the King and I

5:30 am: I wake up at first light and pull back the curtains. It’s a clear morning, and the light is just right to photograph the dzong, the massive fortress-monastery and the administrative center of Thimphu. The view of the dzong from Langjo Pakha is breathtaking, so I traipse out into a neighbor’s field and use a fence post as my tripod. Fences are to keep animals in, and no Bhutanese would object to a person passing through their property.

This morning Darlene and I are meeting Ugyen’s brother Penjor. He will be our guide today when we go the stadium. Today, Sunday, the people of Bhutan will be presenting the kata, or white ceremonial scarf, to their sovereign. Thousands of people, almost all of them Bhutanese, file into the stadium field and we sit in double rows, one half us us facing south, the other half facing north. I’ve borrowed one of Darlene’s ready-made kiras but it barely fits me. I can’t quite close it shut, so I use the belt to hold it together.

When we get to Penjor’s family home, his older sister takes one look at me and shakes her head. Immediately, she drags me inside and starts readjusting me. Somehow, I’m able to hook the kira closed, and Penjor’s sister wraps the belt as tight as a corset. I can barely breathe, but I’m looking pretty dandy.

We get to the stadium at 8:30 am and file into the field. We’ve brought our katas which we are to hand to His Majesty. He has promised his people that anyone who wants to meet him can and will. I don’t know of any monarch in this modern age that would do such a noble thing. We sit cross-legged on the grass for hours on end. The sun is hot, and in my tight kira I feel like I might pass out from the heat. It’s not until 10:30 that His Majesty arrives, and I thank my lucky stars that he begins in our section, moving past the rows of Bhutanese eager to touch his hand and offer the kata. He touches each and every scarf. By noon, and hot and thirsty to boot, the King reaches our row. Darlene and I are giddy as schoolgirls. “Here he comes!” “Does my hair look okay?” “Is my lipstick on right?”

His Majesty approaches me and I offer the kata. I’ve come a long way, and I must, at the very least, offer him my congratulations.

“Tashi delek, Your Majesty. It is an honor and a pleasure to be in your beautiful country on such a historic occasion. I wish you a long and prosperous reign.”

“Thank you! You both look very nice in your kiras, but be careful and stay out of the sun. You will get very brown and you’ll be mistaken for Bhutanese.”

Sigh.

It’s late in the afternoon when we get a ride back to the village with Penjor’s older brother, one of the Royal bodyguards, who’s been up since 2 in the morning attending to his duties at the stadium. He looks like he’s ready for a hot meal and a bed. He drops us off at the top of the road.

After a hot shower, I go outside and meet some of the village kids and take their photo. They are shy at first, but once they see themselves in my camera’s LCD display they are beside themselves with excitement. You’d think the circus had come to town. They all want their pictures taken, so they all pose and make funny faces.

Afterward Darlene and I need to fetch water, so we carry small buckets to her neighbor’s spigot about 40 yards down a dirt track and bring them back to fill the larger vats inside. A young teenage girl named Karma quickly runs out of her house and helps me carry the buckets. She’s a sweet girl of about 15 with big brown eyes, but she comes from a difficult home environment with an alcoholic father. Darlene tells me she is bright and ambitious, and if she can get high marks she’ll be able to continue on to university. It all depends on how well she can study when her father is drunk. Karma insists on doing most of the hard work, and I ask her to come inside. I give her a couple of hairpins covered in cheap plastic rhinestones. She blushes profusely and hurries home.



Darlene cooks a delicious dinner of curried squash and vegetables, and we drink a couple of red Spys, a Thai wine cooler, with our dinner. At night, I sleep like a baby and dream I am hurtling through space like a rocket.

the village of Langjo Pakha

Today I am packed and ready to go live with Darlene in her traditional Bhutanese house. At breakfast, I run into Ugyen Namgyel, Gama’s father, and I give him a big hug and share some friendly banter with him. He asks about my plans, and suggests I ride to Bumthang with him later in the week. He is having breakfast with another YDF volunteer, Sabine Leibherr, who has just arrived from Germany. Sabine refers to Ugyen as “Dasho,” and I suddenly realize I’ve been addressing a nobleman like a I’d speak to a good pal and wonder if I’ve committed a faux pas by being so informal with him. I try not to think about it. There’s nothing I can do about it now except apologize later.

I meet Darlene at 9:00 am and we walk to her friend’s, who is also named Ugyen. Ugyen is a popular name. So is Karma, Jigme, Tashi, Chimi, Tshering, Dorji. The phone book is totally useless to me here where people have no family surname, just two first names. Ugyen will be escorting us to the Chamlimithang Stadium so we can watch some of the cultural programs. Ugyen’s family runs a small bar on a back street in Thimphu. The bar has a giant phallus above the door, the sign of the Divine Madman. Lama Drupka Kunley (1455-1529), the Divine Madman, is one of Bhutan’s most beloved saints. He traveled throughout Tibet and Bhutan as a yogi espousing his crazy wisdom via songs, humor, and outrageous, often obscene, behavior. He felt the rigidity of the clerical body prevented people from learning the true teaching of the Buddha. His sexual exploits were legendary, and the huge flying – and often squirting – phalluses are his symbol.

I learn that Ugyen is a civil engineer working for one of the big hydroelectric projects in Dagana, in the south of Bhutan where the climate is more tropical. Hydropower, funded mostly by the government of India, is Bhutan’s main export, and there are several new projects in the works all over the country, where water is abundant and the geography is just right. Ugyen is in town to see his wife and enjoy the holidays. But today he is our guide and companion, and at the stadium he fastracks us in and we meet his brother-in-law, the Deputy Chief of Police, who personally escorts us to a viewing gallery reserved for chilip. Today I am in western gear, and the sun is impossibly hot and we have no shade, but I’m delighted to see the King at last, even if he’s across the stadium in his royal gallery.

After we part from Ugyen, Darlene and I decide to trek to the Changangkha Monastery high above Thimphu. Along the way we meet friends, which means we stop and talk for several minutes before moving on. You can never be in a hurry here. As we prepare to move on, a man approaches me and asks me if I am Suzanna.

“I’m Tshewang, Rebecca’s friend. I heard you say something about graphic design so I assumed it might be you.”

“No way, dude!” I punch him in the arm and laugh.

“Dude!”

But that’s the way it works here. It’s a place of chance encounters and dumb luck and happy coincidences.

I already knew a little about Tshewang. He’s a journalist working for BBS (Bhutan Broadcasting service) and an actor whom I had seen in the film “Travellers & Magicians,” by Khyentse Norbu. We all walk together up Norzim Lam, and I learned he lived in Berkeley for 2 years while he attended school, so he knows the Bay Area well. We share a few good laughs, and though I know he’s insanely busy covering the Coronation, we try to make a plan to have drinks sometime before I leave Bhutan.

After we part ways, Darlene and I continue on our uphill trek to Changangkha monastery. It takes us about an hour and a half to reach the top, where we are met by a breathtaking view of the valley below us. There are not many people there today making their circumambulations, and I seize the opportunity to take photos of the valley below and the people above. I am permitted to photograph the monastery exterior and courtyard, but the lhakhang, or inner temple is off limits to cameras. We remove our shoes and enter through a yak hair curtain. The inside is extraordinary, and we prostrate ourselves before the altar honoring Chenresig, an 11-headed, thousand-armed manifestation. We make a small donation, and the monk in attendance pours holy water into our hands, which we pretend to sip, putting the remainder over the crowns of our heads. The lhakhang is painted with many exquisite murals that are covered in yellow silk to protect them from the smoke and soot of the butter lamps. Still, we are able to lift the silk curtains and peer behind at the centuries-old paintings on the wall.

As we exit the lhalkhang, a lama motions to me and reads my fortune from an astrology book. He asks my year of birth. “Ah,” he says, “you are the tree snake.” He tells me that my spirit is sound, but my body is not so good. I feel my knees aching from the ascent and could not agree more. He tells me my life path is uncertain to me (also true) but that all will be resolved by April. He hands me four sets of prayer flags, and I make a donation of 500 nu. to the monastery. I feel blessed and at peace.

Outside I take in the view and sit near some Indians who are enjoying their afternoon listening to their friend play the tabla. His face is radiant and happy, and I take a few more photos of old ladies and circumambulating monks before we wander back down into town.

In the late afternoon, after I check out from the Yeedzin Guesthouse and settle my portion of the bill, Darlene and I take a taxi to Langjo Pakha, her village. The taxi must detour due to road closures, so I get a lovely scenic ride around the north end of Thimphu valley, past creeks and ravines full of blue pine and cannabis, the latter growing wild all over the place. It’s just a noxious weed here, and few people smoke it. They feed it to the pigs, so I wonder if all that THC is in the bacon.

To get to Darlene’s the taxi must veer off the highway and down a dirt road into a gulch. Those last few meters are a teeth-shattering, kidney-jarring ride to her house, a very typical Bhutanese home with polychrome details and intricate windows, and almost always painted a pale yellow. I drag my suitcase up the steps, admiring my new home for the next few days.

Darlene shares her house with two families. Upstairs lives a woman who weaves for a living, and all day I hear the thump-thump of her loom. The flat next door is occupied by a family who recently lost a loved one to bone cancer. As part of the funerary passage puja is performed for 49 days, and almost daily there is a contingent of monks inside chanting, followed by much drinking of Druk beer, arra, and whiskey. I settle on the couch and enjoy the meditative drone of the monks’ chants coming from the other side of the wall.

Darlene Ricker is a fascinating woman just a few years older than me. I liked her from the moment I met her. She’s an avid canoer in Nova Scotia where she makes her home, had lived in a one-room cabin with no plumbing or electricity, and wrote a book chronicling the oral history of the Mi’kmaq people who live in her area. We can easily spend hours talking and sharing our personal stories. Darlene is a great host, and makes a pot of tea while she heats up a bucket of water so I can “shower.” A shower means putting a heating coil in a bucket for 30 minutes, then using a big scoop to blend half hot, half cold and pour it over my head on the slate floor of her bathroom. I’m really quite fascinated by her lifestyle but wonder how she’ll manage when the snows come. Actually, she’s lived quite ruggedly before, so I am really wondering how I would manage under these same circumstances for a long period of time.