Armchair Traveller

Entering the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon

Martin Uitz

• Publisher: Haus Publishing
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781907973321
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

In 2006 Time magazine listed the King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuk, as one of the 100 "leaders and revolutionaries" who are changing our world today. Yet it was only in the 1960s that the first road linking the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon with India was opened, and since 1974 only a strictly limited number of tourists have been allowed to visit each year. Martin Uitz, a renowned expert on Bhutan, describes how the Bhutanese, in pursuit of the principle of "Gross National Happiness", are carefully moving towards a more modern future, including a constitution and democracy, whilst preserving their traditional society and attempting to conserve the environment. Uitz made many fascinating discoveries in this enigmatic Kingdom. He was able to explain why the only traffic light was taken out of service, why six men are not allowed to go on a journey together, and what the subtle eroticism of a traditional hot-stone bath is all about. Along the way he also discovered that the Bhutanese hills are more alive with Edelweiss than the hills around his native Salzburg.

Encounters in the Wood

There are places where even a queen has to travel on foot

Sure, the road from Tashitang to Damji was now passable; perhaps a little slippery after the rain, but no problem for a four-wheel-drive vehicle. This reassuring piece of advice, provided us by the mangap or village headman, proved in practice to be a classic case of glossing things over. The first 15 kilometres of the route were covered with stones that stuck vertically out of the earth, while the remaining 10 were an incredibly slippery trek through mud and swamp that bore virtually no resemblance to a road.

I stopped many times and went ahead on foot to check whether the road ahead of us was passable at all. With my foot right down on the gas, the Toyota Prado wallowed through the muddy soup. As night began to fall we finally reached the small village of Damji, where the mangap was already waiting for us.

To our surprise he had found a horseman who could speak some broken English; Namgay immediately brought us down to his house, where he lived with his rather brusque young wife, her parents and four sisters. We were offered red rice, chilli and salt tea – food to keep us going on the strenuous route from Gasa to Laya.

At 4,400 square kilometres, Gasa is both Bhutan’s largest and least-populated province; altogether only 3,300 people live in its villages, most of which lie in high mountain regions. Gasa is the only remaining provincial capital that cannot be reached by road; to get a view of it, you have to march for six hours over rope bridges spanning deep crevasses and past picturesque waterfalls. Below it, at Mo Chhu, is the Tsachu, the hot springs of Gasa, famed throughout Bhutan for their healing properties. Five hundred metres further up and clinging precipitously to the side of a mountain is the impressive Dzong, formerly a fortress built by the Shabdrung to secure the nearby border with Tibet, and today a monastery and seat of the provincial government.

The second day’s march leads over the Beri-La, 3,900 metres high, into a side valley of the Mo Chhu, where, according to Lonely Planet, there is to be found the most uncomfortable camping site in the whole of the Himalayas. For that reason we wanted to travel further, if possible to the Army Camp, two hours’ march below Laya. But the climb through almost endless forest was difficult; above 1,300 metres, the way is hampered by tree roots and large stones, as well as swamps and hundreds of large and small streams. Nevertheless I felt great; the giant trees around me felt like friends, willing to tell me of the many centuries they had lived. One could only imagine who they had seen come by this way. Further up, coyote lichen hung like beards from the wooden giants. The pair of vultures we met along the way did not disturb us; for them the season was already over.

For my companion, however, the strenuous march was simply too much. Despite all the trekking experience she had gained in Nepal, the routes in Bhutan seemed to be of a different order: far steeper and more exhausting, so that often you had to sit down at every step if you didn’t want to topple over or fall. I found myself having to wait for her a lot. By the time we got to the top of the pass, it was clear we weren’t going to make it to the Army Camp the same day. But our horses, together with our thermoses, sleeping bags and dry clothes were already ahead of us, unaware that we couldn’t keep up with them. I arrived in Konia at about two o’clock in the afternoon. Amid the marshy terrain stood a single stone-built house, looked after by a lonely old man whose thick glasses concealed a pair of inflamed eyes. Ulla arrived, exhausted, a little before four o’clock.

We then had to make a quick decision, for while I had been waiting my chances of making it to the Army Camp while it was still daylight had sunk to virtually nil. Ulla was to stay here, where the old man would offer her shelter and cook her some soup. I had to catch up with the caravan and be in Laya the next day. Ulla lent me her flashlight, since I would be travelling with virtually no equipment. From here the route headed up the valley of Mo Chhu, crossing two smaller passes. By about six o’clock it would be dark in Bhutan, added to which there was a new moon.

In the twilight, I descended from the second pass along a steep track, back into the gully of the torrential river, and it was there that I heard something moving in a bamboo thicket growing along the steep slope to the left of the path. I had been warned that, only the day before yesterday, a bear had killed four pigs in Gasa.

The cracking sound continued; then I clearly saw the bamboo branches move: a pair of round brown hindquarters shone ahead of me. Takin! Their thick, muscular bodies make the shy animals appear clumsy, though they can climb the steepest rock faces as nimbly as mountain goats. These two magnificent specimens fled from me through the mountain forest.

Over the river below me I saw a cantilevered bridge, of the kind that for centuries have spanned Bhutan’s most difficult terrain and most torrential mountain streams. Untroubled by the fact it was nearly dark, I jogged round the edge of a cliff – and found another takin standing right in the middle of the path to the bridge. This time it was a young one, six months old and as big as a calf.

The young animal looked at me guilelessly; I saw that his pelt was lighter than that of full-grown animals, with two parallel light brown stripes running lengthways from his thick neck to his hindquarters. I too stood still. Were I to have stretched out my hand then, I could actually have touched the strange animal. How long did we gaze at each other? It might have been a minute, perhaps two. Then I took a step forward and the takin made a sudden leap back as far as the bank of the river, where he suddenly stood still again.

On the bank opposite, my horse driver’s wife had been watching our strange meeting. Both of them had stopped here; an inner voice must have whispered to them that I was too far behind to have been able to make it all the way to the Army Camp before nightfall.

Namgay had discovered a rocky overhang beneath which we would be able to spend a dry night. We cooked first suja and then rice on the camp fire. A piece of branch served as our cooking spoon, and the couple divided their plates of rice with me, while Namgay cut the top off a discarded plastic bottle to serve as a teacup. Needless to say, I had left my modest supply of cutlery in Ulla’s rucksack.

We laid blankets round the edge of the rock and stowed our pack where it was dry, then gave nosebags to our horses and the donkey in recompense for the long day’s walk. I like sleeping outside at the worst of times, but I liked it all the more in this unspoilt spot where shepherds had probably been camping for centuries.

After it got dark it started raining again. But it was dry where we were lying beneath the rock. I was soon asleep, and all night was visited by the most marvellous dreams. My assumption that the water and raindrops would follow the laws of gravity and fall straight to the earth from the outer edge of the rock proved false: in the darkness, tiny streams of water clung to the rock, crossed the edge and ran, apparently counter to all the laws of nature, diagonally inwards across the ceiling of rock until, confronted with a quietly sleeping chilips beneath them, fell directly onto my sleeping bag. But who can be bothered by such details on such a magnificent night?

It was another hour and a half ’s walk to the Army Camp. I was supposed to present my papers there, but when we arrived no one seemed to pay the least bit of attention to me. On the far bank of a stream, a colourfully decked-out reception committee of Bhutanese and Indian officers was waiting on a helipad amid the sacred fumes of burning juniper branches and rhododendron leaves. They were evidently expecting a visit by someone very important.

A young officer invited me to join his delegation in attending the imminent arrival of Ashi Sangay Choden. For the last two weeks, the youngest of Bhutan’s four queens had been travelling from Paro to Laya by way of lingshi, as part of her work as . UNESCO ambassador providing education on family planning, hygiene, women’s rights and HIV/AIDS prevention.

A few minutes later a small but determined-looking woman appeared. She was in her early forties and wore a broad-brimmed hat, tied about with a cloth of the royal yellow-gold, together with a half-kira made of the finest silk, a variation of the traditional Bhutanese full-body wrap-around skirt for women which covered only her hips and legs. Behind her a whole phalanx of people pushed and shoved; bodyguards, permanent secretaries, high officials, officers in the uniform of the Guard, mayors, flunkeys, favourites and people who were hoping to become favourites.

The young commander barked his report, which Her Highness received calmly, then crossed the road and turned to me. I noticed that the surface of her fair-skinned face shone slightly; was it a trace of royal sweat, or the remains of a moisturising cream? ‘How are you this morning?’ Her English did not betray the slightest accent. ‘Are you here all alone?’

I tell her that I’m on my way to meet some friends in Laya. ‘Tough guys, they want to go all the way to Bumthang’; the Ashi was well informed: she had met the six of them only the evening before. I tell her of my meeting with the takin, and the night under the rock. A smile passed across her face that expressed both earnestness and a trace of melancholy. Was I fooling myself, or was she actually enjoying the fact that an uncouth foreigner was recounting stories to her without his eyes lowered, or in a whisper, or with his right hand humbly held in front of his mouth. After a quarter of an hour she wished me a good journey. ‘safe journey, Your Highness!’ I blurted out, only to learn my faux pas an hour later – it should have been ‘Your Majesty’.

As I headed further on towards Laya I found my way continuously hampered by the royal train: about seventy pack horses and mules, led by dozens of soldiers and caravan drivers, were carrying tons of baggage. Along with provisions and tents, gas cylinders and cooking utensils, what struck me most were the two diesel generators that produced electricity for the loudspeakers they had brought with them. The Ashi held large meetings with the inhabitants of the mountain villages, and marquees with lots of coloured flags, folding chairs and even a sound system were set up in playing fields and schoolyards. She warns people about the dangers of AIDS, a central theme of her campaign.

One might think that AIDS itself is not a great problem in Bhutan. There are fewer than eighty recorded cases of HIV infection, and until now only a few deaths. People with the disease are limited to the urban centres of Phuntsholing and Thimphu, and almost all those infected have either caught the virus directly from visiting a brothel in the Indian border province of Jaigaon, or indirectly from their husbands. The Bhutanese, however, are able planners, and wise enough to enjoy anticipating the future: a single case of AIDS in one of the remote mountain valleys such as Laya or Lingshi could easily lead to a catastrophe. For in these extremely thinly populated areas with their comparatively liberal sexual traditions, an entire valley could quickly become infected. Laya has only 800 inhabitants, but traditions of polygamy and polyandry mean that the sexual encounters among them are far more numerous than one would expect among such a comparatively small population. As a result, educational work goes on in regions where until now there has not been a single infection.

One might think that AIDS itself is not a great problem in Bhutan. There are fewer than eighty recorded cases of HIV infection, and until now only a few deaths. People with the disease are limited to the urban centres of Phuntsholing and Thimphu, and almost all those infected have either caught the virus directly from visiting a brothel in the Indian border province of Jaigaon, or indirectly from their husbands. The Bhutanese, however, are able planners, and wise enough to enjoy anticipating the future: a single case of AIDS in one of the remote mountain valleys such as Laya or Lingshi could easily lead to a catastrophe. For in these extremely thinly populated areas with their comparatively liberal sexual traditions, an entire valley could quickly become infected. Laya has only 800 inhabitants, but traditions of polygamy and polyandry mean that the sexual encounters among them are far more numerous than one would expect among such a comparatively small population. As a result, educational work goes on in regions where until now there has not been a single infection.

Following the Ashi’s speech, music with melancholy lyrics is played, illustrating and highlighting what the audience has just heard through popular tunes. Health officials then explain very clearly how to use condoms, and samples are generously handed out. Most of them, however, won’t be used for their proper purpose: the village children find it fascinating to blow them up like balloons – or so, at least, their ubiquity might lead one to imagine.

Bhutan’s health policy is uncompromising. The kingdom does everything it can to recognise dangers posed by new diseases and prevent them entering its territory. During the SARS epidemic a few years ago, the tiny country took drastic measures when for a short time its borders were closed to those travelling from affected areas. Tourists who had paid the official minimum tariff of $200 a day on top of an expensive flight arrived at the airport at Paro to be unceremoniously offered the choice of spending several weeks quarantined in the local hospital or flying back home the next day. Since the outbreak of bird flu, importing birds or eggs to Bhutan has been strictly forbidden, leading to a dramatic fall in the supply of eggs in Thimphu.

At over 3,900 metres above sea level, Laya is one of the highest settlements in Bhutan that is inhabited all year round. And it is also the most beautiful of mountain villages in the Bhutanese Himalayas, situated on a gently sloping pasture at the foot of several mountains that are over 7,000 metres high and covered by an eternal snow, among them the Great Tiger Mountain. The Layaps are a people with their own language and traditions, and visitors are fond of photographing the women, whose hats are woven out of bamboo and crowned by a stick that looks like a lightning rod.

Apart from photographers, the Layaps have little contact with Bhutan and its government. It is only eight hours from here to the Tibetan border, where that consumer giant, China, offers riches to delight a Bhutanese heart: rubber boots, fleece jackets, thermos flasks, carpets, transistor radios or solar panels which farmers mount on the wooden slat roofs of their traditionally-built houses. All these goods should never have crossed the country’s closed borders. For until now Bhutan and China have maintained no diplomatic relations, and – at least officially – no direct trade over the Himalayan passes.

But the altruistic Layaps have other ideas, and have dedicated themselves to the service of a good cause by providing transport for these goods – over secret routes and smugglers’ paths that only they know. It also seems likely that in return they sell to Tibet and China cordyceps, a fungus with supposedly miraculous properties. Harvesting the powerful mushrooms has occasionally brought them into conflict with Tibetans who make their way over the border in early summer to go looking for it themselves. The fungus has been prized for centuries by Chinese medicine for its curative properties.

I was short of time on the way back, and consequently wanted to make the descent from Laya to Gasa in one day. The horse driver quickly agreed; the route from Damji to Laya is still calculated at three days’ rental of the horses, irrespective of how quickly the client travels. The horses remained behind; we had agreed to walk as far as Gasa without taking a midday rest, and hopefully to get there before darkness fell. It was a distance of almost 40 kilometres, more than 2,000 metres uphill and 3,000 down.

As we were climbing up to Beri-La it started to drizzle.

Even up here at 3,300 metres, the forest to the right and left of us was very dense. Suddenly we heard cracking in the undergrowth. A bear appeared, looking hesitant and good-natured. After a few seconds he turned around and disappeared growling into the thicket.

The encounter was so sudden and over so quickly that I had no time to be afraid.

One hundred and fifty metres further on I saw on the left some resting places laid out with brushwood and juniper, which had been placed there at regular intervals by the delegation’s advance guard for the use of the Ashi, who must have come this way the same morning. Now, though, there were two tents standing there, and a little further uphill the cooking tent of the team accompanying a tourist group that had pitched its camp in the middle of the forest.

It was an inhospitable place to be camping, in the rain alongside the track. The three tourists had closed their tents and were probably waiting inside until the rain was over. Their guide invited me into the cooking tent and offered me tea and cakes.

In a hushed voice I told him of my meeting with the bear, scarcely a stone’s throw from where his group was camping. I could see that this piece of news did not please him. In such cases there’s only one thing you can do: make a lot of noise, for bears hate commotion. So they started hammering pots and singing. The clients...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Why there are No Traffic Lights in Thimphu
• State Visit on Foot
• The Hardest Trek in the World
• Encounters in the Wood
• The Hour of the Leopard
• The Potent Caterpillar
• Passing out in a Wooden Trough
• The Naked Men of Bumthang
• With a Dagger in his Belly and His Hands in Boiling Oil
• The Visit from the Reincarnated Man
• Electricity Comes Out of a Socket
• Gross National Happiness
• Outlawing Addictions
• Glossary