days in Bhutan. From the material we had collected, we knew already that we wanted to go to two places for sure, the Taktshang monastery in Paro, and Bumthang, which was supposedly the ‘Switzerland’ of Bhutan. At this point I should mention the two crazy ideas that both Ramya and I had and were fairly excited about, but which we were soon to discard. We wanted to go hiking/ trekking, and spend a few days living in a monastery. The former was impossible because it was not the season, and for lack of time on our hands, and the latter because it is simply not allowed. So much for our spirit of adventure!
I should however clarify that Bhutan is supposedly an excellent trekking destination. Had we been there in the right season, and with time and money to spare, I’m sure we would have been spoilt for trekking options.
Anyhow, we landed up near the National Stupa, at a travel agency called Yangphel. The lady at the counter was most helpful, even though we made it clear from the start that we were not there to take one of their travel plans, but only needed some guidance. Hurrah for the friendly Bhutanese. There was a travel guide who chatted with us and gave us a lot of useful information. The most important discovery for us was that to visit the places that we intended to visit, we needed passes from two different departments, the applications for which were accepted only till noon. It was 11.30am. We hurried from Yamphel to the Tourism office, and filled up the forms for the road permit. Then we split and Ramya went to the hotel to put back our luggage (we had thought we would gather the information that we needed and split from Thimphu, so had checked out), while I went across to the Tourist Permit office for the individual permits for monastries and dzongs.
The Tourist Permit office was good long uphill walk away, and with every step I cursed myself for splitting duties the wrong way. I landed at the office out of breath and in a foul mood, but the friendliness of the chap there got me. Again! I wrote out an application. Even before I had finished, the man asked me a couple of questions and left the room, and returned ten minutes later with the permission letter. He then looked at my application, smiled and added a couple of more names by hand. Ofcourse I couldn’t understand a thing for the letter was in Bhutanese, but I got the impression I had permission to visit more places than I possibly could. He then showed me a book which was an internal documentation by the ministry, and which seemed interesting because it spoke about the history and culture of Bhutan. I flipped through it but realizing that I couldn’t possibly actually read it there, I asked him where I could pick up a copy. Next thing I knew I was walking back with the book tucked under my arm. By this time I was positively in love with the Bhutanese.
Lunch was at the Rice Bowl, another restaurant in the same building as our hotel. This was a recommendation too, but by one of the boys we met at the counter the first night when we had checked into Norling, who told us he was a waiter at rice bowl. We were experimental as usual with our choice of food, and most of it was interesting. A good meal can be such a mood elevator!
I spent some time checking out warm clothes while Ramya went to the Internet cafe. We had bought some in Guwahati, but not enough for a place like Bumthang. We were told it was probably snowing there.
I believe this was the day we went across to the Textile museum to kill time while we waited for the road permit. Its been a while now, and my memory is failing me about our day to day activities… needless to say I haven’t actually written an account of all this anywhere else, and I could kick myself for that!
The textile museum has samples of a lot of different kinds of textiles, most hand woven, from the 1600s to the present day. And ofcourse it talks in detail about the Bhutanese national dresses and how they are worn. There is also a demonstration room where people were busy hand knitting on small traditional wooden looms. I wonder if it can even be called a loom, it was just a wooden apparatus propped up by the women using their legs, while they sat on the floor. There seemed to be hundreds of threads stretched across and it seemed a miracle they were not all hopelessly entangled.
There was also a video room showing a short film about weaving, but the television had such a bad picture that we gave it a miss.
We collected our road pass a little after 3. With little time left before sundown, we decided our best bet was to visit someplace closeby. We chose to go to Changangkha temple. The taxi driver who drove us to the temple was friendly and seemed knowledgeable, so we took his number.
Described as one of the oldest temples in the Thimphu valley, it is dedicated to Avalokiteshwara, the Buddhist lord of compassion. The temple is on higher ground, and therefore offers beautiful views of the valley. We had to climb a flight of steps to reach the temple, and as in most Buddhist temples in Bhutan, the first thing we encountered was the prayer wheels.
Inside the temple compound were two small rooms filled with lit and unlit diyas. The main shrine was inside a bigger room on the other end of the courtyard. This temple, like a lot of others we visited in the days to come, had a side entrance. The main shrine is typically inside another room, or at the centre of one wall, and directly opposite this is a seat, with a low table in front, with some texts kept on it. This seat I assume must belong to the temple’s chief priest. The Bhutanese visiting the temple were bowing down in front of this seat too, just as they were in front of the deity. We never saw anyone actually seated on one of these, but these seats were in all temples. Perhaps they were used only on special occasions or during daily prayers, but we never had an opportunity to attend any. At any rate, it explains the side entrance. Photography was not allowed inside the temple, so there are no pictures of the inside.
The deities inside were beautiful as usual, and the temple colorful, with paintings on the walls, and the silk cloth hangings. These were made of metal though, unlike the Zangdopelri. Irrespective of the material used, the faces of the deities were always colored golden. In this case that wasn’t required, for they seemed to be made of a brass kind of material anyway. The Bhutanese have a peculiar practice, they offer just about anything in the temples. We were most amused to see packets of biscuits and chips lying as offerings. The other thing we found in this temple, and subsequently in all others were bowls full of water, typically five in number but sometimes more. Also to be found are little sculptural arrangements of lots of concentric circles, in white and pastel colours. More on this later, for after a few days, we ran into a monk making these. A peculiar thing about this particular temple was that I was not allowed to enter the shrine room. Apparently women are not allowed inside.
I did the customary turning of prayer wheels, and was marveling at the view of the valley, when Ramya disappeared down the steps. I followed soon after, only to realize that I had lost him. I went back up and found a path breaking away from the way to the temple, and leading to a small structure. From behind this structure I could hear voices and the sound of someone strumming a guitar. It was a pleasant enough tune, and I was curious to see who was playing it. It was a bunch of young boys, who promptly broke into ‘kuchh kuchh hota hai’ as soon as they saw me. One of them walked up and started apologizing for the rest. Ramya was there too, and after hanging around there for awhile, we made our way back. On the way, Ramya and I got chatting about the boys, and he asked me if I had noticed the cans of paint lying around, which indeed I had, and I had wondered what they were for. Apparently we had run into a bunch of junkies!
So I realized that I just about finished writing about the first day in Thimphu, and now so much time has transpired that I’m not sure I will remember all the details of the rest of the trip ☹
Day two began as lazily as usual. Throughout the trip, every single day I would resolve to make the most of the daylight hours, and that necessarily meant that we start the day early. But no matter how hard I tried, which in hindsight was not very hard, this remained a resolve. I like to pack a lot in a day when I am traveling, in an effort to collect as many experiences as I can, but the fact that I didn’t succeed this time around, says something about the laidback Bhutanese spirit, or perhaps the laidback spirit of my travel companion, or both.
At any rate, I gave in.
So we surfaced at nearly ten as usual, and made our way to the nearest travel agency, to figure out how we could make the most of our few days in Bhutan. From the material we had collected, we knew already that we wanted to go to two places for sure, the Taktshang monastery in Paro, and Bumthang, which was supposedly the ‘Switzerland’ of Bhutan. At this point I should mention the two crazy ideas that both Ramya and I had and were fairly excited about, but which we were soon to discard. We wanted to go hiking/ trekking, and spend a few days living in a monastery. The former was impossible because it was not the season, and for lack of time on our hands, and the latter because it is simply not allowed. So much for our spirit of adventure!
I should however clarify that Bhutan is supposedly an excellent trekking destination. Had we been there in the right season, and with time and money to spare, I’m sure we would have been spoilt for trekking options.
Anyhow, we landed up near the National Stupa, at a travel agency called Yangphel. The lady at the counter was most helpful, even though we made it clear from the start that we were not there to take one of their travel plans, but only needed some guidance. Hurrah for the friendly Bhutanese. There was a travel guide who chatted with us and gave us a lot of useful information. The most important discovery for us was that to visit the places that we intended to visit, we needed passes from two different departments, the applications for which were accepted only till noon. It was 11.30am. We hurried from Yamphel to the Tourism office, and filled up the forms for the road permit. Then we split and Ramya went to the hotel to put back our luggage (we had thought we would gather the information that we needed and split from Thimphu, so had checked out), while I went across to the Tourist Permit office for the individual permits for monastries and dzongs.
The Tourist Permit office was good long uphill walk away, and with every step I cursed myself for splitting duties the wrong way. I landed at the office out of breath and in a foul mood, but the friendliness of the chap there got me. Again! I wrote out an application. Even before I had finished, the man asked me a couple of questions and left the room, and returned ten minutes later with the permission letter. He then looked at my application, smiled and added a couple of more names by hand. Ofcourse I couldn’t understand a thing for the letter was in Bhutanese, but I got the impression I had permission to visit more places than I possibly could. He then showed me a book which was an internal documentation by the ministry, and which seemed interesting because it spoke about the history and culture of Bhutan. I flipped through it but realizing that I couldn’t possibly actually read it there, I asked him where I could pick up a copy. Next thing I knew I was walking back with the book tucked under my arm. By this time I was positively in love with the Bhutanese.
Lunch was at the Rice Bowl, another restaurant in the same building as our hotel. This was a recommendation too, but by one of the boys we met at the counter the first night when we had checked into Norling, who told us he was a waiter at rice bowl. We were experimental as usual with our choice of food, and most of it was interesting. A good meal can be such a mood elevator!
I spent some time checking out warm clothes while Ramya went to the Internet cafe. We had bought some in Guwahati, but not enough for a place like Bumthang. We were told it was probably snowing there.
I believe this was the day we went across to the Textile museum to kill time while we waited for the road permit. Its been a while now, and my memory is failing me about our day to day activities… needless to say I haven’t actually written an account of all this anywhere else, and I could kick myself for that!
The textile museum has samples of a lot of different kinds of textiles, most hand woven, from the 1600s to the present day. And ofcourse it talks in detail about the Bhutanese national dresses and how they are worn. There is also a demonstration room where people were busy hand knitting on small traditional wooden looms. I wonder if it can even be called a loom, it was just a wooden apparatus propped up by the women using their legs, while they sat on the floor. There seemed to be hundreds of threads stretched across and it seemed a miracle they were not all hopelessly entangled.
There was also a video room showing a short film about weaving, but the television had such a bad picture that we gave it a miss.
We collected our road pass a little after 3. With little time left before sundown, we decided our best bet was to visit someplace closeby. We chose to go to Changangkha temple. The taxi driver who drove us to the temple was friendly and seemed knowledgeable, so we took his number.
Described as one of the oldest temples in the Thimphu valley, it is dedicated to Avalokiteshwara, the Buddhist lord of compassion. The temple is on higher ground, and therefore offers beautiful views of the valley. We had to climb a flight of steps to reach the temple, and as in most Buddhist temples in Bhutan, the first thing we encountered was the prayer wheels.
Inside the temple compound were two small rooms filled with lit and unlit diyas. The main shrine was inside a bigger room on the other end of the courtyard. This temple, like a lot of others we visited in the days to come, had a side entrance. The main shrine is typically inside another room, or at the centre of one wall, and directly opposite this is a seat, with a low table in front, with some texts kept on it. This seat I assume must belong to the temple’s chief priest. The Bhutanese visiting the temple were bowing down in front of this seat too, just as they were in front of the deity. We never saw anyone actually seated on one of these, but these seats were in all temples. Perhaps they were used only on special occasions or during daily prayers, but we never had an opportunity to attend any. At any rate, it explains the side entrance. Photography was not allowed inside the temple, so there are no pictures of the inside.
The deities inside were beautiful as usual, and the temple colorful, with paintings on the walls, and the silk cloth hangings. These were made of metal though, unlike the Zangdopelri. Irrespective of the material used, the faces of the deities were always colored golden. In this case that wasn’t required, for they seemed to be made of a brass kind of material anyway. The Bhutanese have a peculiar practice, they offer just about anything in the temples. We were most amused to see packets of biscuits and chips lying as offerings. The other thing we found in this temple, and subsequently in all others were bowls full of water, typically five in number but sometimes more. Also to be found are little sculptural arrangements of lots of concentric circles, in white and pastel colours. More on this later, for after a few days, we ran into a monk making these. A peculiar thing about this particular temple was that I was not allowed to enter the shrine room. Apparently women are not allowed inside.
I did the customary turning of prayer wheels, and was marveling at the view of the valley, when Ramya disappeared down the steps. I followed soon after, only to realize that I had lost him. I went back up and found a path breaking away from the way to the temple, and leading to a small structure. From behind this structure I could hear voices and the sound of someone strumming a guitar. It was a pleasant enough tune, and I was curious to see who was playing it. It was a bunch of young boys, who promptly broke into ‘kuchh kuchh hota hai’ as soon as they saw me. One of them walked up and started apologizing for the rest. Ramya was there too, and after hanging around there for awhile, we made our way back. On the way, Ramya and I got chatting about the boys, and he asked me if I had noticed the cans of paint lying around, which indeed I had, and I had wondered what they were for. Apparently we had run into a bunch of junkies!
1 comment:
Post a Comment