The 40,000 1/2 ft Bar

Who has read The Ascent of Rum Doodle? Wikipedia has a good summary. It's essential reading for any of you mountaineering types out there and a highly recommended book which has bit of a cult following here in Thamel.

In addition to being able to find the book in every used book store in Thamel, there is also the Rum Doodle Restaurant and Bar which boasts of a 40,000 1/2 ft bar. Not really, but that's part of the point. Read the book - you'll get the reference. This is a pretty famous place, with memorabilia from all the famous climbers I've heard about - like Sir Ed and Rob Hall. But the interesting signatures are from the sherpas who have climbed Everest 12 and 16 times. Wow.

Thanks Don for lending me the book years ago ... so I could be in the in crowd! That's Justin-the-want-to-be-Rum-Doodle-Ascender in the photo outside the restaurant.

We're Back!

After a month of separation from the internet, we have returned. Quite weary, thinner, and full of stories and pictures.

It will take me a bit to catch up on a month of blogging - especially when the adventures continue. It might be June by the time I catch up so please have patience with me!

Namaste!

Now you know how to say hello in Nepali!

I flew from Bhutan to Nepal along the Himilayas. I got the one of the best seats on the plane - a right side window. Now I can say that I've at least seen (and taken a picture of) Everest.

I've met up with Justin again and we are headed off on the Annapurna Circuit and Sanctuary Trek. Check out www.yetizone.com for a description. We'll be out of contact for 26 days, so I'm sorry the blog is going into hibernate mode. But there will be lots of new stories when we get back!

Namaste!

First Elections in Bhutan

On March 24 Bhutan held their first democratic elections. After 100 years of monarchy, the King decided Bhutan should be a democracy. In an interesting twist, the people, who love their king, did not want a democracy. This was, after all, the king who established the policy of Gross National Happiness.

Compared to elections in the United States, these are very polite. Posters are only allowed on specific billboards. Commercials on the Bhutanese Broadcasting System (BBS) involve people walking through fields singing about the importance of voting. The two parties are promising the same things - roads and clean water in the villages. There are still many places where you have to walk for days to reach villages as there are no roads through this very mountainous country.

The Druk Truth Party (DTP) won by a landslide. The papers (which came out two days later) had the story. 44 out of 47 districts elected a DTP candidate. Only 3 districts elected a People's Democratic Party Candidate. The election observers I met said that the elections themselves went extremely well and efficiently. Bhutan used the electronic voting machines from India that work extremely well. In the remote villages, helicopters were used to deliver the machines and pick up the results. However, they were a little less happy about the strong one party majority result. But for a first election I think this was as good as you could get.

Given the US' problems with hanging tags and electronic voting machines maybe they should consider the same thing. After all, any system that allows the population of India to vote and get results efficiently has something going for it.

Paro Tsechu

A Tsechu, or festival, is held in many parts of the country during different lunar months. Luckily I planned my trip to Bhutan to coincide with the Paro Tsechu.

The Tsechu lasts 5 days. It starts on Monday with a series of events inside the Paro Dzong (a dzong is a fortress/temple/monastery). On Tuesday it moves outside to a larger venue. In culminates on Friday with the unfurling of the Thongdrel at 3 am.

The first 4 days of the Tsechu are dances and plays that mainly teach people about Buddhism in Bhutan. From my perspective it was like drinking from a firehose. There was so much to see and learn that I only picked up a fraction of it all. Some of the dances/plays, like the Dance of the Judgement of the Dead, are meant to teach people what happens when you die and are led to judgement by Shinje, the Lord of Death. Parents take their children to see this dance because they believe that then they won't be scared when they die.

Not all the dances are this serious. There are folk dances by women from a local village dressed in beautiful matching kiras. There are clowns, calles Atsaras, that run around making fun of the dancers, participate in the plays, and joke with the audience. The Atsaras carry wooden phallic shaped sticks that they poke people with and use as a prop (use your imagination).

The costumes are also very elaborate and beautiful. While the women dance in very tiny line dancing like steps in their Kiras, the men wear the elaborate costumes with masks and twirl around wildly for really long periods of time. I was trying to figure out how they didn't get dizzy.


On the last day at 3 am a giant 4 story tapestry, called the Thongdrel, is unfurled at 3 am. The Thongdrel has Guru Rinpoche (the founder of Nyingma Buddhism and the person who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in in AD 746) in the center surrounded by his eight manifestations. His image and statues are everywhere here in Bhutan and you can usually recognize him by his little mustache.

People line up to pass beneath the Thongdrel this early in the morning. They believe that if you are blessed under the Thongdrel your sins are washed away. I got up at 4 am to join the line, which actually turned into sort of a mob crush right before a police blockade. The police were controlling the "entrance" to the Thongdrel. After getting through the crush, I walked underneath this gorgeous tapestry in the half dark, was blessed by a monk with a gold thunderbolt in his hand under Guru Rinpoche, and then blessed by another monk with a gold hand of Buddha. I was blessed by having these objects touched to the top of my head.

Right in front of me, through the crush of people and then the line under the Thongdrel at 4 am, was a father alone with his 3 young girls. The baby was probably 3 months old and the other two little girls were probably 2 and 4. This is a very important event to the people.

I found it an odd coincidence that the blessing under the Thongdrel nearly coincided with Easter in the Christian world. Both have the same premise - washing away of our sins - and some interesting similarities (ever been to Easter sunrise service?). To be light hearted - it goes along with the Asian saying: Same, Same but Different.

After the blessing, I ran into Karen and Douglas, some friends I met on the plane to Bhutan. This is a great picture of Karen at the unfurling as the sun was rising.

This dirt road led to Karma

One afternoon, after the Paro Tsechu was over for the day, I was dropped off in Paro and left to wander back to my hotel. Hooray! Freedom to wander!

I was walking down a dirt road outside of Paro when I heard a "hello" from above me. I looked up and standing in a stairway landing was a monk. He asked me the typical questions - what are you doing?, where is your guide?, where are you from?, what is your name?. Then he invited me up for tea.

Turns out this 16 year old monk named Karma is the reincarnated 67th Lama. He normally lives and studies in a monastery that is 1 1/2 hours walk up a hill outside of town. He was staying with his family for the Paro Tsechu, but did not go to the festival because he thinks it is inappropriate to go out.

I had a wonderful tea with Karma. His father chaperoned us while I got the details of monk life, learned how he was found to be a reincarnated Lama, and had a great discussion about Harry Potter. Turns out Karma is as big of a fan as I am. He's read all the books multiple times and has read the third book 18 times (it was the first one he got). Cool!

Only I could meet a 16 year old reincarnated Lama on a dirt road and have an hour long conversation about Harry Potter.

I had to leave when the sun set, but this was like going to Honeydukes. That - by the way - was Karma's analogy.

Sorry there are not any pictures of this experience. I completely forgot to document this adventure. But I hope you liked the story. These types of stories are the ones that make a trip special - at least in my mind.

This is Cheese?

Yak cheese is made by boiling the curds from the churning process then drying the boiled "cheese" in either the sun (for white cheese) or smoke (for brown cheese).

My advice - don't try to bite the cheese. It's comparable to a rock. Instead, you eat the cheese by pulling a piece off the string, sticking the whole piece in your mouth, and sucking. Be prepared to suck on this piece of cheese for several hours. Eventually it becomes kind of sandy feeling (got to love the pun).

It has a pretty mellow taste, which is nice because in this country they consider chilis to be a vegetable. Everything except the cheese and tea seems to be made with lip burning, eye watering, oh my god can I even breathe chilis. One of the favorite dishes is ema datse - chilis with cheese. This dish is eaten three times a day. Fortunately, in ema datse, the cheese is melted so you don't have to suck on it for several hours!