chants & prayers

When I was staying in the village of Langjo Pakha, north of Thimphu, Bhutan, I had the privilege of taking a field recording of a funeral puja for a deceased woman and former neighbor of my host, Darlene Ricker. Every morning the monks and lamas would arrive to chant and pray for her passage. The following is the sound I would hear every morning from the other side of the wall shared by the two flats.

the road to Bumthang

Bumthang. Today I am traveling to the geographic center of Bhutan. A driver is picking me up at 8:30 am, but when the time rolls around, I see Gama at the door.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am going with you to Bumthang.”

I am thrilled. She’s hired us a driver, Domchu, to take us on the 8-hour journey to Bhutan’s center, the Bumthang valley and the very heart of Bhutan. We load up the Toyota Prado and I bid farewell to Darlene, my delightful host of the last 4 days.

The one lane road is a torturous 269 km (167 miles) snake that winds up and down the very edges of mountains. It is not for the weak of stomach. I pop a handful of candied ginger, just in case I get queasy, and brace myself for the long journey.

I ride shotgun with Domchu, a deceptively young looking man who was once a monk but is now married with a 7 year-old daughter and a second on the way. He is a cautious driver, maneuvering the winding roads past grazing cattle that like to stand in the middle of the road and are in no particular hurry, colorfully decorated trucks bearing goods, stray dogs, Nepali road crews, and the occasional family of rhesus monkeys.

In a couple of hours, past gushing cascades and water-driven prayer wheels, we arrive at Dochu La pass (3140m; 10,301 ft), marked by a vast array of prayer flags and 108 chortens, and offering a dramatic panorama of the Himalayas. In the clear cold air, the perpetually snow-covered mountains are jagged and imposing. I am breathless from the thin air, but the scene before me is enough to take anyone’s breath away, altitude or no. Parts of the road that is still in the shadow of the mountain is slick with black ice. But Domchu drives well and we seldom can go faster than 40 kph (25 mph).

By noontime, driving past more cows, waterfalls, and happily waving children, we arrive at Wangdue Phodrang (aka Wangdi.) Wangdi reminds me of a border town, with many small stalls selling all sorts of goods from socks to fruit. We stop to pick up some persimmons for Gama’s family whom we will be visiting during our stay in Bumthang. Gama picks up some doma for herself. Doma is the areca nut and lime (the powder, not the fruit) rolled up into a betel leaf and chewed. It stains the teeth bright red, but the Bhutanese chew it religiously. It has a mildly stimulating, intoxicating effect and probably helps them cope with the thin air as well. In Thimphu the sidewalks are stained with doma spit. You can’t miss the brick red stains covering most of the sidewalks.

After a brief stop in Wangdi, we press on toward a roadhouse where we meet Gama’s father Ugyen, and her brother Garap, who have gone on ahead of us in another car. We stop for a lunch of red rice, dhal, daikon radish, and dried beef. I order a cup of suja, butter tea with a slightly salty taste. It is an appropriately warming drink that suits the ody on a cold day.

After a pitstop at the squat toilet, which is no mean feat in my sore knees, we continue onward toward Trongsa, about 2.5 hours away. Trongsa is dominated by an immense dzong built on a hill. At Trongsa we drink some coffee and order some momos (meat dumplings) to nourish us for the remaining 2-hour drive to Bumthang.

At the Yotong La pass (3425m; 11,237 ft), we are almost above the clouds. The tops of the mountains look like islands in the sky, made ever more dramatic by the setting sun. I notice something odd in the misty sky: the rising full moon is appearing above the sun. But even odder yet is that, a few kilometers beyond the pass, the moon appears again in the opposite side of the sky. Hmm.

By 5:30 pm and nearly dusk, we arrive at our guesthouse, a newly built resort owned by Gama’s uncle, Chimi. We are shown to our large suites up on the hillside, where the heater is on and the beds are covered in down comforters. After a quick shower, we meet for dinner in the main house, in a lovely dining room with polychrome beams and gorgeous woodwork. Soon, we are tossing back arra, and Ugyen and Chimi begin to tell tales of the Bumthang Valley.

Magic still lives in the Bumthang valley. Tonight is very special, for it is the Meeting of the Nine Evils. On the full moon, in this very month, the spirits wander about. It is best not to work, but to rest and take it easy so as not to upset them, otherwise you will wake up with bites and bruises. This is not the stuff of fairy tales. Gama tells me that when she was a little girl she woke up with scratches all down her back. Ugyen and Chimi tell me stories about lakes of fire that hold sacred relics; of imprisoned lamas that flooded the valley, and only their release would make the waters subside; of snakes with jewels in their forehead that, if shown some courtesy, will drop their jewel and make the person immensely wealthy; of lamas who, upon their death, were found to have mantras carved in their skulls. But these are not legends of long ago; these things happened to cousins and uncles and neighbors. Magic exists, Ugyen tells me, because people still believe in magic. When they stop believing, the magic will one day fade away. I do not doubt these things are real, and even today we witnessed the strange lunar phenomenon, where the moon was in the west, then appeared in the eastern sky. I want to live in world where magic still exists, where spirits roam, and omens and portents are real. You only need to believe.