Today Ugen has to go get the trekkers. He has a long ride ahead of him, passing the Dochu La pass twice. I will be left on my own to explore the city on foot. I have another breakfast-for-one, at the table indicated for the solitary traveler. Being a vegetarian in this country gives you a special status. Word of it quickly spreads to the rest of the staff and they murmur to me, as I serve myself, that this dish is OK, but that is not. Buddhists like to live in harmony with nature, and being vegetarian is definitely a plus. My breakfast today is a curious mix of oatmeal porridge, cornflakes, warmed peanuts with shells that must have soaked overnight, and honey. Canned juice and coffee. Some mornings I have eggs of some sort with toast, but I am really sick of the white bread and long for some grains. There is a young slender waitress I particularly like, and today I stop her to ask about local skin issues. Why are some ladies (and most children) so white-skinned, and why does no one wear a hat? Why doesn't anybody seem concerned to have their skin prematurely age them, which is visibly the case for most people I see? The sun in this thin air is brutal and I, who wear protection 60 and a hat that doesn't let a single sun ray come through, have to use a chapstick all the time. She replies, it is not the custom to wear a hat and that the ladies of the white skin never go out. Possibly in the moonlight only. She however, expresses concern about some freckles on her own nearly unblemished skin, which appeared when she was a student in windy Bumthang. She has been trying to use a special cream, but is afraid to use 'the acid', which a friend of hers used with appalling results. Her English is not really very clear, but I am nonetheless fascinated and share that I too am afraid of using 'the acid', so common in Brazil.
It's a beautiful sunny day and I can see the snowcapped mountains at the end of the main street, the Norzin Lam. I leave the hotel and figure out how to change money fairly painlessly with another beautiful and slender young woman at the Bank of Bhutan. The ornate building in no way reflects the order within (there is little) and outside is a frightening traffic jam reminicent of people leaving a soccer game. I have been plagued with a migraine since I came (only now I realize, due to the altitude, since I stopped taking the Diomax, when I did not go on the trek) and find a little shop that sells soothing Tiger Balm in pretty boxes. With money in my pocket my main purpose is to buy presents and to use my eyes. I dash into supermarkets and enter each and every little shopping gallery, where in many places I now have friends, like Dawa Choden, in whose shop cluttered with carboard boxes filled with bargains on the floor and the walls hung with all kinds of clothes including North Face, I buy ridiculuously cheap fleece jackets and admire her baby sleeping on a heap of something. As we chat I notice again the Bhutanese position of rest - they squat easily, bottom almost touching the floor and their knees high in the air. You find them like that all over.Different from Hindus (I think) who like to sit with their legs crossed under them - even in a chair.
Having tired of the (free) buffet lunch at the hotel, I plan to find the recommened Art Cafe, where I have a cheese panini with fries, longingly look at the salad, which I don't eat, and have an interesting conversation with a woman from NYC, who spends half her time in Bali. She informs me she stayed on at the Monks' festival in Paro and that the king appeared on the last day. I ask whether he is as good looking as in his photos. 'He's gorgeous!', she says with conviction. After some more walking around I return to the cafe to have an expresso, my first in Bhutan. It turns out the machine is brand new and the manager offers to make me one for free, so that she can test it, and I can express my opinion. (I also eat a fabulous nut cake....). The expresso turns out to be a delicious capucchino and when we chat I mention my regrets about the salad. 'Oh what a pity,' she says, ' people come from all over to eat my salad. I wash everything with chlorinated water.' Shucks.
When I begin to think about retuning to my hotel - I had thought I would rest - there's a call on my cell and it is Tshering announcing that my friends are back. I hurry home and we have a fun evening sharing our experiences. My cold is almost gone and I am feeling energetic again, but now Ole has a really bad one.
Here are a couple of pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/schateaubriand/WalkingAroundInThimphu?feat=directlink
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