Bhutan Day 5

After a good night's rest, I woke up and had breakfast in the downstairs restaurant at the Druk Hotel. I learned that they serve just about the best cheese omlette I'd ever had! Then Namgay showed up with Tshering the driver and another guide from Namgay Adventure Travels named Karma. He had told me about Karma before, but I didn't realize before today that he would be taking over the tour and showing me places in Punakha and Thimphu. It was kind of a nice change moving to a different guide. He's about 25 years old, and much more talkative that Namgay - although has a much thicker Indian/Asian accent, so he was bit harder to understand. So Namgay said maybe we could get together on Friday night so I could meet his wife, Dorji. Then he took off. It was kind of strange having Namgay leave and not see him for a few days - but Karma proved to be very knowledgable about Bhutan and was definately a well-suited guide. That morning we drove the ~3hr road to Punakha by way of Dochula pass at 10k ft. Unfortunately, it was very misty as we drove over the pass, so I wasn't able to get a glimpse of the Himilayan peaks. At the top there is a huge round-about with 109 stupas called the Great Victory Chortens, which serve as a reminder for the victory of the King of Bhutan against the countries enemies. They were consecrated in 2004 - so it's a fairly recent monument.

Then we ate lunch at a little tea house just on the other side of the pass. And Tshring was definately flirting with the girl servers there. It was a little hilarious.

As we were approaching Punahka, we drove up a steep road on the left side of the valley, and arrived at our destination for the next three 3 nights - the Meri Puensum Hotel. It had a great gazebo to the left where you could relax in cushioned seats while drinking tea.

And the view looking into the valley towards Punakha was sweet! These guys are sraping the roof of one of the cottages - not sure why? Some chemical build-up on the tin I guess.

Doesn't Punakha look tiny? There are about 18,000 people living in the valley though - they're all spread out. The significance of the city is that it was the Capitol of the country until 1955 and is now the Winter residency of the Chief Abbot and the Monk body.

After some tea and crackers, we drove down into the valley, past the town, and across the river to the Punakha Dzong. It is HUGE (click to enlarge).

Like the other Dzongs, it is split up into to sectors - the administrative and the religeous. You have to walk through the courtyard of the admin. sector to get to the religeous sector. Here and there in the courtyard there were monks practicing dances for the festivals of 2008 which will mark the 100th year of Bhutanese monarchy. As we were passing through a passage to the other end of the temple, we met up with an older monk who was holding a rat trap and had red residue all over his mouth from beetlenut. Karma seemed to know him and he ended up taking us to the highest point in the temple. It was a small room with an alter of Buddhas behind glass. This is where the King comes to recieve the blessing of the god of power. Karma said I could recieve the blessing too and that it was a rare thing since usually only the King was allowed up there and this Dzong was the only residency of the god of power. So the monk pulled from a chest a small box that was about the size of a book with a tiny figure inside it behind glass. The monk said a few words in his language, let me take a closer look, and then locked it right back up in the chest. It was all very strange - I figured the god of power would be huge - maybe larger than the buddha statues. We headed back through the temple and to the car. Then we took a little drive to visit the fertility temple. This one required a little walk across the valley to get to.

Part of the way up the path, we came across a bull on a rope. I tried to pet it from behind, but it noticed and reared up. It startled me. My first contact with a Bhutanese cow was not a positive one : )

We passed some houses along the way and alot of them had paintings related to fertility. This one was right by the path and Karma offered to get in the picture. Haha. I was laughing at him because he looked as amused as me.

On the way we also passed a big stupa/chorten (I never learned the difference)with prayer wheels all around it.

I asked Karma to demonstrate the technique.

The video is Here: Click on "KarmaTurningPrayerWheels.mov"

We also passed lots of cacti. I was very interested. Karma said they eat the ones with blossoms!



The fertility monastary is called the Chime Lhakhang and the fertility saint, whom they pray to there is Drukpa Kinley - otherwise known as the "Divine Madman". He is well-known and loved in Bhutan for his charismatic and unorthadox teachings and behavior. As we neared the temple we noticed a host of Bhutanese women sitting out on the grass surrounding the small temple, some of them chanting. After entering the worship room and observing the chanting, some young monks informed us that there was a local community that was hosting a 5-day worship vigil.

We returned to the hotel for a nice relaxing dinner, and went to our rooms after a bit of fellowship.