STREET OF EMACIATED COWS

I start my morning journey to the hospital on a busy Battambang street, walking sometimes on sidewalks and sometimes on dirt, passing 2 hotels catering to Europeans, a corner "petrol station", i.e. non-sanctioned gasoline sold in glass liter coke bottles, a moto taxi stand, a hostel for male students and at the corner of the Street of Emaciated Cows 4 outdoor eateries serving rice and various stews. The Street of Emaciated Cows is not only a short cut; it offers me a varied glimpse of non-urban Cambodia in the middle of the city.

Where streets have no names you can name your own.
This name is not an official street name. I don't think many streets in Battambang are named as such. Addresses are given by commune, district, town. But like most barangs I am used to giving directions by street names. Not everyone sees the defining aspect of this street as the emaciated cows. It could just as easily be called the 'Street Where Dogs Rule. Three to four dogs live at every house, creating an unavoidable presence. They are typical Cambodian dogs in that they live in their own world, oblivious to the people, cars, and motos. They act as if sure they are the sole owners of the street. Or it could be called the 'Street Where People Fish in the Sewer'. I find this activity most bizarre and in its singularity think it should be honored with a name. But I've been calling this street in honor of its emaciated cows since I first walked down it three years ago. Most of the time we simply call it the short cut.

The street starts out paved, but the last 50 meters is red dirt. A fresh dumping of dirt was laid a couple of weeks ago, haphazardly graded and has now become a series of dry ruts. In the rainy season it will be an impassable quagmire.

The Cows

Only one house has cows--white, lop-eared, wattled and pathetic. They stand in short sparse grass or at a rubber manger, deliberately chewing as if savoring every mouthful. They are simply bone and wattles, seemingly contented in the same way the starving are listlessly immobile in their starvation. Had Cambodia a humane society, the family keeping the cows would be fined for cruelty and the poor animals impounded. But I like the cows--passive, earthy beasts without the mocking ghetto style of the dog packs.

Most houses have a flock of scrawny, mangy, half-feathered chickens that peck around the road and on the verges. One family has a giant pig that sometimes roams the street and roots in the garbage. Most of the time in wallows in its own yard, a hefty reminder of a future feast.

Fishing in the Sewer
One house on the street is an exquisite and decoratively tiled affair with a manicured garden, a small pool and little noticeable activity. Most of the houses are traditional, stilted wood houses where the open understory serves as the living quarters furnitured with tables, chairs, cupboards and hammocks. Fruit trees, shade trees, a shrine, and a fence make them seem almost to be in the country, not the middle of the city. At the dirt end of the street are 3 ramshackle abodes perched over the black sewer where people fish. This black, garbage-strewn water smells and looks most disgusting. Yet, I have often seen people with long-handled nets scooping through these most inauspicious waters for their dinner.
Every weekday morning teenaged school girls emerge from their hostel near the corner in uniforms of long-sleeved white shirts and long navy sarongs. They ride upright on their high-handle-bar bikes, sometimes with a friend sitting side-saddle behind. Through the opened windows their rooms look uncomfortably hot, bare of decoration, the beds separated by racks of hanging.

The Businesses
Two recently built hotels and a restaurant give commerce to the paved section of the road. A few wooden kiosks selling similar snacks, drinks and sundries but only a few meters apart vie for the street's commerce, somehow attract people to sit and talk and purchase their goods. How they make money I don't know. A recently built wooden platform with half meter high coconut logs serving as stools and a table give young men a place to play chess under the scant shade of a flowering cassia tree in the afternoons.
The old man
I recognize the dogs of the street more readily than the people, except one old man whom I have passed on every walk during my three missions with Emergency in Battambang. He has a long wispy beard from a mole on his cheek. He wears the same baggy black shorts, a red and black jacket and a red baseball cap and walks with an unsteady, slow, wide-based gait of drunkenness. Sometimes in the afternoon he drinks beer through a straw at one of neighborhood kiosks, or sits in his yard, staring. When I pass, I greet him and he gives me the queerest look, as if seeing a barang on the Street of Emaciated Cows is a most unusual event.

A CAMBODIAN WEDDING

Similarities in weddings

Weddings in cultures that place a high value on lavish nuptial displays are instructive anthropological experiences. Even when the cultures may be vastly different, the celebrations can take on similar characteristics: the brides gussied-up like a display manikins, the food plentiful, the music overly loud and the dancing, well, it too, looks uncannily the same. I'm not talking about church basement receptions that offer a miniscule slice of dry cake and a dixie cup of cloying fruit punch.

Other than histories of recent civil war, the legacy of hideous refugee camps, and a present vying for the highest rungs of internationally defined corruption, Afghanistan and Cambodia are different not by degrees, but to their very cores. Despite this, weddings in both counties seem cut from the same cloth!

The brides in both countries are coiffed and made up with glitter, added bits of hair and elongated eye lashes, and liberal layers of color lacquered to a shiny finish. The three or four outfits she wears during the party are ruffled, laced, sequined, and flounced, accompanied with matching shoes, hair ornaments, bracelets, belts, necklaces and tiaras.

The food is traditional. The menu in Afghanistan is pillao, mutton, chicken, and fruit downed with tea; the dinner in Cambodia is a series of Khmer meat dishes, soup, rice and canned drinks. The dancing is the same, exactly the same--traditional rhythmical promenading with arms raised and hands circling to the music. The ubiquitous presence of beer in Cambodia and the separation of the sexes in Afghanistan are two glaring differences.

The Wedding of Mr. No's Daughter


When Deb Rutherford, Emergency's Medical Coordinator, and I arrived at the wedding party for Mr. No's daughter we were greeted by the families of the bride and groom at the elaborate entrance to the restaurant. The bride, in lavender satin and the tallest, pointiest, most impractical matching pumps, and the groom in a white ill-fitting baggy, and I suspect very fashionable suit, greeted us at the top of the stairs. She smiled though a severe application of industrial strength foundations, eye-liner, mascara, eye-shadow and lipstick. Her heavy, gold, snake-coiled ankle bracelets were a masterpiece of improbability. I wanted to take a picture of them, but thought it a bit rude to concentrate my photography on the bride's feet. It is sometimes difficult to know what such brides look like without the extra layers. The groom's warm, ready smile seemed to say, "accept, accept, it will all wash-off tomorrow."



Entering the cavernous room of the wedding party we were engulfed in deafening music and oppressively humid heat. We declined a table of honor in the front near the speakers and sat at an empty round table that quickly filled with a dozen of the hospitals newly hired single young male nurses and therapists, the young bucks. They got down to business and opened the "banquet packs" piled on the table. Each plastic wrapped pack contained a half dozen small plastic bowls, wooden chopsticks, and thin metal spoons. They passed around the cans of warm beer and soda and procured a bag of ice. Drinking beer with ice through a straw wouldn't go down in my town's New Atlas Bar, but somehow seems in keeping with the enjoyment of a SE Asian banquet.



Toasting
Diluting beer with ice is a lifesaver in the heat and helps to avoid total alcoholic dissipation that comes with the Cambodia habit of toasting. Sometimes the toasts come as a challenge: a friend arrives at the table with a full glass and invites one person or all the members of the table to a toast, pointing to the bottom of the glass, a drink to the finish. All this is accomplished in a spirit of bravado and a concerted effort to get drunk. Or one can approach a table and in the spirit of friendship toast your friends. The straw makes it difficult to down the whole glass, while the melted ice, now 80% of the glass's contents, makes even a bottoms-up less potent.

The toast is not to anything or anyone in particular. One simply holds out their glass and says, "toast!" I like the idea of toasting and I especially like visiting tables of Cambodian colleagues and offering to drink with them. They like that I, the barang doctor, will initiate one of their customs. As our table, expanded to 15 with the advancement of the evening, we toasted each other every five minutes. Each clinking of glass against glass made us laugh, eager for the next toast.

The Food
The food arrived in courses set on a lazy susan in the center of the table. The first course of appetizers included little dishes of a vinegrated salad of root vegetables, pieces of dried meat, some other bits that are customary at such affairs, but whose names or ingredients I either don't like or don't know and roasted peanuts sprinkled with sugar. Picking peanuts up one my one with chopsticks is good practice, but it is far easier to put a spoonful into one's bowl and eat them with the fingers. Various platters of meat and vegetable dishes followed, including the thighs, legs and feet of birds about the size of sparrows that crunched with great satisfaction in one mouthful. A whole chicken landed on the table as the next course, pulled apart by dueling chopsticks. Shrimps in broth with rice followed. Desert was a packet of rolled wafer cookies. I piled all the unopened packages into the arms of the son of Madame Hourt, the hospital's matron.

One accepted custom, even when the party takes place inside, is to throw one's empty cans and all litter under the table. When, at my first Cambodian wedding I saw a table of men casually throwing their empties under the table, I thought it rather crass. I soon realized that it was not just common, but expected and an easy way to clear the limited table surface of unwanted cans. I don't normally throw my trash under the table, but found it a wonderfully liberating experience.



The bride and her family and attendants aren't the only ones dolled up. Cambodian women and girls seem to have a closet of extravagantly laced and sequined tight fitting satin and brocaded bodices that they wear with ankle-length sarongs. Puffy sheer sleeves and scalloped embroidered necklines are standard. Neither Deb nor I own such attire. We came in our best clothes--me looking rather dowdy and Deb looking like she could have been heading for the beach. Amidst the finery of the women, the typical man comes to a wedding in a shirt with the tails hanging out or a T-shirt. The children are dressed like dolls.

After the dinner we were given handfuls of fragrant white jasmine flowers that we threw at the bride and groom as they walked to the stage at the front of the room. Nicer than rice. No silver ribboned presents are left on a table for the bride and groom. Instead, each guest receives an envelope into which money is inserted, a name written on the outside and dropped into an elaborate bowl or given to one of the wedding party.

Dancing like Apsaras
Having eaten our fill, and tired of toasting with watery beer, as soon as the music for dancing started, everyone at our table rushed to the dance floor. At my first Cambodian wedding, I was instructed, "move your hands like Angkor Wat." The connection with the thousand year-old Khmer ruins went right over my head, until the second instruction: "like the dancing fairies, the apsaras." So we danced like the apsaras immortalized at Angkor Wat with our hands circling above our heads in graceful circles, the very same way they dance at weddings in Afghanistan.

CHANGE in CAMBODIA

An observer of change
The opportunity to periodically return to a country that is rapidly developing like Cambodia is quite rewarding. Though I stumbled into the process when it was already well established, the changes are such that even a casual observer can sense the momentum, and in the process feel that she is a part of something unique. Even if that part is only to record how it is taking place.

When I was first in the country in 2007 I was told that the Cambodians don't like change the way we in the West seem to thrive on it. The context of this particular conversation involved a large Phnom Penh hospital where there was resistance to how the goals of improving patient care and increasing the hospital's capacity could be achieved. I accepted this statement as "development wisdom." I'd seen resistance to change in a number of medical or surgical situations. Even small changes such as routinely bathing and putting clean pajamas on patients can become an almost impossible feat to implement.

Besides the visibly evident changes as seen in the increased number of motos on the road, the number of people crammed onto each, and the recent enforced laws about helmet use, some of the changes are more subtle. Despite what I was told was the situation in the hospital, many Cambodians seem relentlessly in pursuit of change.

Much of my interpretation of this extraordinary rate of change has to do with the zippy way everyone moves about. Everyone seems to be in a hurry. It takes me longer to cross the roads now than it did a year and a half ago because of the increase in traffic. I can't just look one way and then another and go, I have to repeat this a few times, go through a complex assessment of who is going to turn and which lane they will chose to turn from and into. One's assumptions must be rapidly amended, realizing that the Cambodians are attuned to using more paths to get to the desired space in the road than I. There are fewer walkers and fewer bicycles, and far more motos and cars. The man who delivers bread every morning between 05:30 and 06:00 used to come by moto; now he comes by truck. I would not be surprised if 5 years ago he made deliveries by bicycle.

I pass the same shops, the same restaurants, that I have passed on every daily walk to the hospital, but they seem larger and cleaner. The packaged goods for sale are more in number, the selection is broader or a few more tables or another shelf have been added to increase business. Though the air is full of dust, the glass display cases are cleaner. In the past they seemed grimy, uninviting. Now the bottles and cans, the plastic fruits for display, and the packaged biscuits gleam with the care of daily dusting. The corner restaurants where I turn into the "Street of emaciated cows" on my way to work now have cloth tablecloths draped over the plastic tables. The bottles of chili and fish sauce are wiped clean, not coated with thickened dribbles as I remember. People seem to care more about the appearance of what they have to sell. Maybe this is because tucked into a corner along the verge of the road a few feet away, another entrepreneurial family has set up a table and gas burner and starts chopping their vegetables just as early as the already established restaurant stall keepers.


Everywhere people are selling. One woman parks a trailer in front of the hospital every morning to sell watermelons to hospital visitors and the police at the new multistoried police office across from the hospital. Further down the road a young woman sits on the grass beside a cloth laid out with stuffed animals for sale. Why she has chosen this spot, I don't know and how much she sells or why these particular wares, I also don't know, but she is working. The cardboard collectors and the glass collectors are doing a brisk business recycling. Garbage is a sure sign of development.

Another change: I see more girls driving boys and women driving men on their motos. Females have always driven motos in Cambodia, but if there were a girl and a boy on the same moto, the boy drove.


Not all things change
The emaciated cows living on the street of the same name are the same as I remember--all bone and sad skin. Had Cambodia a human society, these poor bovines would have long ago been impounded. The dogs still rule this street and the black cur that rules one end continues to spread his seed along the entire length of the street.

The Hospital

Though it looks the same, the Emergency Hospital has changed. The sweepers still sweep the bougainvillea flower petals from the lawn every day. The creepers and vines crowding the small garden with its Buddhist statues still give the appearance of a secluded sanctuary.

The admission criteria have become stricter. All pediatric trauma is accepted, but only adults with open fractures or poly-trauma patients who have sustained multiple, more life-threatening injuries, are admitted. Even though the hospital's in-patient census has decreased it remains just as busy. The increased number of motos and the faster speeds that people travel on the improved roads create more devastating injuries, requiring more operating room time, more physical therapy, and more work in the wards for each patient. Two fractured femurs on one patient are not uncommon and the combination of a fractured femur and a fractured tibia seems almost routine.



At the international house I was disappointed to find a huge table that could easily seat 20 people occupying the pavilion where I do early morning TaiChi. After a week it was moved and I have recovered the use of a most perfect venue to do my exercise. The morning bird calls begin when I begin, with the click and boom of geckos punctuating the morning darkness. The hoarse chant and "music" from the nearby wats (temples) with their dreadful sound systems start at 06:00 on holy days, flooding the neighborhood with a discouraging din. These things don't change.

There was more to the statement that I heard 3 years ago about the Cambodians not embracing change: they don't accept change simply for the sake of change. But when there is a reason for change, a push from within or without, a need to go, to move, to sell and buy, then change can become the norm.

HELMETS and MIRRORS

New laws for moto drivers
Walking to the hospital on my first morning in Battambang I had the sensation that something was amiss, but it took me far too long to figure out the disconnection because it was so unexpected: every motor scooter now sported two rear view mirrors and over 85% of the moto drivers were wearing helmets. 1 ½ years ago I had been so exercised by the number of moto injuries in the hospital and the lack of rear view mirrors, I made a survey while walking to work, counting the number of cycles with one or two mirrors--12%. I even inquired from the Emergency staff why the factory installed attachments for mirrors were unused. The consensus was that "a mirror detracted from the handsomeness of the bike".

Of course. Why would anyone, American or Khmer ever put safety before vanity? The moto is a direct extension of one's self and a couple of clunky mirrors protruding from the handlebars not only get in the way, but they also alter the sleek lines of racing beauty.

That so few people wore helmets was understandable in light of the lack of all other safety precautions. I'm sure most people thought the sign at Emergency's entrance admonishing helmet use had more to do with art than a public service reminder.

What brought this monumental change? Recent helmet and mirror laws and a police force quite ready to slap on the fines for noncompliance. Pretty amazing, really to have such compliance. The mirrors are easy. You buy a couple of mirrors, screw them in and you only have to look at them once in a while. Are they used? Having mirrors installed and using them are not of the same order. One of the nurses told me he didn't trust the mirrors. He wasn't able to interpret the mirrored images with what he sensed and saw in "unmirrored reality". Even seeing a Cambodian moto driver turn and do a head check for traffic is a reportable event. When you enter a driving culture with little background experience and you drive using the same fluid rules that you use in walking, mirrors are probably something that are rather more useless than simply detracts from the handsomeness of the machine.

Someone made a lot of money selling mirrors. I wonder if certain vendors, through insider information, didn't corner the market and make a killing. Now all motos come equipped.



Helmet laws
The helmet law looks good on first appraisal. My first reaction was hurray! And to think that Cambodia is actually enforcing this seems quite commendable. When I look at the situation more closely I wonder how much good such a law actually does. Most of the helmets are rather inadequate, looking more like something one would wear on a bicycle, or as a jocky on a horse. Straps are left unhooked, or secured at such an angle to that the wearer is more likely to be pithed in the event of a crash than be saved from head injury. I even saw a driver with the chin bar of the helmet around his forehead

Can a law generate the sort of behavior change it is meant to? Only superficially at this time in Cambodia when the law only pertains to the driver. Seeing a family of 5 perched on a moto with only the father wearing a helmet I realize that people are following the letter of the law because the consequences are not pleasant. The idea that a helmet can save a life and everyone on the moto should wear one to be safe hasn't quite caught on. Maybe this is just a start, and it is certainly better than nothing, but I wonder if people will gradually stop wearing them and the police will discontinue rounding up the non-helmeted drivers, to take to pocketing the fine and convert it to a bribe, thus corrupting the entire idea.

Getting arouond the law( and into the hospital)
When I asked about the connection between the new helmet laws and the 2 young men in the ICU with frontal brain injury and significant bits of bone missing from their depressed skull fractures from moto crashes I was told they crashed at night. I didn't get the connection until One of the Khmer doctors explained that at night people don't wear helmets. The perception and probably the reality is that there are fewer police out to enforce the laws and in the dark no one can see that you aren't wearing a helmet.

There are always reasons why things happen as they do, even if the reasons aren't always readily evident.

More on helmets later.

IN CAMBODIA

1 Feb 2010

Arrival in Phnom Penh
I arrived in Phnom Penh January 28th to start a three month mission at Emergency's hospital in Battambang, the 2nd largest city in Cambodia located in the country's northwest corner, near the Thai border. This is my fourth trip to Cambodia, but only the third to work with Emergency.

The Hospital
The hospital was established over 11 years ago to deal with the large number of landmine and other war-related injuries in this Khmer Rouge dominated area. With the end of the civil war, de-mining operations, and rapid post-conflict aid-generated development the boundaries of the killing fields have shifted to now include the roads. Every day hundreds of shiny, new motor scooters are added to the many thousands already crowding the country's improved and expanded road system. The growth in the number of cars follows at the same rate, though the numbers are smaller.

Changes
Fifteen months absence from a rapidly developing country can seem to the returned visitor that she has landed in a completely different country. Readily observable change is the operative word. It is not just that buildings exist that were not present before or land use has transformed the landscape. The style, materials, and shapes of the structures don't look like the old. New means the sharp, modern lines of glass and concrete that typify global urbanization. The new buildings could be in any city. Even traditional houses sport new bright red, green, or blue metal roofs that make them stand out rather than blend with their surroundings.

The changes seemed particularly impressive because I was driven from the airport to Battambang skirting Phnom Penh through the early stages of a brand new "international city". Not until we completed the by-pass loop and turned onto route 5 far to the north of the capital did I find familiar landmarks: irrigated rice fields, roadside stands selling lotus flowers, jars of pickled bamboo--each particular item of merchandise clustered along a short kilometer of the road where they have been in the past. Most telling of all the familiarities were the delicate spires of Buddhist temples rising above the trees in the middle and far horizons.

Battambang
Though much building has taken place in Battambang, such as a new 5 storied police building and high rise, flash hotels--the grounds and buildings of the Emergency Surgical Centre have the same clean, white walls that set this NGO apart and give the hospital an inviting, peaceful air.

The market in the middle of the city remains unchanged. One end is filled with the smell of dried fish and the fragrance of Khmer food cooking. The other end houses seamstresses fashioning tight-fitting sequined and beaded peplumed wedding attire on their treadle sewing machines in their tiny shops. Around the periphery the fruit and vegetable sellers set up their wares in colorful pyramids.

And in the park along the river a red shrine sits in the crouch of a gnarled much hacked-at Banyan tree--Ficus religiosus, the holy fig of Buddhism. Fine ash from the spent wands of incense litter the flags as they have for many years

PARO Bhutan

Christmas in Bhutan

After a visit to the Folk Heritage Museum in Thimphu on Christmas morning Judy and I traveled to Paro, the small town in one of the broadest of Bhutan's valleys. Every air passenger to Bhutan arrives and departs through Paro airport, the only one in the country. The Druk Air flights curve in an ascending or descending series of turns between forests and villages, skirting steep -sided mountains. No radar or directional signals are useful in such a non-linear situation and the pilots are dependent on visual flight rules. When I asked how the pilots determine when the conditions are safe, my gaze was directed to a monastery on the top of a mountain just northeast of Paro: when this is visible, the weather is acceptable. What better than this in a Himalayan Buddhist Kingdom?

The Tiger’s Nest

We hadn't come to Paro to fly, but rather to walk to the Taktshang Goemba, the most famous of Bhutan's many Buddhist monasteries. Guru Rinpoche flew to this holy site on the back of a tigress in the 8th century, giving it its name, The Tiger's Nest. The monastery buildings are perched on the sheer side of a rock face 900 meters above the floor of Paro valley. According to the guidebook, the original building was held to the rock by the hairs of female celestial beings who also carried the materials to build monastery on their backs.

From the car park, the only access to the monastery is by foot or horse. A few western tourists with guides walked the path, but most of the travelers were Bhutanese and Tibetan families on pilgrimage, with little ones making the 2-hour one-way journey without complaint. Starting in silent blue pine forest, walking on a thick carpet of pine needles and between huge granite boulders strewn about, the path rose gradually to a small glade where a water-turned prayer wheel chimed the rippling passing of a small stream. The three shaded shrines, the sound of running water and bells in the absence of people made the setting that much more conducive to the presence of "other beings”. From that point, the trail rose in steep switchbacks and the blue pines gave way to mixed broad leaf oak, holly, and rhododendron forest thickly laced with spanish moss.

Some journeys achieve their power by making the pilgrim wait for the splendid revelation of the goal until the final bend in the road. From the beginning, from the road outside Paro, every lowly pilgrim has the Taktshang Goemba in view. As the path opens at certain places and the details of the rock face make evident the improbability of finding such a building plastered to the side of the mountain, one's appreciation grows and the fatigue of the climb diminishes, spurring one on forward

Just when the monastery seems within an easy biscuit toss from across a ridge at an elevation of 3140 meters, the path descends into the chasm of an icicled waterfall before the final ascent along the cold mountain wall to the dank buildings. I have little appreciation for Buddhist iconography--the names and stories confuse me. Judy feels little different, so we didn’t spend time in the cold monastery buildings. We retraced our steps to enjoy a seat in the brilliant sunshine and eat a picnic lunch on the ledge across the chasm that had on our approach enticed us with such a magnificent view. A perfect place to savor hard-boiled eggs, crackers, and tangerines, lightening our load for a leisurely descending stroll.

Riding the Himalayas Down

Our friend, Nicola, had suggested a 14 kilometers bike ride, from Paro into the mountains to visit the ruins of the Drukgyel Dzong. The prospect of riding into the Himalayas, to the head of the trail that leads into Tibet, seemed a suspect Sunday activity for a couple of middle-aged women, neither of whom particularly fancy uphill cycling. Nicola assured us it was an easy road, though we didn't realize until later that she hadn't herself made the ride.

It was still frosty at nine when we picked up the bikes at the shop, (contact: Kuenga, cell: 17684660) donned helmets and gloves and headed north up the Paro valley. The heavy mountain bikes were in fine shape, but within a minute, we realized that the hard seats would cause far most lasting discomfort than sore legs from pumping uphill. Once outside Paro town the traffic on the one lane road thinned. Drivers politely honked to show that they saw us. To a person, they made good on the biker's ideal of sharing the road.

After about 7 kms the farms gave way to forest, the same blue pine forest we had walked through on the way up to the Tiger's Nest. The road steepened, but still didn't require a full-out effort or the lowest gears. At this point the road conditions improved due to less use, and though the sun had become warm, the forest held a lovely coolth. Having gained some altitude, we also had more curves, buzzing around them with only the hum of tires on dry pavement. Coming into a clearing south of Jetshaphu village the solid white cone of Jhomolhari (7314 meters, Bhutan's second highest peak) came into view between the peaks of closer mountains. Though we hadn't climbed more than a several hundred meters in altitude, seeing that tall mountain’s perfect cone so close made us feel we'd accomplished something of merit.

Drukgyel Dzong

Another couple kilometers and a short pedal to the village of Drukgyel Dzong, we reached the end of the road. And there, across the rice fields, perched on a rise were the ruins of the 17th century Dzong. The name comes from Druk--Bhutan, and gyel--victory. The Dzong had been built to celebrate the victory of Bhutan over Tibetan invaders in 1644.

The building's characteristic Dzong white wash has weathered away over its 50 years of disuse after a fire destroyed its inner buildings. It has all the appearance of a medieval European fortress with the buildings of its village neatly assembled around it within easy reach for needed protection. Walking up to the ruins, around the intact outer walls, and approaching the inner courtyard through the bent entrance, I saw shades of crusader castles, especially Krak de Chevaliers in Syria, with its similar strategically defensive architecture. The courtyard had a similar layout to those of other dzongs we had seen. Except for the remains of the central tower, little remained of the inner buildings, though the deep prisons in the bowels along the outer walls for holding Tibetan prisoners looked particularly cold and unhealthy.

We saddled up for the ride down to Paro in brilliant noon sun. After a stop for tea at the Amancora resort where we were given gracious hospitality among its luxurious surroundings despite our inauspiciously sweaty clothes and disheveled appearance, we sailed down the mountain, coasting against the wind, feeling very pleased with ourselves and our Himalayan adventure.

Bhutanese Buildings

I look at architecture with an untrained eye as to how buildings are put together or what is 'right' as far as design. What determines my pleasure in a building is based on beauty and functionality and I like to think these two should go hand in hand. Traditional Bhutanese architecture of white-washed stone or pounded mud with wood framed windows and doors rates high on both the beauty and function scales.

Traditional buildings

The traditional rural houses I've seen around Thimphu, Paro and on our trip east to Bumthang are usually 2, 3, or 4 stories high and rather large to accommodate an extended family and lot of "in house" functions that are necessary in rural life. There is an open loft under the roof for drying food and for storing fodder and wood. The wooden beams supporting the upper floors, door and window lintels are painted in traditional colors and patterns, contrasting with the stark white of the high.

The decorative paintings of swastika, cloud, conch shell, lotus, wheel, and animals, such as deer, tigers and mythical Garudas eating snakes give a whimsical quality to the buildings. Phalluses are commonly painted on the white walls of rural houses. These are said to ward off evil, spouting a spiral of semen. I can't imagine what my neighbors would say if I painted a handsome penis prominently on the wall of my house. Stone and wood phalluses emerge from walls, are the conduits for water fountains, or hang in flying form from the corners of roofs. (See picture of painting a house).

Buildings are traditionally made using no nails. Wood beams and posts are precisely cut to fit and ceilings are secured to cross pieces with bamboo strips. Roofs are flat stones in the form of rectangular or square tiles, wood shingles, or iron sheeting. Clay is sometimes used to hold down the stone tiles, but large rocks--often round, white, river rocks laid directly on the shingles, or laid on a plank of wood that holds down a row of shingles or pieces of metal--are the normal means to keep the roofs intact.

Public buildings, such as the covered, cantilevered foot bridges, temples, and huge dzongs (the large, fortress-like combined administrative and monastic complexes that are the center of provincial government) are built in the same style of whitewashed stone or tamped dirt with the same sort of beamed construction and no nails.

Besides building without nails, traditionally buildings are built without plans. This fact is stated by guides and repeated in books with pride. It seems that much else in the country is done without plans.

Modern buildings

Modern buildings in Thimphu are made in a traditional style, but of concrete (like "adobe" construction in Santa Fe). The square concrete "beams" function only as decorations. The shoddy modern workmanship does not shine like that of the glorious and loved buildings that most Bhutanese outside the towns live in.

BUYING KIRAS

Bhutanese Dress

Already having a closet full of ethnic attire, I resisted the temptation to add a Bhutanese ensemble to a growing collection of beautiful but unwearable clothes. It is not just the grace of the floor length kira skirt with its perfect side pleat or the shiny material of the boxy jacket, the taego that convinces a western woman that this might just be the ethnic statement she was born to make. It's the combinations of colors and patterns meant to complement, not match, that lets one think of clothes in a completely new frame. Basic black is not a Bhutanese concept.

Buying my Kira

The first jacket I picked up at the wholesaler was shiny purple brocade with a pattern of gold, orange and turquoise flowers. Busy and gaudy, it was exactly what I wanted. The shop women laid a thin silky turquoise wonju, under blouse, over the taego, that perfectly picked up the turquoise in the flowers. The wonju's fabric is self-patterned with sprawling dragons. The half kira I chose is horizontally striped in blue, purple, black, orange, gray, and maroon with embroidered yellow-gold highlights. All these colors allow a kira to be matched with an assortment of jackets and blouses in combinations that go beyond anything I had been taught was acceptable.
Trying the clothes on in the middle of the store over my staid black, I felt daring--breaking every rule of the "clothes police". Who would have thought of such wild combinations? And there were so many more I could have taken.

Learning to wear the clothes

When I brought the package back to the apartment to show Judy, I couldn't remember how to tie the kira. It all has to be done in a special way, with the pleat on the right. Half dressed I asked the woman across the hall to show me. It is still a chore and when I wore it to the hospital the female orthopaedic techs shook their heads and re-did it.

Judy's Kira

Our friend, Nicola, helped Judy find her kira at a different wholesaler, a huge store with a choice that went on and on. After Judy's first purchase, she bought taegos for her sisters, another 2 for herself and has ended with a stunning collection of brocaded jackets that will make her the bell of any ball.

Last Sunday we returned to the fabric wholesaler, what we now call the kira shop. After four or five visits, we have become well known to the proprietor and so familiar with the merchandise, that we simply walk behind the counter, pullout the taegos, line them up on the counter and start matching them with silky wonjus and the bolts of kira fabric. We like to think we've developed the eye, the "Bhutanese eye" that looks at the color and pattern combinations and finds symmetry in amazing combinations.

The French Connection

A woman and two men chilups, French chilups, came into the store with a guide who was assisting them in clothes buying. The store's proprietor helped the men buy ghos, the men's belted national dress. Judy and I had the pleasure of showing the woman how to tie and pleat a half kira. We directed her in choosing a "Bhutanese color combination" that made her all black coat, pants, sweater and boots stand-up and cheer. After choosing their ghos, the men took interest in buying ensembles for their wives. Everyone left the "Kira Shop" with something. For Judy and me, we had the fun of mixing and matching, putting colors and patterns together, without paying.

BHUTAN'S NATIONAL DAY CELEBRATION 17 December

Special invitations
Invitations for the National Day celebrations were suppose to have been received before 09:30, 16 December. By the time we left the hospital at 15:00, no invitations had arrived. Dressed early in our bright, silky Bhutanese national dresses, Judy and I were sure are native beauty and gallant efforts to look the part could not help but secure reserved seats. As we walked through the painted entrance on the far side of the stadium, a man rushed up to us explaining that this was a national holiday, the 102nd anniversary of the first king's assumption of the throne. I was sure he was going to tell us to go in the plebian entrance. Our identification as volunteers at the hospital and taking a photo of him beside the effigy of the first king with a promise to send him a copy brought out his card--Senior District Cultural Officer of Thimphu. Our invitation!

With innocent ignorance I flashed the Senior District Cultural Officer's card at the first entrance where it was given a skeptical look and a nod to go to the next entrance. The card was still viewed with an irregular gaze, but no one wanted to be a spoil sport, or get in trouble by showing that they didn't recognize a special invitation when duly presented and we were welcomed inside. Our seats on the north end of the stadium were in full, glorious sun.

Beautiful Ghos and Kiras
All the spectators were dressed beautifully. The men wore colorful striped and plaid ghos with their white sashes, topped (or bottomed) by embroidered and appliquéd cloth boots. They sat under the awning and in the VIP stands in rows like church deacons in belted and sashed vestments as portrayed in 5th century mosaics. The women were dressed in gloriously patterned kiras and taegas, (long sarong skirts or dresses and boxy cuffed and collared jackets) the latter often shot through with shiny metallic threads. Everyone was scrubbed and bright in strikingly attractive color juxtapositions. Who would have ever thought peach and sage green were meant for each other? From a distance, anyone can distinguish the chilip (westerner) females in Bhutanese clothes from the Bhutanese women. Few chilips have the imagination to don the color and design combinations that the Bhutanese women wear so effectively with casual grace.

The Processional
The procession of the monks was a costumed parade of color and costume, hats, robes, wigs, with drums, horns, and cymbals. The display, pomp, and purposefulness of the whole thing, the shades of a warrior cult with the swords along with the robust and obliging religion showed the workings of power. Bhutan is not a theocracy. Like Saudi Arabia, the state and the official religion work hand in glove ruling the country. It was like an historical reenactment taken to the extremes and we the audience, in our own costumes, were part of the show.

After the processional the king gave a long speech with awards to various citizens. I was told that King's words accompanying the red sashes and swords, the equivalent of knighthood, carried the admonition that the color was that of the Buddha, like the king's yellow, and carried the distinction, not of power, but of responsibility.

The show began with the dancing groups. I was told these came from different areas of the country, though the rhythm of strings, flutes and drums and the uncomplicated male-female singing duets sounded alike to my untrained ear and the gentle movements of lined men and women also had similar lulling qualities. There were no high jumping theatrics, nothing with the least motions of flirting or sexual insinuation.

Nature Story or Saving the Tree or perhaps something else
The following is a description of my favorite performance and from the reaction of the crowds laughing and cheering in the stands, theirs too. N.B. My version is most romantic and in its Golden Bough search for meaning and sacredness, beats all others, even if it is wrong.

The setting: A tree, which I assume stands in for all trees, if not the sacred grove, erected with some effort in the middle of the field. The background music: bird and sounds of nature.

A group of men in gold helmets with neck and cheek flaps, garbed in leopard and tiger skin skirts with tails and legs making the hems, to reinforce the idea of their primitive nature, danced around the tree brandishing their long curved machetes to a wilder beat. They were quite vigorous and one could easily imagine all sorts of variations on virile tree worship. These warriors left and out came a procession of "villagers", the men in shirtless lungis and the women in toga-like vestments wearing crowns and holding offerings or playing flutes. Some religious types followed in their finery--the staff of office, the vestments, their assured carriage. The bird/nature music resumed and one could easily imagine scenes from the Mahabharata or stories of cavorting Dionysian virgins--take your pick.

The music changed to approaching thunder, forcing the "villagers" to take cover with the return of the leopard/tiger-skinned warriors. These latter joyously danced around the tree, but when they moved in as a group with their swords raised to chop down the tree, they are repulsed not only by the thunder from the music, but some magical force from the tree that sent them sprawling on the ground after each attempt at destruction. (a crowd pleaser)The male "villagers" returned with bows and arrows and a great stylized battle took place between the two armed lines, striding forward, retreating, all choreographed against loud, martial music and thunder sound effects. I think the archers won this battle, but it wasn't clear. My assumptions derive from knowing archery is Bhutan's national sport and rational thoughts that that this should show superiority, especially in a National Day celebration. But following the story in the stadium, the religious guardians, accompanied by the bagpipes, cymbals, and drums of Buddhist monks, saved the tree, enticing all the combatants to put down their weapons, with all men now living in harmony.

I was so excited to find this "sacred tree" theme in the Himalayas, expressed so energetically on a Bhutanese playing field in glorious sunshine. Surely, it is hard-wired in human DNA? That a universality of ideas inspire mankind is a soothing thought, able to banish many darker aspirations, unless one looks too closely as the hard-wired nature of evil. When I asked my Bhutanese orthopaedic colleagues the next day to confirm my mythical, universalist rendition, I was told the story probably had something to do with folklore, but neither of the surgeons knew the story and thought it had a more modern ecological meaning of fostering a respect for Bhutan's nature. I will hold to my own version.

Dance of the Monks
My second favorite performance was the dance of the black-hat monks. (Not the traditional Black Hat Dance as done during the festivals.) Dressed in wide-sleeved, voluminous, long, belted robes of red, black, blue, or gold and swathed in various other colored layers the booted monks danced in a studied ritual of circling in a circle. Slowly twirling the handle of their two-sided drum and hitting first one side and then the other with the flexible curved metal "stick", they swooped in forward-bending, back-kicking circles to the low registered drone of long horns. Colors flared with every graceful movement. The tall, conical, and brimmed hats are made taller with a discoid centerpiece and the many strands of braids flowing from under the hats, give the monks a decidedly witch-like aspect. I don't believe (even in my quest for universality) that the origin of these monks' dances align with those of the mystical Sufi dervishes who whirl in their journey to find god. But could the result be the same?

By this time in the early afternoon, a gentle breeze had come up, tempering the hot sun. The silk appliquéd awnings and yellow ruffles of the royal pavilion billowed and fluttered. In true Bhutanese fashion a dog wandered into the field, curled up, and slept. A marching band in yellow ghos, embroidered boots and gold helmets looking a bit like roman legions on the march, performed a routine that would be fitting of a staid half-time football entertainment.

The King's departure
The end of the celebration was a slow dance, the tashi lebey, in a round to which everyone was invited to participate. Judy and I watched. When it was over we waited for the departure of the fifth king, the young handsome king. He turned to us, bowed, and thanked us for coming.

LIVING IN THIMPHU

Judy and I have been living in Thimphu for almost 2 weeks now, in the two bedroom flat for the nurse anesthetist HVO program. The kilometer + walk to the hospital in the morning is all downhill and the reverse in the afternoon. The orthopaedic guesthouse is on the hospital grounds but suffers from the lingering presence of an offensive dead rat smell. Also being large and cavernous, it is not heatable with the available appliances. Days are sunny and pleasant, needing only a shirt and a fleece, but the nights are well below freezing and space heaters make no dent in the heavy cold.

Changangkha neighborhood
Though Thimphu is a small town with only a couple of major streets, it has taken us this long to get to know where we are and how to describe it to others. We have a map, but none of the locals, including the cab drivers, know the names of the streets. We have learned to give the general neighborhood, Changangkha, the name of an old fortress temple and monastic school, Changangkha Lhakhang, perched on the heights above us. But the best directive we have is DHL. For some reason everyone knows where the DHL office is located. Rounding the corner form the DHL office, our next coordinate is the dripping faucet that identifies our gate from the others. Not exactly a GPS reading, but it seems to do.

Streets are known by obscure names. Colloquially known "Swimming pool Road" is marked as Doebum Lam on the map. Doebum has nothing to do with swimming pools. Directions are given as up or down. The cardinal points of the compass mean little, since nothing lies in a straight line. Even the ups and downs curve most surprisingly.

Shop Number 7
Number addresses mean nothing. Business establishments are in "buildings". And somehow one absorbs these names in an organic manner. Names are another quirk. We were told about a nearby grocery, referred to by everyone as Shop Number 7. Easy as chips--a left and a right, up and up--can't miss it. After a bit of confusion, a helpful woman pointed it out: M/S Lhatshog General Shop and Imports. Yes, the same as Shop Number 7, but the number is nowhere written. The story: Shop Number 7 used to be down in the town where there was some attempt at order with numbering the establishments. When it moved up to Changangkha neighborhood, everyone still called it by the old name. No one knows the present one; I can't even pronounce it. Advantages of shopping at Shop Number 7 is that the walk home is all downhill and one can pick wild marijuana along the road.

Garbage pick upGarbage pick up is another unique cultural experience. A collection truck comes by Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, honking its approach between 06:45-08:30. The distinctive horn blasts from the street, followed by the sound of doors opening and slamming, and slipped feet slapping down the stairs announce garbage pick-up. It is almost a community affair with neighbors meeting in the street in various forms of dressing. This seems to be the normal operating procedure throughout the city's neighborhoods.

Thimphu's DogDescriptions of Asian cities are incomplete without some mention of the dogs. Those in Thimpu, and throughout Bhutan, form a separate layer of society that shares the same space with humans, but functions on a completely other plane. They are a constant presence but the Bhutanese treat them as an unseen and unacknowledged underclass that is allowed to go about its business without interference. I walk to work when the few people on the streets and foot paths are cleaners and manual laborers, maybe a few school children, and of course the dogs. Curled up still sleeping in the streets or in hollows in the bush or in protected crevices in broken concrete or already about their business, they are the most obvious denizens of the city. Even in packs they are unthreatening and the only abuse they receive from humans is neglect. Unlike Nepal, I've not seen any physically mistreated. As a whole they don't look particularly disreputable, but many are skinny and the lactating females look particularly forlorn. A patch of sun in a monastery courtyard, the hospital driveway, or the middle of the road is bound to be decorated by a curled canine catching a few Zs so he can join his fellows for the regular nighttime chorus.

The Eviction.
At 14:30 today, 14 Dec, we found out that the owners of the flat near DHL have asked us to be removed so that a relative can stay here. The woman at the hospital is most upset at this abrupt change and we are sad to leave our cozy flat to move into the cold, cavernous ortho guesthouse. Neither of us is convinced the rat smell is completely taken care of and the whole eviction seems rather strange. We could understand if the neighbors had complained about the growing mountain of Druk 11000 beer bottles in a cartoon outside our door, but that doesn't seem to be the case. We will be too far from Shop Number 7 to make use of its downhill trip home, the garbage truck will no longer be a thrice weekly Olympic rush to the street, and we will no longer feel some affinity with DHL. The dogs will remain a constant to remind us that we are still living in Thimphu.

BHUTAN'S NATIONAL SPORTS

ArcheryAnyone who has been to Bhutan, watched movies or documentaries, or read about the country will know that archery (datse) is the national sport. An anachronistic sport that goes well with a culture where men wear generously cuffed, collared, and belted knee-length bloussomed coats as theirmain garment. Whether competing with traditional bamboo bows or the far more accurate American-made compound bows, men shoot at a small target 145 meters away at local archery ranges. Returning from a birding walk in Bumthang, Judy and I watched part of a match, but were more interested in the jests and personal antics of the players who make sport of all aspects of the game, including the abilities or disabilities of their opponents.

Hurling with the monksOn the same walk we passed three monks playing daygo, a game of hurling a heavy stone at a dug-out depression at the far end of the field. A variation of horse shoes or bocce with the goal of both placing your stone closest to the goal and also displacing your opponents' stones. Monks are prohibited from participating in archery. I wonder if this rule stems from the same sort of reasoning given by the medieval church, prohibiting churchmen from drawing blood. Militant arch-bishops and other religious notables still sat their saddles in the vanguard, cradling maces and rushing into battle to crush the heads of their enemies. They followed, if not the spirit of the Christian laws of brotherly love and turning the other cheek, then at least the letter of the law of drawing no blood.

Tsheten said the usual strategy is to get the heaviest stone one can throw, but also one that doesn't tire the arm before the end, at which time one's opponent with a smaller stone would have the advantage.

The all day darts game
The best sport show of all was a women's dart (khuru) tournament. Early on our second day birding, driving north from Punakha to the Jigme Dorji National Park, we stopped to experience a village darts game. Women from two villages were competing on a rough pitch about 20 meters long, formed from the lowest terrace of a recently harvested rice field. The teams of 8 or so players were made up of young and middle-aged women, done-up in their finest long skirts or dresses (kiras--more about them in another blog) topped off with traditional shining silk jackets, taegos, over a silky shirt, wonju to complete a most stunning and unsportif outfit.


The darts are about 12 inches (30 cm) long with a 3 inch heavy metal point, a bullet-shaped wood "bobbin" centered on the shaft and balanced with three feathers of thin plastic sheet. Thrown with gusto, the darts spin through the air and end up in a wide scatter around a two foot high target that had been pounded into the ground and angled from the players at about 50 degrees. The celebration after a hit brings the winner and her fellow players into a circle in the middle of the field where they perform a traditional song and dance accompanied with some superior laughter and a bit of showing off at the expense of the opposing team.


Late in the afternoon on our way back to Punakha, still hunting for the white-belly heron, the women's game was in full swing, encouraged now by a much larger audience of rooting fans and boisterous commentators, fueled by a day of festivities.

BIRDING BHUTAN

Flying in the shadow of the giantsThe flight from Katmandu, Nepal to Paro, Bhutan on a clear winter's day, skirting south of the majestic mountain expanse from Everest to Kanchenjunga, is the perfect introduction to the world's one remaining Buddhist kingdom. The looping final approach to the airport between forested mountains, accompanied by a rapid descent, reinforces the notion that one is entering a very different sort of place. Perhaps even dropping into a magical past, cut off from the rest of the world by more than four dimensions.

Instead of saving our travel until the end of the volunteer month, Judy Forbes (friend and volunteer with the anesthesia department at the National Hospital) and I had made arrangements with Tsheten Lodey (www.bhutantouragent.com) to see some of the birds of Bhutan. Neither of us would consider ourselves die-hard twitchers or even moderately avid ones, though I admit to having kept a bird list in our travels and will gladly share it. So, why birds? Birding is simply a way to organize a trip, give context to the lay of the land, and provide delightful entertainment. Both Judy and I are more interested in "pretty birds" than rare ones, and find raptors far too difficult. But give us a foraging nuthatch in an erythrina tree or a busy fantail and we are enchanted. Birding is also quiet and slow--a legitimate excuse for a journey without too much sweat. By the end of our 6 days, the red vented bulbul and Hodgson's redstart had become familiar creatures in an increasingly familiar countryside.

Journey to Discover Bhutan
Tsheten Lodey's company, Journey to Discover Bhutan, organizes specialist tours for studying Bhutan's natural history; cultural endeavors, especially those centered on the exuberant Buddhist religious festivals, for which the country is famous; and trekking. Besides his knowledge of birds, he knows the habitats in which to find a particular species and the time of year to look for them. For example, one day he promised us a honeyguide. He stopped along the side of the road, in what I thought an inauspicious location, and sure enough, camouflaged on a bare branch of a shrub overhanging a rock face sat a yellow-rumped honeyguide.

In a small country that ranges in altitude from 150 meters to 7500 meters in the space of less than 100 kms and varies in rainfall from monsoon fed sub-tropics to dry alpine scrub, a birder is offered an astonishing variety.

The White Bellied Heron
One of Bhutan's rarest birds, the white-bellied heron, winters in the rivers around Punakha in the western part of the country. During our first dinner, some Bhutanese discussed the delay in the bird's appearance. As of 24 Nov it had not been sighted and its return was questioned on TV news casts. Would it arrive? Of course we went looking, walking along the Pho Chhu ( Pho River) near the Punakha Dzong (a fortified monastery combining state administrative and religious functions) the afternoon of the 25th without luck. The next day we drove north into the Jigme Dorji National Park along the Mo Chhu almost to Damji. Two hours walking along the river, hearing from the school children and local adults that, yes, they had all seen the herons. A pair had flown by about noon, an adult and a juvenile had been seen in a place where they commonly fish. We followed bands of boys who showed where the day before or that morning they had seen the birds. Tsheten queried everyone and we followed all leads. But no luck. On the return drive to Punakha we stopped frequently to check the river. Just below the Dzong, near the area we had walked the day before, Tsheten pointed. To the lee of a gravel bar stood a most stately bird. Soft gray in color with an exaggeratedly long neck, he walked in the shallow waters with the purposefulness of royalty. After being admired he spread his wings and, capturing all the grace of his species in that one movement, flew down river.

ShatuOur driver, Shatu, is also a birder, as well as ex-champion light weight boxer in the army. In a country of one lane roads and inexperienced, young, male drivers Shatu's army-acquired driving skills were reassuring. Shatu knows birds by sounds and their habits, something for which I have no talent. He grew up in eastern Bhutan, west of Mongar, where the semi-tropical forests are home to the best birding in the country. He learned about birds while tending his family's cattle and spending time in cattle camps. While driving with his window open, he'd hear a bird song or call, tilt his head a few degrees, stop the car, and say its name, showing us the bird--usually one we could hardly identify with binoculars and a bird book. He reminded me of the endearing character, Benjamin, in the book, A Guide to the Birds of East Africa--A Novel.

Sunbirds and Flowerpeckers
During our tour winter flowering cherry trees in clouds of pink blossom studded the mixed deciduous temperate forests, breaking the green with unexpected spring-color. Our first day out we stopped to take a picture of one glorious specimen tree along the road and spent an hour observing sunbirds, flowerpeckers, warblers and tits who were making that curve in the road a vibrating, noisy aviary. Finding a cherry tree and parking ourselves at an easy viewing distance became our strategy for early morning independent bird watching.

The Black-necked Crane
Like most members of its family, the black-necked crane is globally threatened. In the late autumn hundreds leave their Tibetan breeding grounds and head to the extensive marshes of the Phobjikha valley in central Bhutan where they attract an array of tourists from unreconstructed twitchers to the casually curious. Like the white-bellied heron, this bird's preservation has become part of Bhutanese culture. Conservation and recognition of the endangered, threatened, vulnerable, or rare animals and their habitats is a governmental goal, taught in schools, and practiced by the citizens. We saw this when hunting for the white-bellied heron. The children knew this bird and its habits in a way I have rarely seen with American children or ever practiced myself.

The extent and diversity of its forests set Bhutan apart from other Himalayan countries. Over 70% of the country remains forested and in turn, most of the birds are forest and scrub dependent species. Bhutan has birds similar to those I know from Africa, such as sunbirds, drongos, hornbills, and bulbuls, while others such as crossbills and grosbeaks look similar to North American regulars. Though the plumage of the spotted nutcracker looks nothing like that of the Clark's nutcracker I know in Montana, the body, the beak, the call and habits make them unmistakable cousins. But I knew nothing of minivets, fulvettas, or redstarts until seeing them here.

Spring, the season of flowering for Bhutan's 47 varieties of spectacular rhododendrons and other seasonal blossoms is the best time for seeing birds. Ah, something to look forward to.

AROUND TANSEN (aka Palpa)

Hike to Ranighat
When a Nepali tells you a journey is flat, he or she sees it with different eyes than mine and most other Westerners. Moderate ups and downs don't register with a Nepali the same way they do with one more used to "true flat". When asked the time to a certain place, we were given both a Nepali time and a "bedeshi time". (Bedeshi is the neutral term for non-Nepali) A "bedeshi time with camera"--talking advantage of all photo-ops--is longer still. However, this telling of distance by hours I find strange since few Nepalis wear watches and asking 4 different people the same question of distance gives five different answers.

I joined a group of 9 Westerns who started off from the Tansen Mission Hospital on Thursday morning and worked our way down and around the hills on paths and rutted dirt roads to the Kali Gandaki River. I believe the general direction was north and west, but I don't think the cardinal points on a compass mean a great deal in the mountains. During this time we gradually descended through forest, around fields and farms before reaching a warm, damp almost jungle growth. Along the path were spreading Ficus religious trees in cement platforms, many types and sizes of bamboo, holly, rice fields--recently harvested, humped cattle plowing the terraces for the winter crop and people going about their agrarian business. We were serenaded with the sound of water in irrigation canals and natural springs and an intermittent hum of cicadas in the lower altitudes along the river. The sparkle of small and medium sized butterflies flitting among the flowering shrubs growing in the dappled sun along the paths added movement to rather idyllic scene.

A rundown 19th C. palace on the Kali Gandaki River called Ranighat was our goal. Built on a platform with steps down to the green-watered river between two deep curves, this river abode--built in honor of a local ruler's consort--still shows vestiges of its previous grandeur. We arrived after 4 hours walking and ate our bananas, crackers, biscuits, oranges, and sandwiches in the cool shade.

Continuing to Ramdi?Reiner, the leader and a surgeon who had worked at the hospital for a number of years and spoke Nepali, asked some of the locals about the possibility of us following the river to Ramdi where we could find transport by vehicle back to Tansen. The villagers said it would take about 4 hours, and once we gained the ridge, we had only to follow the river along a level path. This is where the excursion began to take shades of one of Orty's and my unprepared few hour hikes that inevitably turn into a full day unprepared hike in unmapped territory. And remember, a Nepali "level path" has nothing to do with flatlander bedeshi reality.

The way Reiner put forth the choices of a rather boring return along the way we came, verses an exciting, but pleasant 4 hour walk, who could have chosen the former? His directions written on four lines, didn't match much of what we found. We were often on the wrong path, traveling in the opposite direction from what we were supposed to, but always people helped us, sometimes walking with us to point out a tricky intersection or hidden turn-off.

Jacob, the Swedish medical student, and his wife Therese had a large packet of balloons in their backpack. Every filthy, snot-nosed child received one, looking quite amazed at the strange present. It reminded me of my father's buzzy bees--his signature balloon reward, which fascinated many youngsters, erasing the sting of a shot or painful prodding.

The litter along the paths and roads is quite foul in Nepal. Plastic chip packets and candy wrappers are the norm, the result of a culture unused to waste disposal. One wonders if the unnatural sight of the litter doesn't offend the Nepalis, but I suspect they have a blind spot for such vulgarity.

One bright spot in the Nepali landscape is the variety of color. Houses are painted or the wooden doors and window frames are painted bright colors. Flowers, especially marigolds are in profusion around the houses and women wear bright colors, glorifying themselves and the clothes lines.

About 16:30 we started to cross a footbridge of the Kali Gandaki River, thinking we were heading in the right direction and could catch a vehicle on the other side. A motorcycle driver coming across told Reiner that what we wanted was still a good hour away and in the opposite direction. He gave Reiner directions and said that he'd drive ahead to his village and wait to show us the way so we got on the correct road.

The United Mission Hospital of Tansen has a good name in the area. People we met in the villages responded positively to us because of the hospital. I think they feel that they get good treatment at a fair price and if really poor, know they will be taken care of without payment. Reiner introduced us as working there, which may have set the stage, but still, there was a sense of recognition, and smiles, showing that people appreciate the hospital's presence.

It seemed that every time Reiner stopped to ask directions the distance to Ramdi magically lengthened and the time to reach our destination grew like Pinocchio's nose--as if we were walking in a fairy tale or a Steven King story. It was beginning to get dark and we had still at least an hour to go, probably longer. Just as the group arrived in the motorcyclist's village a jeep from Tansen came trundling down the rutted road. The driver agreed to drive us back to the hospital. What a fortuitous, unplanned coincidence.

Traveling half in dusk, half in darkness we rode the treacherously narrow and steep mud road up and up, then down and down for an hour in the 15 km trip to Tansen. The 30 year old driver was the one person in the entire world who best knew the road, including the 6 curves that have to be taken by backing up part way because they are too sharp to be taken in one try. Despite the lack of any barrier to the sheer drops into the great Himalayan void, we were grateful for the jeep's fortuitous arrival and the agreement to bring us home after a long and tiring day.