Lha Gyelol!

Danger! Achtung! Big ol' blog post ahead. But, as an exciting new installment: I got some sweet panoramic shots to share with you!

looking at Haa, one day's journey from Tibet

For our last group excursion as Bhutan IV, we traveled by bus, truck bed, and foot to our camping site in Haa, one of the south-western dzongkhags (districts) of Bhutan.Our tour guide, Tsewang is from Haa originally, from the tiny village of Dorikha. A few other men from his tour company joined us for the trip, including Tsewang’s nephew Zencho, whom Tsewang is training to become a guide himself. Zencho explained to me that at one point many decades ago, there were only two households left in Dorikha, because so many people were moving to the cities or leaving because the laws about land ownership were changing. Though by no means the remotest of villages in the country (there is a road that leads right to it, after all), this weekend was definitely the most time I got to spend just out in the Bhutanese wilderness.

We stopped for tea at Tsewang’s nieces’ house, and went up the hill to the local monastery to pay a visit. The monks were not home, however, so we simply enjoyed the view of the neighboring village, Shari, across the valley in the distance, and took in the last stretch of warm sunshine we would see and feel for the remainder of the trip. When we made it back down from the monastery, two Mahindra Jeeps were waiting to drive us the rest of the way along the road to our stop for our camp site. The road was impassable for the bus past the monastery because of its steep switchbacks and pudding consistency after the weeks of spring rains.

Mahindra and Mud

Psyched for the ride in these trucks, I called dibs on at seat in the bed of the first truck, much to the confusion of the drivers, who were puzzled as to why we all wanted to sit in the backs, rather than the warm, dry cabs of the vehicles. But, our smiles and refusals to budge eventually gave way to the standard Bhutanese half-shrug of acceptance. “Alright, well here’s a tarp for you all and the bags.” We settled in on top of our backpacks-made-seat cushions, and started our two hour ascent. It was a bumpy ride, and when it began to rain, I was glad for my raincoat and the tarp, and happily faced into driving mist as the jeep roared through deep puddles and fishtailed through the deep rutted mud of the road.

When we passed the high point on the road, in the thick of the cloud forest, where all the world except the 10 feet before you on the road, and the two feet on either side, and the vague semblance of the other truck behind you is gone, there is nothing to be done but to fill that narrow and simultaneously vast world with the great shouts of “LHA GHELOL!”

“Glory!” “Victory!” “Wooooooo!”

Let me tell you, my heart went out of me in those moments, and I thought of and missed all you other adventurers in my life. Especially my fellow subjects in the Empire Yacht Club of Das Haus. Ah, so much love to you all!

making camp

We got to the campsite soon enough, and were extremely privileged that our tents had already been set up by some of Tsewang’s crew. The campsite was in a small clearing, populated mostly by rhododendrons and low-lying white-topped blue-undersided five-petaled flowers. At first light that morning, we had a rare glimpse of the surroundings and view before the omni-present clouds of that elevation (about 3500 meters) returned.  

But, before I get ahead of myself, I want to describe one very special moment After we had settled in at camp, many of us wanted to go for a walk and explore the area. We set off down the road, walking along the more compact sections, but inevitably through many puddles made by the frequent waterfalls that did their best to wear away the road that had cut the mountainside. Bhutan is in general a very quiet country (where there isn’t construction happening), but when one is outside hearing range of a waterfall, and the only sounds are muffled bird calls through the enveloping clouds, and the dripping of water off of the juniper branches, one cannot help but notice that one’s voice becomes lower and softer, and the conversation one has with her walking partner turns to the serious and beautiful things of the world.

This became especially clear when Ben K. and I were walking by no particular point in the forest, when we both stopped, noticing that the light of the muted sun coming through the trees in that place was something special, and otherworldly. I said, “Do you want to go up there?” Ben replied, simply, and perfectly, “yes.” So we scrambled up the dirt bank, left our raincoats at the base of a large mossy tree, and walked up further into the forest. The sun blurred everything before into grey silhouettes, and it felt more the light was bearing us up into the woods, rather than the soft, saturated ground where we tread. I really felt like I was going to heaven.

a clearing in the cloud forest

There is a passage in The Wind in the Willows, one of my favorite children’s books, in which the main characters, Rat and Mole, are in search of a lost baby otter. They find him on a small island of their river home, curled up at the feet of the wild god Pan. Upon seeing the god, Kenneth Graham writes, “and still as they looked, they lived. And still as they lived, they wondered.” That is how I felt.

The magic of that moment did move on to other places though, but generously left its mark, because as we came to a level place in the forest, the trees gave way to a rolling meadow, where there stood the frame of a cow shed. We ran around in this muddy clearing, and when it became clear that the sun was setting and dinner was soon to be had at camp, we regathered our coats, and returned, humbled, and hungry. We had goat for dinner, and it was surprisingly good. Like, delicious. I swear to you, we eat infinitely better on these excursions, even when camping, than we do back at the mess. Whoda thunk it.

It happened to work out that I had a tiny tent to myself, which at first I was excited about. But as the night came on and stayed long, I wished I had had some body heat to share through the long cold night. The view in the morning was well worth it though, as was the promise of the hike to two peaks about 4200 meters that day. We started early, with Tsewang’s commands that we “take baby steps” and that stopping for breaks is “out of the question” because it is better to go perpetually and slowly than to ever stop, at all.

"baby steps"

The hike was incredible, though at times very strenuous, but what worthwhile hike isn’t? We passed through at least three eco-zones, moving through juniper and pine dominant, to almost exclusively rhododendron forest, to the sparse herbaceous scree near the peaks. We were in the cloud forest the entire time, which really allows one to see the wind as it blows these misty clouds through the trees and clearings and rock outcroppings. We had to resort to using echoing shouts of calls (coooooo-wee!) to keep track of each other in the white-outs that happened fairly often. Most of the time, we were not following any trail, just the occasional cow or yak path, and Tsewang’s expertise of the area and the safe way up the steep mountains, since he had herded cows through these parts when he was a boy.

cow's jaw

When we did reach the summits, we again shouted Lha Gyelol! and spent time exploring the crags and ridges of these bizarre, vertical mountains. As seems to always be the case however, we couldn’t spend nearly enough time, and soon made our way down the other side. In a clearing near the top, Ben G. found a set of cow jaws. He handed one to me, and I carried it like a prized possession for the rest of our hike. It was a seriously awesome gift.

near the summit of our second peak, Chebdokha. Rhododendron flowers as far as the eye can see.

mystery mushroom, do not eat

We had decided that morning to spend our second night at Tsewang’s ancestral home instead of camping again, since we had been promised the opportunity of learning how to milk cows. As we took one of Tsewang’s legendary short cuts back to the road, he told us that rhododendron flowers are actually edible, though “they can make you intoxicated.” So of course, trusting our never-failing guide, several of us start nomming down rhododendron flowers. A few minutes later, Tsewang adds, “though, some people think they’re poisonous.” What. Shit. He continued, laughing, and pointing at a slimy mushroom, “I wonder if you could eat that too!” What. The. Eff. I see the blood drain out of many of my friends faces. We all try to tally up how many flowers we’ve just eaten. I can see that we’re all thinking the same thing: we are going to die.

I figure that I am probably (hopefully) going to be ok. (Spoiler alert: I was. After all, I’m alive to tell you about it.) I’d only actually eaten a handful of flowers. They did taste really bad, so I had spat out most of what I’d tried. Some others were clearly in distress though, as the number was getting to be very high, as they counted out their snack on their fingers. Let’s just say we had to wait a few minutes at the road while these unlucky ones hacked up their florivorous meal.

coming down from Chebdokha

That night, after we had ended our big hike and supped on emadatse, we walked back up the hill a little ways to where some of Tsewang’s other relatives were about to do the evening milking of the cows. In Haa, the common practice of raising cows is to tether the calves to a cow shed while the adults are allowed to roam free for the day to graze (within the limits of where the herder leads them). The mama cows return at night to their young, and the people milk these sturdy, hefty animals by hand into round wooden buckets. During the day, the herders collect fodder from the forest to feed the calves, but when the milk for the humans is collected, the calf gets its share, often sucking quite forcefully on the annoyed-looking mamas.

an expert at work

We were each given one try at milking, and it was much harder to do than I expected. You have to pull from high up on the bag of the udders, not just the teat, and it is a difficult combination of requiring a good amount of pressure, while being relatively gentle. I only got a few successful squirts before I had to give up and let the experts do the job. I hope I get another try in Germany while I wwoof his summer.

That night, like in Bumthang, the girls were allowed to stay in the family shrine room, a spacious room with a large altar at one end, and an open floor space where we set up our sleeping bags. It was a welcome change from the cold wet tent the night before.

As we drove back toward Thimphu, via Paro, we passed the three iconic “hills” of Haa. Each is representative of the god of power, god of wisdom, and god of compassion, and the people of Haa are said to be divided according to these attributes too. Haa is also well known for the twin Lhakhangs of the district, the Black and the White Temples, named and painted as such because according to legend, the Dharma King of Tibet released two pigeons, one black and one white into Bhutan. He built the temples where the two birds each landed. The Dharma King is one of the prominent figures like Guru Rinpoche who were instrumental in bringing Buddhism to Bhutan many many centuries ago. You may remember me mentioning the Kyichu Lhakhang in Paro, built in the 7^th century as one of 108 temples built to subjugate a great ogress whose body was stretched all across Bhutan and Tibet. It was the Dharma King who caused those 108 temples to be built overnight and trap the ogress.

the three famous hills of Haa

Legend also has it that Haa used to be called Het, which is a two character word in Choekey and Dzongkha (Choekey is the language used for the monastic texts, the only written language of the land for a long time). Het means “suddenly” and the region was called this because of the Dharma King’s power to summon thousands of people in no time at all so that the temples could be built quickly. But, somehow over the years, this second character of the name was lost, or people forgot it, and the name changed to Haa.

As we reached Chelela, the pass between Haa and Paro, we stopped for lunch and to look at the spectacular view from this 3900 meter point in the road, the highest road point in the country. We could see the peaks we had summited the day before in the distance, and Tsewang pointed to the furthest point the eye could see of Haa. He said that from there, it was one day’s walk to Tibet. This, I could hardly believe, but I did. He explained that even though there is an army presence guarding the border, people used to sneak in and out regularly to smuggle goods, but that it was no longer economical to do so.

Haa side of Chelela

Paro side of Chelela

  

this bird know's what's what

From the top of Chelela (la means pass, whereas lha means god), we could also see Taktsang, or Tiger’s Nest, that we had hiked to all that time ago back in February. I wished that I had a flying tiger to carry me from Chelela over to Taktsang again. We saw yaks grazing, and Ben and Ana and I rolled the broken tops of the prayer flag posts down the hillside. As the afternoon wore on, we descended from the pass and took the long road back to Thimphu, through the city of Paro and through the great sheer near-empty valley that connects the two main districts, and back up the hill to RTC. We said goodbye to Zencho and Leki and Tsewang for the second to last time, which was bittersweet. I have two weeks left in Bhutan. I am sure I will miss it. Yet, I intend to shout Lha Ghelol! many times more, whenever the moment is right.

rolling wooden blocks down the mountain

Yaks at Chelela

Last extra tidbit: While out to celebrate Guru Rinpoche’s birthday yesterday with a friend in Paro, we stopped at a rock that jut out from the cliff side at the edge of the road. The rock was painted bright blue and decorated with depictions of Guru Rinpoche and his consorts. In gold letters, many excerpts from some of Guru’s known writings were written in the swooping sharp letters of Dzongkha with English translations below. I copied a few down in my notebook, including this poem:

“Do not take lightly the small misdeed,

Believing they can do no harm.

Even a tiny spark of fire

Can set alight a mountain of hay.

Do not take lightly small good deeds,

Believing they can hardly help.

For drops of water one by one

In time can fill a giant pot.

When the eagle soars up, high above the earth;

Its shadow for the moment is nowhere to be seen;

Yet bird and shadow still are linked.

So too our actions:

When conditions come together,

Their effects are clearly seen.”

-Guru Rinpoche

Ok. I lied; this will be the last bit. It’s too good not to share:

“Impermanence is everywhere, yet I still think things will last. I have reached the gates of old age, yet I still pretend I am young. Bless me and misguided people like me, that we may truly understand impermanence.”

-Guru Rinpoche

Gone to the Dogs

Pema and the shelter caretaker, "Uncle"

Last weekend, my friend Pema and I took a walk down the valley from RTC into Ngabiphu, the scattered village below the college. She was taking me to the dog shelter to spend some time with the animals and just see what was what. Pema is doing her capstone project on the treatment of stray dogs in Thimphu and on RTC campus. The dogs are a big "problem" in the eyes of the administration and the staff of the mess (dining hall). There are a dozen or so dogs that live pretty full-time on campus, in various states of health, but who are generally regarded as pests. The dogs of RTC are consistently well behaved and friendly compared to the packs of dogs that roam Thimphu-town, many of whom are very fierce looking. I actively avoid the dogs in town, but have befriended many of the campus dogs. My favorites are Roger, a mange-y tawny-colored old boy in sore need of attention, and a tiny black and white half-blind but eager and affectionate girl named Henry. 

looking down at part of Ngabiphu

We are instructed not to feed the dogs on campus, partly because they have the status of rats, but partly out of the more compassionate view that, like bears at campsites, they become dependent on the humans and have nothing to eat when school is not in session. This compassion aside however, I've been pretty surprised by people's behavior toward these animals. The most common reactions are annoyance or disgust, but aggression is pretty common too. My friend Ana actually saw one of the mess workers kick a dog in the head, completely unprovoked. 

These kinds of incidents are a big part of Pema's research. She is a big animal right's activist, and tells me she is motivated by her views that animals experience feelings and pain just like humans do. This stems from Buddhism, and the respect and empathy extended to animals because of their position in the wheel of life as sentient beings. She explained to me that even the tiniest fly tries to get away from you if you swat at it because it is afraid that you will hurt or kill it. Animals, she says, may not express pain the same we do, but they do experience it, and we should do our best to help them, or at least not harm them. It is the Hippocratic Oath of kindness.

dog shanties

One positive part of RTC's relationship with the strays is that much of the leftover food from the mess is sent down the road to the shelter that Pema and I visited. This shelter is right above the road I walk on my way to  my internship at the National Biodiversity Center. It is divided into two sections, one of which is owned by the city, and the other which is owned privately by a Lama, who is currently abroad in India. In the meantime, the caretaker whom Pema and I called "Uncle," is in charge of the facilities. Over 100 dogs live at this shelter, and most were very friendly. Like the dogs on campus, many were partially blind, or had injured legs, or patchy fur. Many of the injuries come from car collisions, especially among the dogs rescued from the city. The shelter is mostly composed of small shanty-like buildings where the dogs stay, as well as a few larger buildings and a small clinic. Many of the dogs have been spayed or neutered, and they are marked by either a clipped right ear, or a number tattooed inside an ear. 

Nado shaking his ears

The shelter also has a pen to the side of the complex which houses four pigs. These muddy, fly-covered, big-eared pigs had incredibly expressive faces. In Bhutan, raising pigs can be pretty controversial, because they are not raised for any other purpose than their meat. This is a big conflict among many Buddhist Bhutanese, even though eating meat is largely acceptable, it seems better in their eyes to raise livestock who have a purpose in life (cows and sheep for milk, cheese, etc; chickens for eggs) aside from becoming dinner. Additionally, while it is typically seen as ok to consume meat, it isn't seen as ok to do the killing of the animal oneself. The traditional method of slaughtering pigs is really brutal too--the pigs are essentially beaten to death. I was happy to see these pigs alive and snorting pleasantly. The biggest of the four, named Nado, was particularly lively. I oinked and snorted with him, which made Pema laugh. "You can't speak Dzongkha, but you can speak Pig!"

friendly dogs at the shelter,
the black and white one is named Meto (flower)

I had a lot of fun playing with the dogs at the shelter, and I think this was especially good for me because I had been having a difficult time working up the courage to walk past the farm below the dog shelter on my way to and from work. Playing with these dogs and the campus dogs reminded me of how much kindness and joy exists in people and beasts (if those two things are separate categories). The road I take to work goes between the farm and the shelter, and while most of the dogs are confined by the fences of the shelter, there are a few that hang out regularly on the road, including a big black and brown blood-hound mix who lives on the farm. Oftentimes, on my way to work the dogs would bark at me as I went by, or settle with giving me the stink-eye if the farmer was nearby. But a few weeks ago, I was coming back to school and it was just me and the dogs on the road.


The blood-hound and one of the bigger long-haired shelter dogs began barking fiercely and followed me along the road, barking and snapping at my heels. I was afraid to run or pick up a rock to throw at them (as I"d been instructed to do in such a scenario) in case this would make them more aggressive. So I hollered at them and tried to hurry away until I was past the farm gate, but before I could escape, one of them did bite me. Luckily, it got a mouthful of pants, and didn't break my skin, and when I was able to shake him off, I got past the gate a moment later and was able to get away, adrenaline pumping and swearing worse than a sailor.

Since that day, it's often taken a self-pep talk to walk past the farm, and I've taken up the habit of either carrying a stick or rocks, just in case. I hadn't had to use them until yesterday, when again on a return walk these same two dogs came after me. This time I decided to stand my ground and face down these spawn of Cerberus instead of trying to get away as quickly as possible. I held up my rocks and did my best to shout over their low bellowing barks. The same culprit as last time came closer to me and I stomped forward toward him, rock held high and ready to be launched. And the coward stood down. The tag-team kept on barking, but I stared them down and with a few more threats of a rock to the head and assertions that I wasn't afraid (even though I was), they backed off, and I walked off, this time swearing in triumph rather than anger.

When I have gone to the meditation session held on campus, Lama Shenphen has discussed how quickly emotions pass through us and fade away. While I cannot get behind this sentiment completely, these scary encounters with the dogs on the road have reinforced this lesson that negative emotions really can be fleeting. The day that I was bit was also the first day that I found ripe wild strawberries in the woods. With a mouthful of tart, juicy, hand-picked strawberries, you really can't stay mad.

feeding time at the shelter, a joyful time

Your charo (friend),

Carrie

P.S. Here's a random sheep that was hanging outside the Herbarium last week. This is life in Bhutan. There will be random sheep.

Sheep have freaky eyes. Rectangular pupils give me the willies. (Woolies? Hah.)

Arts and Crafts

Looking out at Thimphu-town

It has been a tumultuous few weeks. Yet, trying as some of these days have been, many of the days have been delightfully art-filled. I’m trying to focus on those parts, and it seems to be working out. Things are looking up.

Inside the paper factory

Some of our artsy excursions around Thimphu have been to traditional places such as the Jungtshi Paper Factory, which lies up the hill from the crafts market, and the Zorig Chusum Institute, which is at the northern end of Thimphu-town. The paper factory is one of the sites where the traditional hand-made paper is crafted from the bark of Daphne trees. One of the men in charge gave us a demo on how the paper is made, a process that starts by workers stripping and boiling the bark until it is very soft and pliant. It is then cooked again and a type of starch is added to act as a binding agent for the bark pulp. The pulp is gathered in basins and sometimes dyed using plant or vegetable dyes. No bleach is used. The workers then use screens, which they dip in the basins to collect the pulp in an even flat sheet. This sheet is then dried in stacks either in the sun or just left to air dry.

Sometimes they add flower petals or shredded bits of old money to the thick, luxurious paper.

Nowadays it seems that the paper is used more for fancy notebooks, envelopes, or paper crafts like lamps or wall art rather than simple writing paper. The religious books, called pecha are made from this paper, however. These books are long and narrow with fabric wrappings for covers, and the pages are flipped over the top rather than from the side as we are accustomed in the West. In the library, or in monasteries, the books are stored in the shelves long-ways, like safety-deposit boxes.

Zorig Chusum literally means thirteen crafts, and that is precisely what students study at the Institute. The programs are typically 6 years long, and the student graduates with a mastery of his or her chosen craft. 

The thirteen traditional art forms of Bhutan are:

Boys working on their Shagzo

Shingzo – Woodworking

Dozo – Masonry

Parzo – Stone Carving

Lhazo – Painting

Jimzo – Clay Sculpting

Lugzo – Casting (of bronze or copper, usually via wax or sand casts)

Shagzo – Wood Carving

Garzo – Blacksmithing

Troezo – Jewelry Making

Students working on Tshemzo

Tsharzo – Bamboo Work

Dezo – Paper Making/Sculpting

Tshemzo – Tailoring/Embroidery (embroidery also called tshemdzu)

Thagzo – Weaving 

The intricacy and skill required for each of these arts is extremely admirable, but I especially liked seeing the clay sculptors at work. Before they are instructed at all in the actual art of sculpting, they must learn to gather and prepare their own clay, which they mix with Daphne paper in order to give the clay a lighter and more malleable consistency. This combination allows them to do the extended limbs, fingers, and flames depicted in their iconography. The goal in all of these traditional arts, especially sculpting and painting, is to recreate as near to an exact replica of the intended image. The artwork is merely a vessel for the deity it depicts, and is destroyed if it does not accurately enough capture the image of the deity. Artists usually don’t sign their work; it is not seen as the product or property of the individual.

inside VAST

Contemporary art is gaining popularity in Thimphu, however, and more and more galleries are popping up selling the work of individualistic artists. I have visited a few of these, including VAST (Volunteer Artists’ Studio Thimphu), which hosts art workshops for kids and adults. I had the opportunity to talk to one of its co-founders, Aza Kama, who is a well-established contemporary artist himself. He was trained both in the traditional art of painting and the more modern of graphic design. Many of his pieces feature beautifully blended scenes incorporating traditional images mixed with more impressionistic landscapes. I don’t have enough art vocabulary to describe it properly, but his work is absolutely stunning.

I also had the experience of seeing one of the most traditional of ritual-steeped art forms found in Bhutan when my fellow Wheaties and I attended the Parinirvana festival at the dzong in Thimphu. This festival, which falls on May 25^th, celebrates five incredible events of the Buddha, which all miraculously fell on the same day. Very auspicious. These five events were his conception, his birth (pardon the potential sacrilege, but—his poor mother!), his enlightenment, his subjugations of many demons, and his death day. This meant that we would witness a Thongdrol, like we did at the Paro Tsechu. A Thongdrol is a multi-storied (in both the measurement and anecdote sense) appliqué art piece draped along the entire side of the inner building of the dzong. The word Thongdrol literally means “seeing liberation,” because one is blessed and cleansed simply by laying eyes upon the masterpiece. We were also allowed to practice Regdrol, which means “touching liberation,” by touching our foreheads to the base of the Thongdrol.

Thongdrel at the Parinirvana festival

I then followed suit with the many Bhutanese present and performed a few prostrations before the Thongdrol. Prostrations are an act of respect and prayer, and are performed by placing the hands, palms together, first at the top of the head, then at the lips, then at the center of the chest, in order to symbolize body, speech, and mind. Interestingly, the Bhutanese consider the mind, in the religious sense, to be housed in the chest, along with the heart. One then bends down, places one’s hands on the ground, and while kneeling, touches the forehead to the ground. This is done a minimum of three times, but most people do more. They must always be done an odd number of times, however.

People in line for blessings at Parinirvana in Thimphu

It has felt really good lately to engage in all this art, and I’m excited for the conference being held at RTC this week. In conjunction with the organization Helvetas, RTC is hosting this event on Leveraging Cultural Heritage, which aims to discuss and support the arts and skills of often-marginalized groups of Bhutan by promoting their works as something to be cherished and marketed, rather than be forgotten or absorbed into the more dominant dzongkha speaking, kira/gho wearing culture of Western and Central Bhutan.

Earning my official Bhutanese name

One last tidbit for this time: I got a Bhutanese name! A friend, Youden, took some of us to see her brother in Thimphu; he is a Lama. Though the process was fairly unceremonious, he simply sat with us and wrote out each of our names on a separate piece of scrap paper before handing it to us with a serious expression. We each smiled and clapped for each other, and Youden explained vaguely what each name meant. I am Dorji Wangmo. Dorji means a religious symbol, and Wangmo means something along the lines of great strength. I’m quite happy with my new name, though it hasn’t really caught on, and most people still call me Care-oh-leen. Of all the words that my name has rhymed with throughout my life (hairy, scary, berry), I can now add kerosene.

May all your lamps burn brightly.

With love,

Dorji