DAY 9, MARCH 30, THIMPHU TO PUNAKHA

THIMPHU

We visited the library where they store
Their many treasured books of yore.
We were in the museum of textiles
And the arts and crafts school for a while.
In both were weavers sitting on the floor.


DOCHULA PASS

Of mountain roads this is the mother
With more curves than any other.
On the summit at ten thousand feet
We saw a hundred supras neat,
And Punakha proved worth the bother.


PUNAKHA DZONG

Our ride grew tedious and long
Er we visited the Punakha Dzong.
It sits along a river.
Its equal you'll see never.
Beautiful, big and old it is and strong.


We got under way at 9 PM, stopped at the post office and bank and proceeded to the Museum of Textiles. After viewing the introductory movie, we toured the display of magnificent costumes and items of ceremonial clothing. Then we got to watch two weavers at work. The experience gave an appreciation for the wonderful fabrics and clothing worn here, particularly on ceremonial occasions. The women almost always wear ankle-length skirts, regardless what they're doing. In rare instances you'll see them in slacks.

Next we visited the National Library. It is really a library museum for housing ancient – and I mean ancient – books. It also has some Buddhist religious items. So, some Bhutanese consider it a temple and sometimes therefore march round and round it. The library also contains a very modern item – the largest book in the world, a picture book of beautiful Bhutanese scenes with pages maybe five feet high and four feet wide. And the library contains a model of a temple or fortress. The library used to be more of an ordinary library for checking out books, but its purpose was converted to that of a museum. The ancient books are “different.” You can't inspect them, but there is a model to inspect. The sheets are not bound but stacked. The sheets are printed on both sides. They are narrow and long – perhaps four inches wide and eighteen long. The written lines go the long direction. Dorgi explained his names. They do not have family names. Dorgi is an “instrument” (hand-held symbol) of “tantric” power. Phub is the protector, a warrior.

Then we visited the School of Arts and Crafts. You can go in and watch and photograph the students at work. There tend to be many of them crowded together. There must be masters (teachers) around, but I only saw one of them. These students have to have finished tenth grade. This is a government school (free tuition). The students live on campus. There are two classroom buildings, one of them old and interesting for its construction – beams joined together without metal. Each students specializes in a particular craft. The crafts are woodcarving, sculpture, art (painting after sketching), clothing design (foot-powered sewing machines were evident), embroidery, and weaving. The program is six years for sculpture and art, and four years for the other crafts. Graduates find it easy to be employed, many setting up businesses of their own. Sculpture and art are based on copying traditional Buddhist figures. Such things as size, position, and angle can be changed, but the figure itself absolutely must not be changed. Changing it would be an insult to the figure and result in bad karma, bad luck. There are also two museum/gift shops on site.

It was about noon when we set out from Thimphu on our drive to Punakha. Thimphu is at 7,600 feet elevation. The summit is at about 10,000 feet. Punakha is in a valley at only slightly over 1,000 feet. This is indeed a mountain road. Steep, very winding. paved, barely two lanes, sharp drop-offs at the edges. (Fortunately, Karma is a very good driver.) Built circa 1950. Before that you had to walk, and the trip we took was a hard two-day hike with no cabins to lodge in along the way. Dorgi said it was a 70-KM drive. It seems to me it has to be more. Though the driving speed was necessarily slow and I didn't time our driving time carefully, it surely was more than two hours. Near the summit the pine trees were rather large and closely spaced, unlike I've seen before. There are poor farms with terraces and farming communities up in these hills, and it amazes me that anyone could eke out a meager living there. A popular product is apples and we stopped at a roadside apple stand. It was cloudy all day. At the summit, the clouds and fog prevented much of a view. It was cloudy-to-foggy was we started down. It's a longer ride down than up. We had lunch at Dochula Cafe, a large, new, and nice place almost on the summit. Helen took her dramamine pills, was alright going up, got somewhat carsick coming down but recovered quickly when we stopped to visit the fortress near Punakha. I enjoyed most of the ride but grew weary of it before it was over. Right on the summit there is a group of 108 small, identical stupas (chortens) (memorial structures) which are fairly new – circa 2004. They commemorate the loss of some 28 Bhutanese soldiers in a military action. It seems that some terrorists/rebels from an independence movement of an Indian state were hiding out in the Bhutanese mountains, causing some troubles, and refused to leave peacefully, had to be driven out.

It was a great relief to finally get to the toilet in the fortress even though the toilet (only the toilet) is filthy.

The enormous Punakha Dzong (fortress) is also called the Palace of Great Happiness. It was built in the 17th century and houses some 500 monks. It sits at the between the Po Chu and Mo Chu (male river and female river) at their confluence where they form the Punatchangchu (Punakha River). It is magnificent inside as well as out. (We took off our shoes and went inside the main building inside the Dzong.) Dorji gave us a nice tour with a lot of commentary. Monks can be as young as 5 or 6. When they reach about 20, many of them leave the monastic life and return to a “normal” life. Our driver, Karma, is a former monk. In the fortress monks are taught to read and write, but not in English, only in the native Bhutanese language.

It was about 5:30 when we arrived at our hotel. Dinner was at 6:30. After dinner, Dorji gave each of us who was interested a rundown on our astrology based on the year of our birth. It is very complicated and detailed with several factors. Dorji has a book listing all of it. Astrology is very important to the people of Bhutan and they take it very seriously.

The hotel where we are staying appears to be very new. It is small and isolated and beside the Punatshangchku River. (Punatshang means Punakha. Chku means river.) The hotel's name is Punatshangchku Cottages. And the address is Wangdue, Bhutan. There is no TV. Getting on the Internet is an impossibility. We're not in town, but the city of Punakha has about 20,000 citizens. Paro has about 26,000. Our room is large, clean, and cheery. It is cold in our room, which is only heated with a space heater (as was true in Thimphu also). I was tired and cold, couldn't get warmed up, went to bed with my clothing on including my jacket. I got up about 2:30 AM and started this writing. I'm on a bench in the roomy bathroom (with my jacket on) so I won't wake Helen by turning on the lights. Warm enough now. This is ironic because the climate is warm down in this valley.

The food we've had here, like elsewhere in Bhutan, is OK. Some of the dishes are too spicy for my liking. The breakfasts are great.

Bernie :-)