Wednesday 9th September 2009
We left my new friends at the Gangtey Lodge about 9.00 a.m. but we’d arranged one more visit before leaving the district. We parked by Beyta Community School (where yesterday’s horse ride had finished) since a visit had been arranged to see the work of the school. The school covered grade 1 to 5 but the headmaster (who oversaw the building of the school a few years ago) hoped to extend to grade 6 when an agreed building programme is complete. A wide syllabus is taught, much of it in English. The children looked smart in approved national dress and were well behaved. Each child had textbooks, exercise books and a set of pencils and coloured crayons, all provided by the Government. I looked at the maths textbook (a Bhutan – Canadian co-production in English) and found innovative modelling techniques to help young people master the manipulation of numbers and problems which I’m sure would daunt children of a similar age in my own country. Pictures of Beyta School.
We drove back along the road we'd used to get to Gangtey part of the way towards Thimphu. At the highest point (elevation 3,600 metres) we stopped to look at the chorten and take some pictures. Mist was swirling around us. We were then back to the series of hairpins leading us to lower levels. At one point, the bushes held a troop of monkeys unconcernedly munching berries.
At a couple of villages we passed through, families produce woven bamboo as a material for fences, temporary shelters or house walls. To ease the effort of slicing the bamboo longitudinally, they lay out bamboo along the road and let the traffic run over it for a while. Periodically, there were local people selling produce. If they can sell it at the roadside, it saves the cost and time of transporting it to the nearest market. Every few kilometres, we’d pass people working on the road, keeping the gutters clear and cutting back the luxuriant vegetation. We crossed a major river on a substantial girder bridge apparently provided by the Japanese. Oddly, the girders were unpainted and were brown with rust.
Bhutan has no conventional railways but it does have one ‘ropeway’ serving the remote hilltop village of Tashila. We stopped at the bottom of the ropeway to observe the operation. The main function is to take supplies up to the village, bringing back produce like potatoes and timber. When we arrived, the ropeway was working and we decided to wait for the load to arrive. The ropeway ‘driver’ (and possibly proprietor) seemed quite happy with me poking around but, with amazing self-restraint, I’ll not give you the technical details just now. The load which arrived was a substantial tree log with a number of sacks of potatoes strapped on top. This load was lowered to the ground and the return load of bundles of sacks (presumably for more potatoes) was lashed to the ‘carrier’. I was puzzled when one of the men who had helped to lash the bundles of sacks in place fixed a piece of cargo netting hammock-style above the load. I was amazed when he jumped into this ‘hammock’ and was dispatched without ceremony by the ‘driver’ on the half-hour journey to the summit. Pictures of Tashila Ropeway.
As we approached Whangdue Phodrang, the massive white bulk of the Dzong, sitting high on the cliffs overlooking the confluence of two rivers looked more like a medieval fortress than the monastery and seat of civil government it has become. The impression of a defensible place is maintained inside in some of the dark, windowless stone passageways connecting different parts of the Dzong. There are a number of ‘arrow slit’ windows as well. But the courtyards, surrounded by wooden galleries of intricate design and gaily painted are places of light, celebration and ceremony. The architecture is impressive but it’s difficult to distinguish between the genuinely ancient and the recent renovations. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. The effect is timeless and magnificent. Pictures of Whangdue Phodrang Dzong.
The town of Whangdue Phodrang lies just outside the Dzong, sharing with the Dzong its cliff-top location. There’s a huge prayer-wheel, taller than a man, in a decorated wooden pavilion. This is no mere picturesque relic – all day people come and go, giving the heavy cylinder one or more spins. The town is a wonderful, cramped place with no pavements and a host of tiny shops selling anything you could wish for. Mobile phone or DVD player needs repair? No problem. It’s messy, very human and, no doubt, dangerous with pedestrians and traffic vying for space so, inevitably, a new town is taking shape a few kilometres away. Pictures of Whangdue Phodrang Town.
We crossed the river, easing past the solitary cow which had taken up station on the bridge and continued along the Thimphu road, before turning right onto the road to Punakha. Punakha has already been blessed with a new town. It may be very convenient for the residents but it struck me as being as unattractive as most other new towns I’ve seen. A few kilometres further on, we came to what some regard as the most beautiful of Bhutan's collection of twenty Dzong, the Dzong at Punakha, which we visited the following day. The car carried on up a beautiful river valley with wooded hills on either side. The lower elevation gives a much warmer, sub-tropical climate making this a desirable spot to winter for royalty and those who can afford it alike. Tashi pointed out the roof of a traditional Bhutanese villa part-hidden in the trees on the opposite ride of the river. This was the main building of our destination, the Amankora Punakha Lodge. We parked near the riverbank by a modern suspension bridge which I realised was pedestrian only. We were greeted by staff from the Lodge who collected my luggage and hoisted it onto their shoulders. We set off single-file across the bridge over the fast-flowing river. I was presented with a short tape bearing a number of coloured prayer flags. I had to tie this to the wire cable handrail of the bridge, joining the hundreds already there, fluttering in the warm breeze. Reaching the other side of the river safely, a walk of a few yards took us to a waiting ‘golf buggy’. But this was an internal-combustion buggy which a later learned was one of two specially converted for the job by Amankora from a small Maruti van. A steep winding track took us to the building I’d seen on our arrival and the hotel manager and other staff were on hand to welcome me.
I had a shower and a light lunch in the outside courtyard and met Tashi for a bike ride. I think he was a bit worried as to how I’d get on, so he suggested we drove to a suitable place with the bikes and then rode back. We travelled in the golf buggy to the suspension bridge, walked across the bridge to the car park and there was Karma with the 4 x 4. I wondered how they’d get two mountain bikes in the back of the 4 x 4 and then I realised, with some horror, that they wouldn’t. One of the staff from the Lodge was there with a van containing two bikes and the two vehicles set off north on the public road. We travelled for about twenty minutes with me thinking we were going an awful long way and stopped. I’d expected that we’d be going on some sort of nature trail but Tashi said “Do you think you can ride back to the Lodge from here?” Suppressing the answer which sprang to mind ("No chance") I meekly said I didn’t know. Tashi was full of warnings about how bad the driving was and the animals on the road and the likelihood of plunging off the road altogether. After a perfunctory check that there were some sort of brakes and a bit of experimenting with the two gear levers, I wobbled off on my own. Once I’d got the machine in a sensible sort of mid-gear I realised that the road was predominantly downhill and started to enjoy myself. You needed to steer away from the major potholes and avoid the edge of the tarmac but it wasn’t bad. Approaching animals or pedestrians, I slowed down and sounded the bell. The locals were amused by the elderly foreigner on a bike but returned my wave and smiled. After a while, Karma passed me on the other bike and we carried on, sometimes with me in the lead, sometimes him. I managed to keep going on the uphill parts without selecting a lower gear. From time to time I could just hear the two vehicles trailing me and there were a few other vehicles on the road. I realised then I would have no difficulty getting back to the Lodge. I afterwards discovered it was only about a 6 km journey. When Karma pulled in near some houses level with the ‘Royal Chorton’ on a hill on the opposite bank, I stopped as well and we took a picture.
I set off again, this time with Tashi riding the second bike, and I was quite sorry when I pulled into the car park by the bridge to the Lodge. A few pictures on the Bike Ride.
For the first night, I had the place to myself (five more guests were to arrive on the following day). It was raining so dinner for one was moved into the charming Tea House. I enjoyed a leisurely meal as a musician played Bhutanese music using alternately a lyre and flute. I went to bed tired but happy.
