Hotelnet: Tue 23:20

Tuesday, 16 November, 2010 23:20

Currently at lat/long: n27 28.161 e89 38.391

Hotel Jumalhari, Thimphu, Bhutan.

23:20 (GMT+6). None of the iPhone, GPS or XP know anything about the time in Bhutan.

After the "colour" of India, Bhutan is serene. I don't knoww about it being the Last Shangri-La but it's a place I could chill out in (if I had USD200/day for as long as I was chilling).

When I finally made it over the border yesterday the guys explained that Paro, the stop for the night was 200km and a good 6 hour drive away. Cripes! The proposal was to have some lunch (ie. breakfast for me) and then head off. That sounded like a good idea but of course set us back to a 14:30 start. They arranged for me to leave the bike in the hotel basement and my helmet and gloves at reception. Unfortunately, they didn't mention that I'd be back there for my last night so I could have left boots, riding trousers, etc. there as well. Ho hum.

I had a chicken masala for lunch off the menu (they had the now usual Indian, Chinese and Continental offerings) but they threw in a bowl of (Bhutanese name escapes me) cheesy chillies which are, wait for it, chillies cooked in cheese. It sounds like some dreadful American invention but they claimed it was a traditional Bhutan dish and I have to say it is rather more-ish although you can very easily burn your tongue.

The road from Phuntsholling is a twisty mountain road and in an effort to speed things up they've dug up most of the existing single-track plus margin and are widening it to two lanes. In the meanwhile it is a dreadful road and I was rather glad I'd made the decision to relax in the back seat. The work is being done (largely by hand) by Indian labourers so I don't hold out much hope for the quality but it seems the Bhutanese are quite happy to turn their noses up at certain jobs.

They would have been more than happy for me to tag along behind on the bike, only the week before they'd had a party of 18 Dootch-persons rumbling along behind them (up this awful road). I guess they'd made a slightly earlier start than we did.

The reason for widening is that most of Bhutan's imports (which is most things) come up this road. I find it incredible that this is the case as the road is a shocker but it seems to be true. There was little truck traffic during daylight but it started to increase after dark, it seems the truckers prefer to see the cars headlights coming rather than face the sudden appearance round a corner.

That said, the driving here is much calmer with trucks actually pulling to the side when a faster vehicle appears behind them, people don't blare away on their horns like it's the only way to make the vehicle move. Apart from being shaken around it's like normal driving.

So we had a good old chin-wag on the way up the road. The Bhutanese don't get to choose their names. The local temple will do that, possibly via a lucky dip system where, whomever built the temple gets one of their two names in every child's name who is named there. So if Tshering Wangchuk (pronounced "Shering Wanchuk" and meaning "Long-life Super-power") built a temple, kids named there would be Tshering something or something Wangchuk. You don't get a choice in the matter of naming your child.

The first night at lat/long: n27 25.790 e89 23.979, Hotel Olathang, Paro was apparently created for guests to the coronation of the fourth king of the Wangchuk (no relation) dynasty. Very comfortable little Swiss chalets but a bit chilly on the bathroom tile floor! All the staff were staggering about feeling the cold -- about 10C at 8pm-ish when we pitched up.

That's possibly because almost everyone wears the national dress. For the men it is something like a baggy-at-the-waist kimono down to the knees (called a gho) with knee-length socks and (mostly) smart shoes. There must be a draught in there somewhere. The women wear something similar but ankle length. When it's warm the men will usually tie the top half around their waists much like you would tie a jumper around.

A new guide and driver for today (and the rest of the trip, I think).

Up to the Tiger's Nest a world famous (apparently) place in Paro. It is the location where, forgive me if I've not got any of the details right, the Lotus Born came to meditate in a cave to subdue the local demons. It seems very rare to kill demons unless they're particularly bad but rather you subdue them with the appropriate magic daggers and weapons and then convert them to Buddhism whereon they become protected... Anyway, the Lotus Born arrived riding on a tiger who made its nest in an adjacent cave and in fighting the demons took on many manifestations and preached in another cave to his consort.

So this is a very important place in the Bhutanese religion and people are expected to make a pilgrimage once in their lifetime. The cave was eventually covered by a monastery (which burnt down twice in the mid to late 20th Century thanks to the over abundance of butter candles). The cave/monastery is 500m above Paro and seems to be considerably more popular with tourists than pilgrims. That 500m takes a good two hours (my elite athlete status was shown up a couple of times -- though I like to think that I'd been in the plains the last few weeks and this was climbing starting at 2200m).

The temple now has lots of statues and idols of the Lotus Born in his many manifestations squishing bad people beneath his feet and getting jiggy with his consort (which didn't look very preachy to me). There was a lot more to this tale but as you might surmise, I haven't quite remembered it all.

However, the various manifestations crop up everywhere as it is most auspicious to have tigers, dragons, snow lions, naga headed demons etc. painted on your property's walls. In fact, one thing that can be said about Bhutanese property is that it is beautifully (hand) painted. The style is reminiscent of single tiered pagodas with the nominal ends of beams sticking out and the end-stops painted with flowers.

That took us through to a late lunch where I was dropped off at a restaurant and then presented with enough food to feed a family: a bowl of mulligatawny-type soup, a huge bowl of (Bhutanese) red rice, the dishes of food (chicken curry, aloo curry and some sweet/sour type dish), a bowl of cheesy chillies and a bread basket of what I finally realised were doughnut-type sweets but as though it had been a pitta-bread shaped cut into three. I put in an honest performance but it's no surprise that I didn't finish.

I staggered out and we went for a wander round Paro, Bhutan's second city, home to 40,000 people. Yup, not very big. Bhutan has about 700,000 people and so everything feels a little spread out. Again very relaxed and chilled out.

Off to the museum (same old, same old) and the local fortress or dzong ("zong"). In the museum I finally worked out that all the dzong were built in a 21 year period in the 17th century, in fact, the first was built, there was an eight year gap then the rest were built in 13 years. Around that time Bhutan was warring with Nepal. Anyway, the dzong have all been taken over in a combined role: monks use the main tower and part of the compound and administrative functions occur in the rest. Dress code is very strict, my guide has to wear the (white for commoners) scarf on his gho and I was barred until we'd retrieved a jacket from the car to cover my arms.

Then a twirl up the only decent bit of tarmac in Bhutan to Thimphu, the capital. Paro has the only airport as it has the only bit of flat land big enough for one and so you need a good bit of tarmac to whisk people to the capital. What land isn't near vertical is covered in terracing which grows rice/wheat and they grow oranges and apples etc..

Here, at the boutique hotel (very nice) I took a very slow wander up the main drag and back down again and was wondering what to do next after 40 minutes. I think there's more people here in Thimphu than the claimed 100,000, perhaps 200,000 but it's hardly big.

I am a bit lost as to what I'm meant to be able to ask for in the hotel. I know I can't order alcohol but I'm not sure what else is off the menu.

PS. No mobile connection. Top work, O2.