 At the
beginning of Buddhist time, Guru Rinpoche a holy saint flew across The Himalayas
on a flying tiger. And in a place of valleys and mountains full of thunder and
lightening, he paused and declared that this was Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon.
And so began The Kingdom In The Clouds.
In 1961 the Himalayan authority
Desmond Doig was the first journalist allowed into Bhutan and in an article for
The National Geographic he spoke of a land filled with spirits and yetis and witch
doctors, and archery contests and a King who wears a raven crown and is, the precious
ruler of the dragon people. As he predicted in his article things have changed.
But only a little.
And what Desmond wrote forty years ago has relevance today and still entices
the adventurous to Bhutan.
Here's what he left.
 Mountains
meet the clouds in Bhutan, hermit Kingdom in the heart of the
Himalayas :
here the extraordinary is often common place and the unexpected
happens.
Bhutan is as outrageously different as it is beautiful. Small as fairytale
kingdom, it plays the role with medieval pageantry, a Dragon King, subjects
dressed like Renaissance pageboys, and castles thrust above indolent clouds.
High mountain ranges and closed doors to foreigners have helped to preserve
the country’s antique ways.
 Essentially,
Bhutan is warm and hospitable; it clings to human values and an easy, uninhibited
way of living. Though the people of Bhutan have spent centuries in isolation,
they accept with stolid unconcern the tales of the rare foreigner they meet. If
I thought my accounts of sputniks and television
were going to make me a celebrity,
I was soon disillusioned. In a country that happily minds it’s own business,
an oracle’s prediction or the birth of a yak are miracles enough.
 Dzongs command
most Bhutan’s valleys. In architectural style they resemble the great Potala,
or palace of the Dalai Lamas, at Lhasa: high white washed walls of earth and stone;
deep, richly ornamented windows; and gold plated pagoda like roofs adorned at
the corners with dragon heads. If there are resident Lamas, no woman may spend
the night a rules that applies even to the Queen.  Usually
the Dzongs include several chapels, sometimes as many as thirty each magnificently
painted and brooded over by a host of deities. I have stood enthralled in their
perfumed gloom, trying to absorb the myriad detail of murals, images, and all
the paraphernalia of worship.
In
some Dzongs the images loom so large that their gilded heads are lost to
sight
in the upper shadows. Their hands could seat a man, and the murmured
prayers
of monks in the galleries overhead give the impression that the
giants breathe
and live.
 Buddhism,
Hinduism, and Bon, the country’s original cult of sorcery and spirit worship,
all survive in Bhutan’s religion. Fierce gods and protective deities are
born of the strange alliance. A few merely represent some bandit or sorcerer deified
more out of fear than respect.
...for sheer pageantry, Bhutan’s
archery meets are unbeatable. They are
explosions of color and excitement,
beginning with the archers in vivid
traditional costume; their processions
like cascades of jewels down the
emerald valleys.
...then there are
the cheering sections, the dancing girls decked out in vivid
homespun, brocade,
and coral jewelry. Each team has its own troupe of girls, whose job is to praise
the home team
and insult competitors.
...traveled north to the Tibetan
frontier to see Chomo Lhari, Bhutan’s most
famous peak, 23,997 feet high.
Part of the mountains is actually in Tibet. We had seen it from a distance,
from a pass between the Ha and Paro valleys, a magnificent fluted pile of
snow.
...leaving the border, we visited Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan’s
most famous
cloister, where Buddhist shrines cluster like a colony of swallows’
nest.
Taktsang actually means 'Tiger’s Nest' but what a tiger! The settlement
approached by the narrowest of ledges, perches on a sheer granite cliff some
3,000 feet high.
One day the King asked me if I would like to visit Bumthang,
far to the east
of Thimpu. I jumped at the offer; for it meant seeing
such fabled places as Punakha,
the former capital, where the old rajas ruled
and which boasts Bhutan’s
largest Dzong. It meant Tongsa Dzong, which
the Queen’s sister described as a fairy castle, perched so high on a mountain
that the clouds float below,
it meant Wangdi Phodrang, with its magnificent
bridge, and Bhumtang itself
in a valley with a reputation for ghosts and beautiful
woman.
It took seven days to reach Bumthang, seven magic days for adventure
along
track filled with ever changing scenery. On one side of a high pass
might
lie tropical forest and on other a world of alpine loveliness: a profusion
of flowers and lush green grass that fattened the King’s handsome cattle.
Mountain streams gurgled through painted shrines that harnessed the power
to
turn huge prayer wheels. Legendary giants and their consorts occupied the
mountain tops above us. Mortals below-the apple-cheeked village woman fed us
fresh yak- milk cheese amid the fields of flowers.
The chapels interested
me most, and I attended more than one banquet in
them, the gilded deities
almost brought to life by the flickering lights of
candles. Murals of heaven
and of hell glowed on more than one wall. During
the meal, we would put aside
a few grains of rice and some drops of millet
wine for the gods. Tongsa
was all that we hoped for. Its handsome Dzong, visible for miles,
rode like
a splendid ship on the waves of distant mountains. Passing through
the Dzongs
massive gate illuminated with religious texts, we abruptly
entered another
world.
Here were banks of painted galleries, with latticed windows and
casements
rising in multicolored tiers. Wooden roofs and gilded spires of
the dzong
towered above all and seemed to challenge the mountains themselves.
The endless mummer of monks at prayer, punctuated by the tinkle of bells,
vied with the flutter and swish of pigeons’ wings. Magenta-robed Lamas
leaned over the carved railings to watch us as we passed. We might have been
walking through the Middle Ages, and in a way we were, for Tongsa has
changed
little since its founding centuries ago. Time has slept in the secluded
countryards and countryside of Bhutan. BhutanTrekking.com
will give you a reason to get up early. Check out our Programs
here to find out how. |
