Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Toyota van and Ugen are waiting for me at the Phuntsho Peltri door at 9.30 sharp. I have been reading up on the various sight possibilities and have made my choices. Now I suggest, that since he knows the topography better, he can do them in the order he wishes. 'Yes,' he says, leaving me to wonder how much he understood. We stop first at the National Textile Museum, which has an excellent video presentation, and which includes detailed information of the construction of the 'kira' and the 'gho', much more voluminous and complicated than I initially thought. The costumes on displays are impressive, especially their colorcombinations, magnificent hats, and masks.
Then we are off to the School of Painting where we encounter various schoolrooms filled with indigo-uniformed young people - high-school age, I imagine - doing woodwork, painting and embroidery. Their building levels are separated by the impossibly steep stairs I have found all over so far. I know there was a tradition in the monestaries to make retractable stairs to keep out the enemy, but did they have to keep on doing this? - I wonder as I climb yet another set. When I get to the embroidery class at the very top, I chat with two girls working on a fabulous tiger on red silk. I take their picture, and it is only after several tries that I can get one of them to smile. The bolder one writes down her name in a beautiful hand and asks me to send two pictures each of them - which of course I'll do - Deki Yangzom and Kinzang Dema.
Next stop is the nearby Heritage Museum, a small house set at the end of a garden, the front part of which is in construction. I notice the unusual sight of a woman in the middle of a ditch, shoveling out loosened earth, while a guy is leaning on a red machine, waiting for her to finish. Once inside the museum grounds a young woman guide attaches herself to me and explains about the artifacts, which depict life in a traditional rural home - again those stairs. In the little shop I find a used copy of Jamie Zeppa's book about her year in Bhutan, 'Beyond the Sky and the Earth', and also a wooden penis, without which I feel I cannot leave Bhutan. When I leave, the man is working in the ditch and the woman is taking a breather sitting in a car.
Our final sight this morning is the zoo, where only Takin - Bhutan's national animal, said to be created by the Divine Madman by sticking the head of a goat on the body of a cow - are kept. They look more like short-legged hairy elks with low self-esteem to me, but are nonetheless vey cute and I bypass a very loud and excited Dutch/Chinese group of recently arrived tourists, who have spotted a couple of Takin behind a very strong and tall green fence, and walk the entire circumference of the enclosure set in a quiet and fragrant pine wood, where I get to see a baby takin with its mom and also a baby deer wanting to GET OUT. While I am walking I suddenly find myself walking through someone's house - a construction built leaning on the fence, complete with dog - but I talk to it soothingly and it leaves me alone. Then Ugen picks me up and drops me off at the hotel for lunch and a rest, but not before noticing some splendid new buildings going up to eventually house ministers and their families, right now edged by the most pitiful houses made of corrugated iron.
He's back at 2.30pm with the rest of the program. We cross the river admiring the Changlimithan Stadium & Archery ground, which also comprises a huge soccer field - the Maracanã of Thimpu - on our way to the paper factory on the opposite hill. When we enter the shady room replete with several vats filled with papermaking sludge, the air makes my eyes sting. We watch the papermaking process and then a group of women working with some scraps, never sure of what excatly they are doing. The tour ends with the shop, which holds wonderful examples of hand-made paper, most of them unsuitable for a suitcase. I find a souvenir store nearby with very high quality - and also very highly prized articles - where the owner explains he works with his brother and that both studied their crafts for 7 years. Our tour finished with a trip to the National Library, where we step over betel splattered cement to get to the ornate front door. A single lady greets me at the entrance and basically lets me roam the 3 floors alone - those steep stairs again - and the only other people I see in these rooms filled with elaborate Buddhist scriptures encases in wooden and colorfully ribboned cases, are two young women secluded in an office on the second floor.
When Ugen drops me at my hotel I still have time to take a little walk. My hotel is parallel to the main street and when I ask for directions ('turn left outside and then left down the first lane') I get it wrong and turn down a cul-de -sac, where I am surprised by finding half a skinned and bloodied animal (cow, goat?) lying on top of a wall. I quickly backtrack and find the right alley which is lined by a vegetable market. With my 'carioca' sensitivity (= from Rio) I am reluctant to explore the dirty little shopping galleries, but when I do I discover a mecca of American sportswear at incredibly low prices, which makes me realize how much easier it would have been to buy everything here, in addition to other clothes. I finish my little walk with a excellent coffee and a dry little cake at the nearby landmark Swiss café, where I listen to people chatting in German and wonder what to do with an anooying headache, which doesn't seem to want to leave.
Pictures here:
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