Ten Miles Behind Me, and Ten Thousand More to Go

The further east you move in Bhutan, the more, um, basic, the accommodations become. We only left Thimphu two days ago, but the hotel last night lacked internet, laundry services, a fridge, and the complimentary water that has been provided so far. Tonight's hotel continues this trend, with the hallways lacking any finish beyond concrete, and a padlock on the door. The room itself is basic but nice enough, with wooden walls that make it feel like being in a cottage back home or something like that. There is, however, a great view of the valley in which the town, Trongsa, is located.

To get here, we got up and going after what is becoming the typical breakfast: toast (with which, I am pleased to report, the hotel offered salted butter), eggs, tea, and cornflakes with hot milk. I know. Hot milk. It seemed pretty weird to me too, and I must admit, I was pretty worried the first time they told me they didn't have cold milk. When I asked for cold milk, the waiter just looked at me like I was crazy for wanting to eat something so ridiculous. My expression mirrored his. Reluctantly, I agreed to take the hot milk, and while it was certainly strange for someone who has lived for 20 years eating cereal with cold milk, it wasn't bad. It's kind of like eating oatmeal. But not.

Around 9:20 we hit the road for Trongsa. This was going to be nearly a full day of driving, and we were only going 200 kilometers. Back home that would have taken 2 hours (if that), but not in Bhutan. Since we were constantly going up mountains and down and around and on driving roads with potholes the size of baby cows, it took all day. I didn't mind though, because it was the best drive we've been on so far. I never get tired of coming over a crest and seeing mountains that go on forever and tiny clusters of houses and farms down below. It was raining in the morning, so there was heavy fog hanging everywhere. You know that scene in Star Wars Episode One where the Gungans ride out of the mist when they're going to do battle? Yeah, it was like that. Except that the things coming out of the fog were cars and huge dump trucks that only came into view about 30 feet from the front of the car.

At one point, we drove down into the part conservation area, part village of Gantey where black-necked cranes come in the winter. Obviously, being May, there were no cranes, but we got to see the village and the monastery there, which is the only Nyingmapa monastery in western Bhutan.





As I understand it, Nyingmapa is the sect of Buddhism that the people in eastern Bhutan follow. This major difference that Tashi pointed out to me between the two sects lies not in doctrine or scripture, but in the conduct of the monks. Under Nyingmapa, the monks are allowed to marry, are not required to wear the red robes that everyone relates to Buddhism, and they do not have to keep their hair buzzed short. I know that the monks in the picture do have short hair, and are wearing the red robes, but if they wished, they opt for a different style. They are given the option, and not forced either way.

As an interesting note, this valley also supposedly grows the best bamboo for arrow-making, so people from other parts of the country often come here to obtain the very best stalks.

Driving back out of the valley and onto the main road again, we continued on our way to Trongsa. About an hour and a half after getting back on this road, we had descended down low enough to be out of the fog, and it was here that I saw my first yak. It was just standing there on the side of the road, hanging out and eating grass. As you can see in the picture below, it wasn't exactly in the greatest position for picture-taking, but I tried. I couldn't let my first ever yak go by without taking a picture. I didn't want to get any closer than I was, because Tashi had told me that they're not as easygoing as cows, and are more wild. Unless they're used to your presence because you feed them or something like that, it's not a particularly good idea to approach a yak. You have been warned.



A few more hours after my run-in with the uncooperative yak, we reached Trongsa. Well, kind of. If you take reach to mean "got within view of," then we had reached it. Because it was on another mountain from the one we were on, we had to drive half an hour around to where the two mountains connected to get physically to the town.

Trongsa is like Minas Tirith: Bhutan Edition. It doesn't have a grid pattern of roads, or even a mess of jumbled roads that interconnect randomly like you find in a lot of places here. Due to the fact that it is built on a steeper mountain than most towns in Bhutan, it's mostly just one road that winds back and forth down the slope with buildings lining it where the slope permits. It's pretty cool.

At the bottom of the road is the local dzong as well as an archery range. Because of the tiered construction, you can see people sitting in their windows in the first two rows of buildings watching the archery matches below.

Once we had gotten settled in at the hotel, I decided to walk around a bit, and just about as soon as I stepped outside, I saw that there was a big crowd around the archery range. There was a match going on. I walked down to watch for a bit before dinner. Archery is a lively affair. There's lots of singing and chanting and cheering all the time. It makes for fun spectating. At first a lot of people turned around and stared at me, as they always do, but their interest soon turned back to the match, and some even shuffled over to make a spot for me.

Archery, like so many things in Bhutan, display the duality of its present society. The word anachronism comes to mind, and if I knew how to properly use it in a sentence, I would. The bows are the same competition-style bows you would find in North America, but everything else about the sport looks just as it likely did 100 years ago, or even 500 years ago. It's very cool.