Bhutan 3

I just tried to post some photos but it didn't work. I think that the connection is just too slow for it and it's giving up half way through. I did get a chance to scroll through my photos though, and there are some good ones, so hopefully I'll find a way to share them before too long.

Here's the next installment of my adventures in Bhutan. The following are my impressions of various aspects of the trip. They are Heidi's musings on:

Trek Organization: As I'm sure you've all gathered, this trip was a bit of a dog's breakfast. The company that I booked through in Canada is the same one that I used when I went to Nepal. They were stellar for the Nepal trek, but they really messed this one up. To be fair, much of the problem lay with the Bhutanese sub-contractors, but the Canadian company could have done a lot more to ensure our safety and enjoyment of the trek. We had poor equipment, poor leadership and no recourse once we were in Bhutan. We'll definitely be following this up with them.

Food: I was pleasantly surprised when I first got to Bhutan as the food was better than I expected. However, after leaving town and eating the same thing every day for 4 weeks, my enthusiasm waned. Meat is hard to come by and of very poor quality. In order to avoid the avian flu, they have basically eliminated chicken, and therefore eggs, from the country. On the trek our breakfast consisted of chipatis and cheese slices (you know the ones that are made of an edible oil product and don't need to be refrigerated?). Twice we got porridge but it was as thin as water - couldn't really locate any oatmeal in it. This isn't exactly stick-top-the-ribs kind of stuff. Lunch usually consisted of spaghetti noodles and every 5th day or so we got some ketchup to put on them. We also had the same vegetables that we had at every meal: beets, turnips, radishes, onions - basically anything that grows underground and keeps well. We got some tough beef or pork hanging onto its gristle, and a couple of times some fish in a sauce. Dinner was essentially the same. Bob eventually asked for some plain boiled potatos which were a great hit with most of us, so they began to cook them for every meal. I lived on them and pretty much nothing else for about two weeks. In his defense, Atchula could make the best french fries in the world, but unfortunately he only did this 2 or 3 times. When we ran into other trekking groups, we drooled over their food.

Kinley (guide) and Atchula (cook): What a pair. As mentioned in my last post, Kinley had the intellect of an 8-year-old. His English was poor and his communication skills worse. We very rarely knew what he was talking about. This was one of his best traits. Others included a tendancy to lie or to make up answers to questions, a spinelessness that was terrifying given than our life was in his hands, and a total lack of knowledge of the trek we were doing. One of the reasons that I pay so much money to do these treks is that there is a real comfort in being met at the airport and then not having to worry about anything else. In this case, not only did we, as a group, have to look after ourselves, we also had to look after our guide and our staff. Kinley had no concept of where we were in relation to where we had to go, or what needed to be done to get us there. Here is a sample conversation from our trip east:

Kinley: What time would you like to get up in the morning for our drive to Thimpu?
Us: How long will the drive take us?
Kinley: 3 hours
Us: Okay, it took us 8 hours over the last 2 days to travel 3/4 of the distance that we have to travel tomorrow, so let's assume that it will take 10 hours. We'll have breakfast at 7:00 and plan to leave at 7:30.
Kinley: How about breakfast at 7:30?
Us: Okay.
Kinley: I think it would be better if we had breakfast at 7:00.

I really can't describe this guy's incompetance. It was really frightening that we were so dependant on him on the trek and that his company thought that he was fit to lead us. When we were trying to determine whether we should abort the trek or not, he actually broke down in tears.

Our only saving grace was Atchula, the cook, who had hiked the trail about 10 times and seemed to know what he was doing, and more importanly, where he was at any given moment. Unfortunately, Atchula confessed to us on day 2 that he was unable to walk without a beer in his hand. He therefore drank all day on the trail and ended his day with a joint or two. I can't really say that this affected his job (although you'll note what I thought about the food), but it was somewhat disturbing that the only guy who could get us out of the mountains in an emergency was wrecked all the time.

Wildlife: The main wildlife in Bhutan is dogs. It's incredible how many strays are in this country - more dogs than humans I suspect. (As Bhuddists, Bhutanese will not kill any living creature.) The dogs followed us on the trail and were everywhere in the city. They slept all day so that they would have the energy to bark incessantly all night. Sure loved those dogs...

Scenery: This is a stunning country, no doubt about it. I think Lunana would have been really stellar if we had made it there. Even so, I have no complaints about the views - it was all very spectacular.

Religion: I was quite surprised to find a much smaller religious presence than I had expected. While there were a few dzongs inhabited by monks along the trail, we really didn't see much evidence of Bhuddism at all. In both Tibet and Nepal, there are chortens and mani-walls everywhere and even prayer wheels in the middle of nowhere. Not so the case with Bhutan. There also wasn't that general feeling of spiritual well-being that was so evident in Tibet. Having said that, once we were off the trek and spending more time in villages, we saw more evidence of Bhuddism. We made a concerted effort to visit monasteries and other religious sites, but we really had to go looking for religion to find it.

Smoking: Bhutan is the only country in the world to ban smoking. It's a wonderful thing. Unfortunately, everyone in the country smokes. There's a pretty healthy smuggling route for cigarettes into Tibet and India.

Roads: Bhutan has a major east-west highway that keeps the country connected. It's kind of like our Transcanada highway but it looks more like the bicycle path along the western parkway. In some places they have optimistically painted a line in the middle of the road, but there is no question that it is not two lanes wide. The Lonely Planet guide book says that there is a turn in the road every 17 seconds. I would suggest that the steering wheel of our car was never straight in over 10 hours of driving. There is one valley that we passed through in the east which is noted in guidebooks as being the home to the only straight, flat stretch of highway. This stretch of road is about 500 meters long. The rest of the road winds in and out of valleys and along mountain sides. Most often there is a cliff up on one side of the car and drop on the other. We averaged under 40 kms per hour as we crossed the country. I have to give kudos to our driver, Dawa, who was excellent and always made us feel safe, even when being passed by huge trucks, or having to wait while roadwork was being carried out (often blasting!).

Bhutanese people: This is a bit of a mixed bag. Kinley and his boss obviously left a bad taste in my mouth, but you can't judge an entire population by one or two bad apples. Barbarians aside, we were generally met with great hospitality and warmth. Toni and I met some wonderful people on our trip east and they really made the trip special for us. The kids are great and anxious to practice their English, which they all learn in school. They have discovered digital photography, so they all stop you to ask to have their photos taken. They love looking at their pictures in the display of the camera. This is also secretly true of most adults, although they don't usually won't ask you to take their picture.

Society: There is no homelessness or hunger in Bhutan. The king is awesome and the people are looked after. How can you not love a country like that?

Night Life: I can't say that I got out that much. However, one night in Thimpu, Toni was going to bed and I decided to check out a little bar that I had heard about from a UN worker we had met at dinner. I went in and ordered a beer at the bar. There were no seats available, so I hovered over a bunch of Bhutanese guys playing a dice game at the bar. In time, I joined right into their circle. A couple of them had been to America and spoke excellent English. I ended up staying there for several hours chatting and laughing and enjoying their dice game. They music got louder and the bar busier as the night when on. They professed to a love for Bob Dylan and had the Travelling Willburys blaring full blast on the CD player. A song came on that was very country and western-sounding (turns out it was still the TWs) and they all started singing along at the top of their lungs. I found this to be quite a surreal situation: sitting in a tiny bar in Bhutan with a bunch of guys playing a dice game and singing country and western music at the top of their lungs. I looked around and said "Where am I?" because it was just so strange. One of the guys answered "Kapuskasing". I asked him to repeat it, so he did. I said "How do you know where Kapuskasing is?". He then made reference to Huntsville, Nipising, Moosonee and Antigonish. After some questioning, he said he had spent a lot of time in Ontario and that he had a 13-year-old son in Toronto. I asked him if his wife's name was Jamie Zeppa and he said yes. Of course I quizzed him and tried to catch him out, but he appeared to be the real thing. So my surreal situation just got weirder: I was now sitting in a tiny bar in Bhutan with a bunch of guys (one of which was Jamie Zeppa's husband) playing a dice game and singing country and western at the top of their lungs. It was a very cool evening.

(For those of you who don't know, Jamie Zeppa is a woman from Sault Ste. Marie who went to Bhutan about 15 years ago to teach primary school in a small village. She later taught in a college, married one of her students and had a son with him. She wrote a book about this part of her life which everyone who plans to go to Bhutan reads at some point. )

My travelling companions and me: I have found that moments of clarity often arrive not during the events that trigger them but rather in an airplane seat days later when I'm sipping a glass of wine and mulling over my adventures. Such was the case with this trip. After 30 days with the same six people, I started to see myself mirrored in their faces. I saw traits that I hope I possess, traits that I hope someday I may possess and others that I hope I have left behind. My travelling companions tought me something about the kind of person I would like to be, and maybe even pushed me down the right path a bit. At the very least, I am armed with new insight and new direction.

No experience is ever a waste of time and I'm happy to say that even with the fairly serious disappointments I faced in the last month, I came out ahead on this one. I have yet to decide if I will ever return to Bhutan and take another stab at entering the elusive Lunana valley. I'll need to let some time go by and hopefully the sharp edges of the experience will soften. Even if I never see Lunana, I'll carry some great memories of Bhutan with me.