The Journey Home

We know it will be a long process getting home. Pick up from the hotel to get to the airport hours before our flight. Then we go to Delhi and have an 11 hour layover, long enough to visit Sybil who should be getting discharged tomorrow. 

Sybil feeling better, Frank trying to keep his cold away

Then a 7 hour flight to Frankfurt, another layover and an 11 hour flight home. We start the process now, packing our bags and checking things twice. Susan and I still have colds and we are both just exhausted and wish like Dorothy we could just click our heals together and travel by saying ‘I wish I could go home, instead we’ll use Lufthansa. 

We pack our acquisitions; prayer flags, incense, bronze statues of Ganesha, books, incense burners, and a particularly nice bronze statue of Agni (fire) Tara, a goddess of compassion to guard over our home.

Agni Tera Goddess for our home

 Many pictures and even more memories. We hope we have had a positive impact on those we have met. We know we have taken in more than we realize and look forward to remembering these experiences.  We will be reflecting for a long time. Already we have a new understanding and appreciation of our everyday life.  

Home Sweet Home

Our friend Bob Berger is at the airport to pick us up.  What a gift to see a familiar face and not have to deal with transportation.  Now we face the 13 hour time adjustment and getting over our colds..  

Kathmandu Free Day

This is our second day in Kathmandu.  Sybil had some baby cloths from a friend of hers for her family in Nepal.  Since she was unable to deliver them she asked us to do that for her. We called the family and the son Shiva  came to our hotel last night to collect them. Even better he was requesting that we have lunch with the family tomorrow. We agreed and he came by taxi to pick us up at 11 AM as arranged. He had said they were only 25 minutes away by taxi but that was not to be the case today. On our way to the house we encounter street barricades and protestors, one with a nasty sickle (any idea which political party they support?) blocking the road. There are protests because the propane price has been raised from 1600RS to 2100RS in one day. The protests are intentionally random and as one is broken up by the police/army another goes off elsewhere. So we go on a detour route through narrow streets with 90 degree turns. We get close enough to the house that we can walk the rest of the way. We meet the family and they are gracious and welcoming. They live in a beautiful multi story home with an asian influence which houses the extended family. Utilities are limited, they have no electric power from 12 to 19 hours a day and piped water only a few hours a week. The rest of the time they buy water from delivery trucks. Shiva’s mother and sister in law serve us local food and it is excellent. While only Shiva speaks English (studied in Manchester, UK) we communicate well with each other. They have a community surrounding them. Their doors are open and neighbors drop by to ask us where we are from and how long we are staying.  Shiva said these are the standard Hindi questions.

smoke from burning tire barricades

From the balcony we see traffic stopped in the streets and in another direction smoke rises from burning tires used to block the streets. Most of the city seems unconcerned about the protests and road closures, just a part of life here.

Shopping with Shiva

After lunch we go shopping with Shiva in the tourist/hippie area of Kathmandu. We are able to find the last items on our shopping list. It is great fun and we felt we had made a new friend. We part from Shiva who invited us for dinner and a night on the town.  We reluctantly declined, time to pack for the trip home.

Nepal

Mandatory picture of Mt Everest/Annapurna

To me this is a Dr. Seuss kind of place, full of its own contradictions. Some major streets that are so narrow they cannot take two cars side by side below visions of the biggest mountains in the world. Quirky electric, charming people, poor people presenting their best face. Nepal, like India is 80% Hindu but the other 10% is Buddhist, while in India they are only 1%. And because of this makeup and the lower density it is a calmer place. And its in the mountains. We were blessed with a clear day coming in and could clearly see Annapurna (Mt. Everest). Also 8 of the 10 highest peaks in the world are here. But here in the Kathmandu valley it is warm enough to need air conditioning. We have seen remarkable electrical wiring in Viet Nam and India but here the lines drag down near the ground and you have to walk around them. I understand that in some poor countries 15%+ of the electricity is stolen. I wondered how this could be, just follow the line. That would take serious determination here and just as a tap is located and removed, 100 feet behind you another would being put in place. We are staying in the high end part of town, line of sight to the former Kings Palace (now a museum after the Maoist revolution). The street is sort of their Rodeo Drive, but even though there isn’t an obvious system wide power failure each shop has a small generator chugging away. Nobody notices.

Generators

 

 The Maoist are in charge and doing some very capitalist things like removing squatters. Over the last 50+ years people extended their homes into the street area until most roads were barely two cars wide. These were the major roads. So now the government is pushing back and removing the structures to restore road width and improve sewers. This means that major parts of town are now only one lane as the deconstruction process continues. The main road to the airport was one of these.  At one point our driver had to drive over a pile of dirt to proceed. Hope they get this done before the rainy season.

Building deconstruction/road widening

Nepal is proving to be an unexpectedly fascinating place. It is dirt poor, poorer than India, a working person may make $300 a month. Yet the place is vibrant. Everyone is on their cell phone hustling for a living. The ancient is mixed into contemporary life. While the Indian Moguls sacked the town they could not hold the country so it has a history of not being conquered.

Exploring Kathmandu

We are about to learn a lot about the history here. We visit the  Swayambhunath temple which has been used continuously for 2,500 years. We see the famous stupa with painted eyes on all four sides, to see everything, like the all seeing eye. The temple is about as old as Buddhism itself.

The eyes have it

We visit Durbar Square, a complex of palaces, courtyards and temples built from the 1200s, seat of the ancient kings.

Amazing palace, one of three in the city

We have lunch at a roof top restaurant overlooking the square. On to Pashupatinath temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, one of the most sacred Hindu shrines in the world. Non-Hindus are not allowed inside the walls but we see the temple roof gilded in gold and observe ritual cremations in process on the river that leads to the Ganges.

outside pillars

inside pillars

The final part of the days explorations focuses on the Tibetan area of the city.  This area always had a Tibetan population from medieval trading days but after 1959 about 100,000 Tibetans fled Tibet  and settled there. They had no source of income so the king allowed them to sell thankas and religious paintings. Previously it was illegal to sell any such items in the country whether antique or new. This has resulted in an artistic community and art schools producing prodigious amounts of sacred paintings many of which would look great in our home. The community continues to perform their ancient rites, hundreds are circumambulating the stupa, spinning prayer wheels, chanting, burning incense. A number of the monks are western and languages from around the world are heard. We sit in an espresso bar watching monks check the internet with their ipods. 

Tigers Nest

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paro_Taktsang

800 steps

I can’t believe this isn’t on the 7 Wonders of the World list. Seriously, an imposing fortress/monastery impossibly placed high on the side of a mountain looking over the valley. Visible yet inaccessible without determination and physical fitness. The access trail has 3,000ft elevation gain but the base is 7,000ft so altitude issues start at the base. After three hours of hiking upward one reaches an access area several hundred feet across a chasm so close it feels like you could reach out and touch the monastery. But no, you then have to go down 400 steps and up 400 steeps to reach the monastery and inside one has to climb three flights of stairs between buildings. And reverse the process. Because we have been fighting colds and inconsistent sleep this is just too much. Susan presses on and explores the incredible place but my heart goes into a-fib and I decide to skip the 800 step part and stare at the promised land I cannot enter. 

Meditating 

I take some extra meds, sit and meditate and slowly head down the mountain. A couple hours later Susan catches up with me at the tea stop half way up the mountain. Itself a sacred place, no meat served. The local dogs must be vegetarians. Susan gets to share about the monastery. 

 Her story: The legend of Tiger’s Nest is incredible.  With the Golden Temple in Amiritsar and the Punakha Dzong this is the third time on this spiritual journey I am moved to tears. This ancient place, hundreds of years of an unbroken chain of rituals, a place where the mythical vibrates into life. We have a very spiritual guide who has lead us to several important sites in Bhutan and this is the culmination.  One can feel his belief uncluttered by modern skepticism. I enter this world by adding prayer flags asking divine blessings for our journey.

Prayer Flags for our journey

  The monastery is built over the cave that monks have meditated in for centuries.  The three temple rooms are lit with butter lamps and all the walls are painted with scenes from the story of the great events that have taken place there. The guide opened a door in the floor to show me the cave below.  He took me up the stairway to the tiger’s nest, a small door to another part of the cave.  You can see in his face the reverence that he holds for this site.  I could not wait to share what I saw with Frank, but there were 800 steps to go and I was exhausted already.  The sweetest sound was hearing his voice coming from somewhere down the trail.  We had a lunch at the Tea House and struggled down the trail exhausted but inspired.

Punakha

Our destination today is the Punakha a valley/town/Dzong a grueling 3 hour drive from Thimphu. We start early and head over Dochula pass, a 10,000 foot pass. We are blessed with a clear morning so we can see the eastern Himalayas, snow capped in the distance. Over them lies Tibet and China.

Top of the pass, top of the world

 In Tibetian/Bhutanese tradition the top of passes and other windy places are covered with prayer flags. We stop and add one with our intentions for the good health of my sister Sybil. 

Prayer flags for Sybil

We learn that one always circumnavigates chorten (stupas) clockwise. The pass is decorated with several large beautiful ones. 

chorten

 

The Punakha Dzong is historically and artistically important . But even better we get to really experience the Bhutanese Buddhist spiritual life directly. The Dzong is both the temporal and spiritual headquarters for each of the 20 districts that make up Bhutan. 

Dzong

 

Chief Abbott residence

The internal space is actually split in half one half religious and one half government. They were also fortresses in times of war. These are old buildings usually built in the mid 1600’s. Entering one is a space/time/cultural warp, they carry on legal and religious practices little changed from even before the 1600’s. This Dzong also contains a school for young monks in training. 

monks in training

The many internal buildings are profusely decorated. Walls are painted with the Buddhist images and messages. We are invited view the inner sanctuary before services start, no pictures allowed. 

monks before prayer call

Then, accompanied by the primal sounds of  Himalayan long horns the Chief Abbot calls the monks to prayer. There are rows of seated monks chanting and playing drums synchronized by a lead Lama. We have witnessed displays of Tibetan and other religious music in concerts but they were still entertainment. This was the real thing, heart-felt and timeless. As we slowly take our leave the chants follow us in the outer area and internally as well.

Nearby is another monastery , founded by Chime Lhakah. 

entrance to temple of Lama Lhakah

This commemorates a particular Lama who followed a path of ‘crazy wisdom’, kind of hard to describe, he didn’t follow the customs, he drank and had a lot of sex but was considered very psychologically and spiritually powerful that he was celebrated by the people, maybe something like King David?

Exploring Thimphu

Our first day on the tour covers a lot of the cultural and religious history and current practices in Bhutan. We start with a drive up to a high viewing point

The Metropolis of Thimphu

 for the city and entire valley. Prayer flags are hung on the trees near the passes.

Prayer Flags

 Important building like the Dzong (fortress) are visible as is a new large Buddha statue, the largest in Bhutan, the gift of Korean and other friends.

New Buddha Statue

 The older buildings date to the 1600s. Several of the temples we visit go back to the 1200s. Our guide is very religious and is teaching us many things about local Buddhism. He invites to visit the temples and chant mantras (Om Mane Padme Hum) as we circumambulate the chorten (stupas). We go to the local mini zoo to see the national animal the Takin.

Takin In Action

 The name of the zoo (Changangkha Lhakhang Motithang) is longer than the list of animals there. We visit a heritage museum with a traditional agricultural house. Like all primitive houses it is well, primitive. Life was hard and not much provision for heat in the winter. Our guide asked us if we wanted to have a traditional lunch. Our guide and driver joined us and ate huge amounts of rice.  The guide remarked that they eat more rice in a day then we eat in a week.  We liked all the dishes.  After the handicraft museum we called it a day because Susan has a cold and we are also adjusting to the altitude of 7000 ft.

The ArrivalHere At Last

Here At Last

There was a cold drizzle when we arrived in Paradise, who knew the Himalayas would be cold in winter? In contrast to the flatlands of Kolkata we are wrapped up in mountains. At first it is hard to see them through the mist but as the mists lift it is clear we are in a different world. There is a large billboard celebrating the big royal wedding last year, didn’t we all watch it on CNN? I mean the Royal wedding of the King of Bhutan, of course.

Royal Event

 We meet our guide and drive the hour from the airport at Paro to Thimphu the capital. It is growing fast, now 120,000 population.  When Aaron visited here nearly 20 years ago it was much smaller. Building is going on everywhere you look, but at a controlled rate and all buildings must reflect a national style of architecture.  Our guide and all government officials wear the national dress which is charming with the ‘world‘s biggest pocket’ in the front. Our guide points out ancient bridges and the architectural difference between Nepalese, Tibetan and Bhutanese designs. All of these countries have interacted over long periods of history. The current type of Buddhism which is the national religion came from a Tibetan origin although there are other forms practiced in Bhutan as well. All the buildings are decorated with colorful images. We have lunch and have our first experience with the local food which has the reputation of being the hottest in the world. It is really hot although I have fried my tongue as well with some Indian and Thai food. It looks like hot chilies are used all the time in all the meals and while I like spicy food I will look for milder things to balance out the fire.

Unlike the bustle of Indian cities life has a more moderate pace in Thimphu. People are polite, traffic actually stops when someone is in a crosswalk, there are greatly lesser amounts of litter and there are no traffic lights in the entire country. One traffic policeman controlling traffic in the main downtown intersection is sufficient. One thing we have read about and are not looking forward to is the noise of barking dogs at night. All day the dogs seem to sleep or roam around looking for food and not causing any problems. But at night they all compete for territory.

There is a terrific book about contemporary Bhutan called “Radio Shangra La”. The writer came to help set up the radio station in Bhutan. She recounts being in a nice hotel with two layers of clothing on under the covers in bed and not wanting to get up in the night. We understand that now as our hotel seems to be modern but there are air gaps around the windows, the central sitting area has outdoor type space heaters and each room has one electric heater on the wall which is only on when someone is in the room. But we are blessed to be here.  

I Could Barely See The Target

We walk past their central park and locals are participating in their national sport--archery. They are shooting and hitting a target so far away I can hardly see it. And they walk up and down along the shooting range trusting the skills of their citizens. They would need to clear the park if I were shooting.