Bhutan Trip. Part 3: Thimpu

This is in continuation of my earlier posts detailing my experience in Bhutan. Thimpu is where we had stayed, and we spent quite some time exploring places around it.


Motithang Takin Preserve

The Takin is a unique endangered animal found in this region. It's the national animal of Bhutan. The Motithang preserve is made specially to showcase the Takin, though it has a few other species of deer. You can feed them, with guidance from the zoo keeper. The Takin looks like a bloated goat. It actually belongs a small family of goat antelopes. If you are familiar with open source software and you imagine its caricature, I'm sure the GNU (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU) logo would flash in your mind.

The Takin

The locals have a nice story on the evolution of the Takin. Lama Drukpa Kuenlay is one of the favorite saints of Bhutan because of his quirky antics. Once he went about showing off his magical powers as his devotees demanded of him. He procured bones of a whole cow and a goat, who had been eaten in a feast. He then stuck the goats head on the body of the cow. He then performed some magic and the skeleton came to life and ran into the woods. Later people spotted a strange animal which looked like a cow with a goats head and attributed that to the Lama's magic. Thus is the origin of the Takin.

The Radio Tower

This would not surface in any tourist guide of Bhutan. But our driver took us here to show us the places they used to hang around as youngsters. It's a small hill with a radio/TV transmission tower of the BBS (Bhutan Broadcasting Service). One can get a bird's eye view of the city from this place. He showed us the palace of the Bhutan King, and the quarters of the royal ministers from up there. The place was very windy being so high up, and it was difficult to stand still. There was also a sign warning us about the radiations from the transmitting tower. We didn't spend much time there.

Thimpu city viewed from the Radio Tower

Museums and Art Galleries

Thimpu has lots of museums and art galleries highlighting the culture of Bhutan. Handicraft and tourism being one of the major export from Bhutan, the government puts a lot of importance in preserving the Bhutanese culture. Photography is not allowed in many of the museums. 

The folk heritage museum gives a glimpse of the real Bhutanese culture. Tourists are not allowed to go in without a guide. The guides speak fluent english, and do a good job of explaining stuff. The guide took us through a traditional multi-level Bhutanese house with all the equipments of a functioning home. The courtyard in front of the house had place to keep cows, fodder and wood. There is a small oven to make small fire used to burn scented pine leaves that give a nice scent and keep the bugs away. A wooden bath tub with two compartments is used to take bath. One of the compartments is filled with rocks heated in the oven and the person sits in the other compartment while water is filled up in the tub. A painted or wooden male phallus is used as a symbol in Bhutan to protect the house. The houses are made of mud and wood, with up to three floors. Upper floors have large windows while ground floors have very small ones. The clay oven on the ground floor is where the cook their meal. Right above the oven on the first floor is where they sleep under the warmth of the oven. The top most floor is where they dry their chillies and meat.

Courtyard with small fire place

Wooden phallus

Rice mill

The "National Institute of Art Education" and the "Handicraft Emporium", both close to the "Folk Heritage Museum" are all about Bhutanese art and craft. You can see students being trained there. A store outside sells some of the art and craft created there. The "National Textile Museum" is an exciting place that took us through the evolution of Bhutanese textile and fashion. Most of the museums do not allow any sort of photography. If you visit there, take your time to look around.

The Memorial Chorten

The National Memorial Chorten, a religious stupa, was constructed in the year 1974 by the queen of Bhutan Phuntsho Choden Wangchuck in memory of her royal son, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck who died in the year 1972. It is a pristine white structure in the middle of a large bounded area. Many devotees can be seen circling the stupa in a clockwise direction. The stupa is home to a huge number of pigeons.

National Memorial Chorten

The Giant Golden Buddha Statue

There is a giant gilded bronze statue of Sakyamuni Buddha being constructed right outside Thimpu. It is really large with a height of 200ft. The base of the statue will house 100,000 smaller statues of the Buddha. At that height, it is even larger than the Statue of Liberty. It was still under construction when we went there and not yet open to the public. But thanks to our resourceful driver, we got an entry into the construction site to have a good look. It will be a pride of Bhutan once it gets completed.

Giant Golden Buddha

Monasteries

There are many monasteries around Thimpu. We went to one of them, I forget which one though. No photography was allowed inside. The bright colors and patterns on the wood were beautiful. The stone plates that you see kept above the row of buddhist kala chakras are used to print the colorful religious flags typically seen in buddhist places of worship.

Thimpu Monastery

108 Dochulla Chortens (Stupas)

These are a cluster of 108 small chortens or stupas built on a small hill little outside Thimpu, around 20km from Thimpu. They are on the way to the Dochulla pass (30km from Thimpu), which offer breathtaking views of the valley below.

The 108 stupas of Dochulla

The Dochulla Chortens were built by Queen Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck. They were built in memory of the soldiers who lost their lives in a fight against anti India terrorists who were holed up in southern Bhutan and were launching attacks on India from inside Bhutan. The small war, fought in 2003, is referred to the as the "Duar War of 2003" and lasted for just a day and half. However a lot of life was lost and the stupas were built after that to bring peace to the region. Each of the small stupa has a unique representation of the Buddha. The centermost stupa is the largest and supposedly houses some remains of the war along with religious material.

Central Stupa of Dochulla

After Thimpu, we headed for Paro. Again with our trusted driver cum guide. More on Paro in the next post.

Back to the beginning of Bhutan Trip.

Posts in this series:

• Crossing the border
• First Impressions
• Thimpu (this post)
• Paro & back

Bhutan Trip. Part 2: First Impressions

Thimpu Clock Tower

This is in continuation of my earlier post about my experience reaching Bhutan. The bus journey from Phuentsholing to Bhutan would have been boring but for my co-passenger. This was a man and his wife sitting along with us on the last seat of the bus. They were in their traditional Bhutanese national dress, and were continuously chewing on beetle nuts. The Bhutanese have a habit of chewing on raw beetle nuts. The raw beetle nuts have a very strong scent, which can be discomforting to people who are not used to it. It took me quite a lot of time to realize the source of the strange scent and I never quite got used to it through the day long journey.

But my co-passenger was a real friendly and resourceful person. He knew a little broken english and we conversed all through the journey. He was happy and eager to tell us about their culture, habits, and places to see in Bhutan. He taught us a few basic Bhutanese words. I will never forget this interaction with him for a few strange interactions (coincidences?) we had with this person:

• He really gave us a crash course on Bhutan during our bus ride to Thimpu
• At Thimpu he called a friend of his who drives a taxi and solved our transport problem at Bhutan
• Once while traveling to an out of way place in Bhutan, we suddenly discovered at a check post that we had not taken permit for that place. We were more than half way to our destination and would have hated to be turned back. This person magically appeared there and talked to the check post guards to let us go. He was apparently going to his village which was on the same route.
• The day we were coming back, we see him again at the bus stand and he travelled back with us in the same bus!

If not the world, at least Bhutan is really a small place.

Settling down at Thimpu

By the time we reached Thimpu it was evening. Thimpu is a really small city. We did have to run around a bit to find a decent place with rooms available. After unpacking our bags and freshening up a bit, we went out for a stroll.

Thimpu Clock Tower & Assembly Point

It gives the feeling of a quaint neat little town. At the center of the town is an assembly point with an ornate clock tower. Surrounding it are the prominent government buildings, hotels and shopping center. There are many hotels around providing rooms to stay at prices ranging from the cheap to the ultra luxury. 

If you are the nature loving kind, try and pick one slightly away from the main street so that you get a view of the beautiful mountains and the valley. But if you are the shopaholic kind, stick to the ones around the main street. The best of both can be had if you stay at a place in the same lane as the Royal Post Office of Bhutan (Chang Lam, the first major road as you come out from the Thimpu bus stand). We stayed at the Tandin Hotel, on the main market road, but a little away from the market place on Nordzin Lam, towards the Taj Tashi hotel.

The market around the Nordzin Lam is lined with handicraft shops. The vegetable shops there among other things sell yummy fresh fruits, yak butter and cheese.

Almost every street corner has a big notice board for public notices. That is the only place where we could find any kind of pamphlets, posters and banners, unlike the place I stay at where walls fences and even trees are not spared from ugly posters.

General Impressions, Food & Culture:

There are lots of restaurants around the city center. Though you get all kinds of food, Bhutanese food is the easiest to find and the best tasting, with Chinese coming a close second. People around understand a bit of English and even Hindi - the tourism effect.

Most of the shops, hotels and even bars in Bhutan are managed by ladies. The Bhutanese women seem a liberated lot, at least in this matter. I wonder what the men do, probably they work back at the farms.

Bhutanese food is characterized by its heavy use of cheese and chillies. They even have a dish made only out of chillies! But don't worry, the chillies are not too hot and food in general food is not spicy. Meat is mostly pork & beef, but you also get quite a few chicken dishes. We literally gorged ourselves with Bhutanese dishes, day in and day out. Some of the dishes that we liked are:

• Ema Datshi: Cheese and Chilli preparation. Whitish gravy with green and red chilli pieces. Not too hot, if you are used to spicy Indian preparation, particularly from the south.
• Jasha Maru: Chicken curry.
• Thupka: Soupy noodles. Comes in various flavors with vegetables, chicken, sea food, etc.
• Butter Tea: A preparation of hot water mixed with butter and tea herbs. Does not taste like regular tea, but the Bhutanese swear by its taste. We liked it for its unique taste and the warm liquid felt good in the chill.

Chillies being dried

Alcohol consumption is however has been part of the tradition, and many families still suffer because of alcoholic family members. Alcohol use has also been the cause of many social evils like wife beating. The Bhutanese government has been taking steps to discourage alcohol. We did see many posters in notice boards denouncing alcohol consumption and highlighting its evil effects. Bhutan is also not big in alcohol production, though it is not banned. Most of the alcohol (90%) consumed in Bhutan are imported.

There is a complete ban of tobacco and tobacco products in Bhutan. Clandestine import of tobacco attracts heavy fine and imprisonment. While we were there the local newspapers had a news of a monk facing many years of prison for being caught with tobacco. Visitors are allowed to carry tobacco for self use after paying an import duty of 100%.

The Bhutanese (both males and females) are however heavy consumers of raw beetle nut (locally called doma), which is addictive. And that's not a terribly good thing either.

Bhutan is however very low in crime rate. Most of the population lives in small villages, close to nature. They don't have a lot of modern amenities like big cars, bikes and TVs, but then when you live at such a beautiful place you don't need any of those. People in general appear happy, contended and proud of being Bhutanese. Bhutan is one of the countries with highest "happiness index", and it is quite visible. Bhutan exports handicraft, timber, fruits, spices, electricity, and cement. Our driver proudly spoke about a new hydroelectricity project coming up near his village and how it will change the face of his village. Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy (like the UK). The small Bhutanese army (around 20000) is trained by the Indian army.

Old lady weaving outside her house.

The people are simple, friendly and hard working. The person who was our driver, a handsome young man of 25, was an epitome of politeness. He had a small job in the department of culture and drove taxi in the evenings after office hours to supplement his income. His wife (people marry young in Bhutan) stayed at home, took care of their two kids, tended to a small garden, and spun textiles in a hand loom. The clothes this guy was wearing were woven at home. We actually saw most houses in the outskirts with hand looms and dyed yarns left to dry.

Bhutanese man in traditional dress

Bhutanese ladies in traditional dress

The Bhutanese national wear is compulsory for all Bhutanese people employed in government offices. Even otherwise, most bhutanese stick to their national wear. We hardly saw anybody with western wear in Bhutan.

In and around Thimpu:

Bhutan is a beautiful place, full of nature and unique culture. Over the next couple of days, we went around places in and near Thimpu. The driver whom we hired at the Thimpu bus stand became our trusted guide during our stay at Bhutan. We also visited Paro, which is another major town in Bhutan.

More about the places in and around Thimpu & Paro in the next post.

Back to the beginning of Bhutan Trip.

Posts in this series:

• Crossing the border
• First Impressions (this post)
• Thimpu
• Paro & back