It's kind of hard choosing 150 or so pictures out of a total of 2500, but we've uploaded some pictures to Picasa. Here it is...
picasaweb.google.com/craigt55/CraigAndAmyInBhutan#
Just click on 'Slide Show' then when you move your cursor to the bottom of the page you can increase the time on each picture. The 3 seconds that Picasa gives you is a little too short.
And there are a few videos, including landing at the Paro airport, dancing girls in Bumthang and the Gantey consecration ceremony with what look like head bonking Sugar Plum Fairies from a Grateful Dead concert. Just go to http://www.youtube.com and under the search section type in 'bruddabu'.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
A Few Pictures
We are currently working on a Picasa album for our pictures, but here are a few from the trip.
At the Thimpu festival...
From the Dochu La pass...chortens with the high Himalaya in the background...
Monks at the Trongsa dzong...
Local girls in the Bumtang valley...
At the Tangbi Mani festival...
Village of Ogyen Cholling...
At the Gantey consecration festival...
Punaka dzong and coronation dance practice...
Tiger's Nest...
What the heck?!?!?
Young monks at the Paro dzong...
At the Thimpu festival...
From the Dochu La pass...chortens with the high Himalaya in the background...
Monks at the Trongsa dzong...
Local girls in the Bumtang valley...
At the Tangbi Mani festival...
Village of Ogyen Cholling...
At the Gantey consecration festival...
Punaka dzong and coronation dance practice...
Tiger's Nest...
What the heck?!?!?
Young monks at the Paro dzong...
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The healing waters of bhutan
I brought home this label, from our mineral water bottle in bhutan... it is completely in accord with the tremendous respect bhutan people maintain for their kings... their saint .... their springs. it reminds me of many stops along a bhutanese highway at sacred springs, us tourists admiring waterfalls, our bhutanese friends eagerly imbibing blessings from the holy water of life from a simple pipe by the road.
"Kurje Drubcha is pure spring water believed to have been extracted out of a rock by Guru Rinpoche, the saint who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in the 8th century,to cure King Sindhu Raja from a terrible disease. Endowed with eight qualities of a holy medicinal water, this water has potent healing power for various physical and mental problems. It is processed according to strict hygienic principles. As the water has higher spiritual significance than an ordinary mineral water, we request everyone to treat this product with respect...."
"Kurje Drubcha is pure spring water believed to have been extracted out of a rock by Guru Rinpoche, the saint who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in the 8th century,to cure King Sindhu Raja from a terrible disease. Endowed with eight qualities of a holy medicinal water, this water has potent healing power for various physical and mental problems. It is processed according to strict hygienic principles. As the water has higher spiritual significance than an ordinary mineral water, we request everyone to treat this product with respect...."
thai massages and seafoods
Craig did a great job telling about our last trip days
What I would add is the difference between western style massages and thai traditional massages. The secret to the swedish massage is mainly the long stroke; the thai massager emphasises the press-and-release in rhythmic progress. the press can be with so many things, strong fingers, the palm of the hand, the elbow, the lateral and medial epicondyle (the little bumps just above the elbow... or on your feet a little polished finger sized paddle of wood. so they don't need any oil and you lie on a sheet they give you on soft sand and totally relax while they gaze off in the distance and giggle to their friends and sort of walk all over you at the same time. there is a lot of putting both hands on you and leaning verrryyy firmly...
as far as the sea creatures and sea foods... amazing that on single sidestreets in Thailand all these restaurants just appear. you are on the doorstep of some important daytime business, maybe a bank or travel agency, who knows; but as soon as the iron shutters are pulled down, I guess, the area is swept, the tables go up, the charcoal barbecues get lit, the rain awnings are up, the coolers are filled, and business happens. There is so much sealife swimming in tubs... there are lots of unusually colored beings and mollusks. it's almost like being in an aquarium.... then they grill it or wok it or whatever they do. we tried to do it slowly, moving from stall to stal... we had one really tasty flat scalloppy thing, a flat glossy yellow bivalve shell almost a perfect round circle as big as my hand... and inside was the clam plus a little tasty highly seasoned ground pork, maybe as bit as a thumb; then 3 dishes of tasty green and yellow dipping sauces. we also had clear beanthread noodles with brown sauce..
What I would add is the difference between western style massages and thai traditional massages. The secret to the swedish massage is mainly the long stroke; the thai massager emphasises the press-and-release in rhythmic progress. the press can be with so many things, strong fingers, the palm of the hand, the elbow, the lateral and medial epicondyle (the little bumps just above the elbow... or on your feet a little polished finger sized paddle of wood. so they don't need any oil and you lie on a sheet they give you on soft sand and totally relax while they gaze off in the distance and giggle to their friends and sort of walk all over you at the same time. there is a lot of putting both hands on you and leaning verrryyy firmly...
as far as the sea creatures and sea foods... amazing that on single sidestreets in Thailand all these restaurants just appear. you are on the doorstep of some important daytime business, maybe a bank or travel agency, who knows; but as soon as the iron shutters are pulled down, I guess, the area is swept, the tables go up, the charcoal barbecues get lit, the rain awnings are up, the coolers are filled, and business happens. There is so much sealife swimming in tubs... there are lots of unusually colored beings and mollusks. it's almost like being in an aquarium.... then they grill it or wok it or whatever they do. we tried to do it slowly, moving from stall to stal... we had one really tasty flat scalloppy thing, a flat glossy yellow bivalve shell almost a perfect round circle as big as my hand... and inside was the clam plus a little tasty highly seasoned ground pork, maybe as bit as a thumb; then 3 dishes of tasty green and yellow dipping sauces. we also had clear beanthread noodles with brown sauce..
Massages and Karsts
What a difference a few days makes. From the high Himalaya to the beach at Railay, Thailand.
We had a one hour flight from Bangkok to Krabi, but because we were flying Air Asia, we were, of course, late. Turns out that Air Asia is better known around these parts as Air DeLAYSya, as they are always late. In fact, on the departure screen at the Bangkok airport it wasn't hard to notice that about nine out of ten Air Asia flights were delayed. The interesting part is that they were all delayed about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Be that as it may, we arrived in Krabi and were met by our hotel's driver, who took us in a van about 30 minutes to a boat. This is one of those little outboard jobs that you see all over the place and it took us on a 20 minute beautiful ride over to Railay East beach. Railay is a beautiful place and in fact Lonely Planet calls the West beach the most beautiful in all of Thailand. What makes it so wonderful as there are no roads here, you have to get here by boat, so there are no cars or roads, only little paths from beach to beach (four beaches in all). There are also no dogs, but a lot of cats. Not sure about the reason for that.
But there are a lot of locals giving Thai massages and that may be the entire reason that Amy wanted to come to Thailand. Well, one of two reasons, actually, the other reason being that Thailand has one of the world's greatest cuisines.
So here you are, laying down on some of the softest, finest, whitest sand on the planet, with a very nice Thai man or woman massaging you from foot to head. The foot massage alone takes 1/2 hour, but personally, they could go on for days as far as I'm concerned. I opted not to have a massage the first day, but to swim in the water, which was almost bathtub temperature. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, that was nice. And here you are, floating on your back, and you are looking up at some of the most amazing geologic formations anywhere. Here they have what are called karsts (I only know this because before Amy was a medical student she studied geology for a bit and happened to know this word). A karst is a big tall knob coming out of the earth, these are limestone, and are mostly about 500 feet tall. They are a draw to rock climbers from all over the world. And one of the most amazing things about them is that they have these very long and huge stalactites hanging down from them, some of them well over 100 feet long. I've only seen stalactites in caves, but these are all over the place here.
Our hotel, The Sand Sea Resort, is on Hat Railay West and it has several bungalows in a nice garden setting. There are a few other hotels on this beach, maybe three or four. Most hotels are on the east side and the beach there really sucks, so most folks come over to the west beach to swim. But this was low season, so there weren't all that many people. The food at the hotel was okay, but the second night we went a few doors down to another restaurant and had one of the most amazing meals of my life. We started with mien kam, a salad that consists of some kind of leaf with about seven different ingredients deposited on it, then you eat it like a taco. Things like chillies, dried shrimp, lime, nuts and so on. Then we had haw moek, which was like a Thai lau lau, seafoods curry coconut and veggies wrapped up in another kind of leaf and steamed. The bugger was SPICY! We followed this up with a whole red snapper, deep fried and covered with a spicy red curry sauce. This food was SOOOO spicy, but with the right balance of spice and other flavors, it wasn't all that bad, except that I had to eat about 5 bowls of rice and three large beers to cool my mouth down. Then we made an amazing discovery. It just so happens that a really good margarita will cool down your mouth from spicy food faster then beer, water or rice. So we had two of those. These were especially good margaritas, I think because they were made from kafer limes. Dessert was Bud's Ice Cream (from San Francisco, no less) and a pumpkin custard. Unreal.
The other great beach here is Hat ?? Phra naeng. There is only one hotel here the Rayavadee and it costs $1500/night, believe it or not. But you can walk right around the hotel to the lovelyl beach. It also has these karsts on either end and is just lovely white sand with bathtub water. In the day we spent here, Amy had five massages and I had two. The first one I had was an oil massage and it was quite nice. The combination of oil and a micro layer of the world's finest sand will take a layer or two of skin off you, but that feels nice. These Thai masseuses are true artists. They know the right spots and justs where to go. It is the ultimate in self indulgent, hedonistic pleasure, but what are vacations for? A few times he got just a little to close to Mr. Johnson, but what the heck. It was a great massage, right up there with my ultimate massage at the Pondok Sari in Pemuteran, Bali.
There was also some good food on the beach, including spring rolls and huge chicken legs. And all the Singha you could drink.
The last evening there we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. Wow!
Back in Bangkok, we read about some outdoor fish restaurants in Chinatown, so we headed down on the ferry and walked for about an hour until we found them. There are several restaurants on the street, under awnings, that serve some of the weirdest looking seafood you've ever seen. All kinds of sea creatures are here. We stopped at two places and had scallops cooked in their shell (with the addition of a little piece of pork sausage, so some reason), a noodle dish with giant prawns, a plate of giant grilled prawns, and some sea clams cooked in a chili sauce. Ohmygawd. Between this meal and the one the night before, I've never been so happy with food.
After dinner we went back to the crazy street of Khao San to see all the tourist shops, got our last foot massage, and were in bed by 10pm, as we had to be at the airport by 5am for our flight. The flight home was uneventful, except that I left my most treasured souvenir of our trip, a gorgeous Bhutanese tangka of the Wheel of Life in the overhead bin on our ANA flight from Bangkok to Tokyo. But great ol' ANA found the thangkha and are sending it to San Francisco tomorrow.
We had a one hour flight from Bangkok to Krabi, but because we were flying Air Asia, we were, of course, late. Turns out that Air Asia is better known around these parts as Air DeLAYSya, as they are always late. In fact, on the departure screen at the Bangkok airport it wasn't hard to notice that about nine out of ten Air Asia flights were delayed. The interesting part is that they were all delayed about 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Be that as it may, we arrived in Krabi and were met by our hotel's driver, who took us in a van about 30 minutes to a boat. This is one of those little outboard jobs that you see all over the place and it took us on a 20 minute beautiful ride over to Railay East beach. Railay is a beautiful place and in fact Lonely Planet calls the West beach the most beautiful in all of Thailand. What makes it so wonderful as there are no roads here, you have to get here by boat, so there are no cars or roads, only little paths from beach to beach (four beaches in all). There are also no dogs, but a lot of cats. Not sure about the reason for that.
But there are a lot of locals giving Thai massages and that may be the entire reason that Amy wanted to come to Thailand. Well, one of two reasons, actually, the other reason being that Thailand has one of the world's greatest cuisines.
So here you are, laying down on some of the softest, finest, whitest sand on the planet, with a very nice Thai man or woman massaging you from foot to head. The foot massage alone takes 1/2 hour, but personally, they could go on for days as far as I'm concerned. I opted not to have a massage the first day, but to swim in the water, which was almost bathtub temperature. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, that was nice. And here you are, floating on your back, and you are looking up at some of the most amazing geologic formations anywhere. Here they have what are called karsts (I only know this because before Amy was a medical student she studied geology for a bit and happened to know this word). A karst is a big tall knob coming out of the earth, these are limestone, and are mostly about 500 feet tall. They are a draw to rock climbers from all over the world. And one of the most amazing things about them is that they have these very long and huge stalactites hanging down from them, some of them well over 100 feet long. I've only seen stalactites in caves, but these are all over the place here.
Our hotel, The Sand Sea Resort, is on Hat Railay West and it has several bungalows in a nice garden setting. There are a few other hotels on this beach, maybe three or four. Most hotels are on the east side and the beach there really sucks, so most folks come over to the west beach to swim. But this was low season, so there weren't all that many people. The food at the hotel was okay, but the second night we went a few doors down to another restaurant and had one of the most amazing meals of my life. We started with mien kam, a salad that consists of some kind of leaf with about seven different ingredients deposited on it, then you eat it like a taco. Things like chillies, dried shrimp, lime, nuts and so on. Then we had haw moek, which was like a Thai lau lau, seafoods curry coconut and veggies wrapped up in another kind of leaf and steamed. The bugger was SPICY! We followed this up with a whole red snapper, deep fried and covered with a spicy red curry sauce. This food was SOOOO spicy, but with the right balance of spice and other flavors, it wasn't all that bad, except that I had to eat about 5 bowls of rice and three large beers to cool my mouth down. Then we made an amazing discovery. It just so happens that a really good margarita will cool down your mouth from spicy food faster then beer, water or rice. So we had two of those. These were especially good margaritas, I think because they were made from kafer limes. Dessert was Bud's Ice Cream (from San Francisco, no less) and a pumpkin custard. Unreal.
The other great beach here is Hat ?? Phra naeng. There is only one hotel here the Rayavadee and it costs $1500/night, believe it or not. But you can walk right around the hotel to the lovelyl beach. It also has these karsts on either end and is just lovely white sand with bathtub water. In the day we spent here, Amy had five massages and I had two. The first one I had was an oil massage and it was quite nice. The combination of oil and a micro layer of the world's finest sand will take a layer or two of skin off you, but that feels nice. These Thai masseuses are true artists. They know the right spots and justs where to go. It is the ultimate in self indulgent, hedonistic pleasure, but what are vacations for? A few times he got just a little to close to Mr. Johnson, but what the heck. It was a great massage, right up there with my ultimate massage at the Pondok Sari in Pemuteran, Bali.
There was also some good food on the beach, including spring rolls and huge chicken legs. And all the Singha you could drink.
The last evening there we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen. Wow!
Back in Bangkok, we read about some outdoor fish restaurants in Chinatown, so we headed down on the ferry and walked for about an hour until we found them. There are several restaurants on the street, under awnings, that serve some of the weirdest looking seafood you've ever seen. All kinds of sea creatures are here. We stopped at two places and had scallops cooked in their shell (with the addition of a little piece of pork sausage, so some reason), a noodle dish with giant prawns, a plate of giant grilled prawns, and some sea clams cooked in a chili sauce. Ohmygawd. Between this meal and the one the night before, I've never been so happy with food.
After dinner we went back to the crazy street of Khao San to see all the tourist shops, got our last foot massage, and were in bed by 10pm, as we had to be at the airport by 5am for our flight. The flight home was uneventful, except that I left my most treasured souvenir of our trip, a gorgeous Bhutanese tangka of the Wheel of Life in the overhead bin on our ANA flight from Bangkok to Tokyo. But great ol' ANA found the thangkha and are sending it to San Francisco tomorrow.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
No Coke, Pepsi!...Craig
We arrived in Bangkok in the late afternoon and went to our wonderful hotel that Amy had found the evening before (thank you internet!). Amy has talked about the hotel in her blog (below), so I'll tell you about the Bangkok food.
We left the hotel, destined to take a ferry on the Chao Praya river down to the southern end of the old part of town. But just after we got out on the street it started to POUR RAIN. And I mean pour! One of those tropical downpours that seem to me about an inch of rain per second. So we stayed under the sidewalk awnings for awhile and actually bought some amazingly yummy streetfood, which was a fish cake kind of thing with a sweet/hot sauce. Also we bought a little ball of whole fried shrimp. Unreal. But the rain wouldn't let up, so we went in a dark alley and ended up in this very local restaurant where I'm sure most Americans would fear to tread. But this guy was making some nice looking pork dish that we ordered. For drink, only Pepsi, there is not a Coke in sight anywhere. In fact, after walking the streets of Bangkok over the next 5 hours, I realized there was not a Coke to be seen, but Pepsi everywhere. Also, for some reason, there are a lot of 7/11 stores.
Anyway, our pork dish was delicious and it was still raining when we finished, so we ordered a dry noodle with vegetable dish, also very good.
By this time, it had stopped raining, so we went own to the river and caught the orange ferry and took it all the way down to the southern end of the old part of town, maybe about 5 miles or so. We got off at the flower market (stop #6). By this time it was quite dark, but we wandered through this wonderful market, very local, and not a tourist to be seen. They make these beautiful flower offereing things that they take to the temple.
From here, we wandered north, looking at our map and kind of figuring out where we were, but we weren't exactly certain. We figured we'd eventually get a taxi back to the hotel, but as we walked we saw some of the beautiful temples, Wat Po, the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Bhudda. These were all closed for tourist, but were lit up and you could see their beautiful golded towers.
After about 1 1/2 hours of walking and seeing not one foreigner, passing many little shops and many, many food stalls (all selling what looked like amazingly tasty things) we ended up on the Khao San Road. Wow, what a difference a few streets make.
Khao San is the famous street where all the young tourists go. There are lots of bars, restaurants, trinket shops and just zillions of t shirts for sale, some of them very strange. Lots of young women prowling around and lots of young white males (and some not so young) with some of these women. Not one of the nicer aspects of Bangkok. Oh well, to each his own, I guess. But it was fun walking down this street. Most of the carvings were pretty bad, but there were some small bhudda statures that were carved quite nicely.
After an hour or so on Khao San, we figured we were only about a 45 minute walk from the hotel, so we headed up there, soon passing a massage place right on the street. 120 bhat (about $3) for a half hour foot massage. Who could pass this up after walking about 3 miles? Oh, was this nice. Nice Thai ladies massaging your feet is one of the great pleasures of life. We've had this many times in Bali, but here it was a bit different, as we were right on a main street, with lots of traffic noise and music blaring from a nearby restaurant. No matter, it was just what the doctor ordered.
After that it was a 45 minute walk to the hotel, with a quick last stop for a hot bowl of fish ball soup on the street. I'm sure most Americans would be freaked out by eating street food here, but I must say that it is delicious and cheap. And I figure as long as it is cooked well, then they must kill all the bugs.
This morning we are heading down to Railey, which according to Lonely Planet, is the most beautiful beach in Thailand. Our flight is an hour late (so far), so hopefully we will make it by sunset.
a night wandering bangkok - by amy
wow, what a great night we had.
Yesterday we flew from pastoral tranquility, high in the himalayas, and today we are in the epitomy of modernism, the Bangkok airport.
We have found an excellent place to retreat to in Bangkok, the phranakorn-nornlen hotel, which is in a neighborhood, Thewet I think, which is just enough north of the main backpackers street (Khao San) to be tranquil and friendly not pushy and just about three blocks away from the river. It's near where Ayuthaya avenue dead ends near the river. This hotel gets Trip advisor's #2 spot for bangkok and it is $60 a night. (we found it in a hurry yesterday when we learned that Bhutan's airline, Druk Air, had switched us from the 4 pm flight to the 8 am flight which meant we could spend a lot more time in bangkok... we emailed the hotel, and had an affirmative confirmation from them within 20 minutes). This hotel is a retreat; driving onto a sidestreet and then down an alley, or 'soi', then a smaller alley, you enter in a lovely little garden and it's very homey and extremely welcoming. they have a little rooftop organic garden... the sheets are perfectly soft and smooth... our 'twin' room had two double beds right next to each other so lots of space and nice windows out to other buildings verandahs, private and cozy.
since we arrived about an hour and half before dusk and the main old bangkok attractions were all closed, our hotel recommended we take a riverboat down to the flower market and come back by taxi. We set out and within a quarter block were already trying the most delicious abundant street food. first we had freshly fried warm little fish cakes with sweet sauce (tod mun) and a tasty clump of deep fried shrimp. then we noticed a little alley with many noodle makers... but first we planned to walk... but then suddenly thunder, lightning and downpours started so we came back to our alley. One vendor in the alley was searing pork ribs on a barbecue made of old oil drums, but he was not ready yet; so we went into the cluster of cafes and first we had a hot pork noodle soup with two pepsis, then we had some fried noodles with vegetables and green onions. delish. slowly my thai phrases from 20 years ago came back, 'how much is that', 'that's delicious'. mostly we got along with point and smile (and show calculators). We did get to discuss the upcoming american elections, once again everyone smiled when we said obama and frowned when they not we said mccain... Meanwhile, rain was pouring down off every roof and many of the street vendors set out their buckets to collect gallons of clean water to use for washing up. When the rain stopped and the eaves stopped dripping, we set out again.
our hotel's alley comes out on a side street with one of the many tiny 7-11 stores and right on a khlong, the canals... turning left we crossed a large intersection and then down a street by the khlong, lined with little shops selling nursery plants. about a block or so on, pedestrian traffic thickened and we entered a row of food shops and then, docks on the river... this was the Chao Phraya ferry stop number 13 or 15, something like that. After a few minutes of watching fast river boats come quickly into the docks and load up, we figured out how to get one of the orange flag lines going south, hopped quickly on to the next ferry, paid our 15 baht each (50 cents), and our ferry swept rapidly downriver. Great voyage. because of the rain the temperatures were perfect and the city was starting to light up. the main temples and complexes along the river (behind the warehouses) are the temple of the emerald bhudda, the grand palace, and so forth and they are all gilded and lit spectacularly. Across the river on the Thonburi side are a few more temples and also a few riverside restaurants. Every few minutes we'd pull up to a dock, zigzagging across the river, and take on and let off commuters. Only a few 'farangs' like us. Finally, we got off at dock 6; we were not sure where we were, the usual wet smelly dockside dark streets, but within a few blocks north and east suddenly we found the flower market, and how great. lots of flowers of every color and the stall owners were expertly fashioning them into the spectacular sculptures made of banana leaves twisted and furled into great shapes and with tiny buds and blossoms attached here and there. there are flower offerings in ropes; in loops; in little castles; in little crowns.
unintentionally, we kept walking, maybe 5 miles, all the way back through old bangkok to our hotel. every time we felt hungry we could get another great street food; little sweet coconut cream khanoms, wrapped in tiny pancakes with bait doey jasmine type flavoring; there were fish, clams, shrimp, noodles, pork. we were too full from our rain retreat stop to eat much but it was so much fun to look at it all. we saw the good, the bad, the ugly but mostly it was terrific. we stuck to streets with less traffic but there were still plenty of small brightly painted tuk tuks and also the bright pink and bright blue cabs. not nearly as many motorcycles as I remembered from bangkok 20 years ago... we walked past all the major temples, which of course were closed since it was long past nightfall. we saw all kinds of vendors and interesting shops. Most streets and boulevards were fairly dark, just local stores open here and there. But finally after an hour or so we found Khao San road which is a riot - filled with neon signs in all colors, hundreds of t shirts, hundreds of stalls, signs in english, lots of young backpacker type tourists and plenty of girls with pretty makeup and very short shorts selling guess what. it's just a few blocks long.. very entertaining. then we turned north on Thanon Ratchasima which is at the west end of the street... and found just what we needed then, an outdoor foot massage venue. really fun... there were about 12 chairs, set up in a row in a sort of vacant lot; we got chairs side by side, reclined on soft pillows with our feet up while our nice masseuses pampered us for a half hour each for 120 baht, or about $3.50, with vigourous massages of our feet, ankles, calves and thighs, using their hands and these little wooden implements and soft towels and plenty of perfumed oil something like camphor. it was really fun. Meanwhile just across the way there was loud pop music playing, thai style. My masseuse was just absolutely beautiful and did a great job...
finally we walked home again stopping for one last bowl of fragrant noodle soup and two more pepsis... what a great bangkok experience before tucking in to our peaceful serene little garden hotel. got up this morning, we are flying to Krabi and Railay beach today... here in the most sophisticated of all airports paying $8 an hour for email... which is probably more than we spent last night on everything, foot massages included... that's modern life for you
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Last memories from Bhutan
This is my first time on the blog since posting 6 days ago. I have read Craig's blogs and they are fabulous. what can I add...
Again one of the nicest things about bhutan was seeing this nation working on blending old and new. I think that for those who live in the main valleys near the road, modernization is going to come quickly... it's clear that there is wealth and well being enough to build a number of solid large bhutanese houses with cars near them... as a result there is a lot of partial construction and building detritus that I noticed as we came back from the more distant parts of bhutan, into Thimpu and Paro. It's also clear there are several economic classes in bhutan... and there were a few really ugly, though very small, shanty towns, probably mostly where the roadworkers from India have to stay during their temporary stays..
the folks with access to education, who probably come from families that for generations have had educated monks and administrators. I read a really great book while we overnighted at Ogyen Choling, the Hero with a Thousand Eyes by Karma Ura, it was about a young man who was supposed to become a lama but was called to be a scribe for the 3rd king, in the 1940s or 50s. It is based on a real person's memoirs. Anyway from this I learned lots about how the older feudal style government marshalled the wealth of goods and distributed them in a way that kept the subjects fairly content but made it clear who was boss... the king and the local governors. The bhutanese have always been led to expect strong leadership and strong demands for voluntary participation and contributions of goods or money, from their kings. So the families that have always been close to the ruling class, are often the ones who own hotels and restaurants and weaving shops. nevertheless when we went into the farmhouse at Ogyen Choling I also realized that the traditional bhutanese farmer worked hard but had a lot of comforts as well... seems a lot like switzerland perhaps... hard work but a clean comfortable farmers type life.
When we were at the temple initiation ceremony at Gangtey Dzhong, I got to wander through the 'fair stalls' surrounding the temple. there were a few shops selling very old kiras (woven silk fabrics) and later on in our trip, I saw women weaving them... obviously each one truly does take months to complete... maybe even a year... and the combinations of the multicolored skirt/dresses called kiras, with the bright outer jackets of brocades, and the inner jackets of bright silky fabrics, were great. the inner collar, and the ends of the sleeves are folded so the inner blouse color acts like a great accent. they love to combine rich hues; turquoise with purple; deep brown with red. then each jacket (toego) is closed with a brooch covered with jewels; and then the women wear heavy colorful thibetan/nepalese style necklaces with lots of turquoise or coral colors... something that picks up the colors in the skirts. The young college educated women pull this off in a very stylish modern flavored way, with just the right dark glasses and hairstyles to pull it into the 21st century.
During festivals, the women must also wear a long slightly stiff 'scarf' about 2 meters long, about a handspan wide, often red or orange.
The men also look very classy. They always seem to be in ghos that are blends of red or orange plaids, sometimes with a dark green part to it; or, a very elegant muted gray color. there is a very elegant white shawl they must put on in temples and there is a way of draping it that totally looks masculine. Our guide Tshewang Dorji who we grew to love dearly was particularly good looking. he wore these soft slipperlike shoes. we will add some photos of him when we return.
About Tshewang Dorji, can't say enough good things - very intelligent, very learned, very eager to teach us thibetan bhuddist dharma, seeming to get a lot of joy out of making us comfortable, very patient with our social blunders (like blowing out incense instead of waving it out)... we got to show him a few new things, like the Tang Valley and Ogyen Choling, and also, on our last day with him, we took a side hike at the tiger's nest up a side canyon to a small temple tended by an older couple and their cat... he said in all his tours he has only gone there 3 times and I think he liked that we wanted to hike up their. Our favorite times with him were on our hikes up to monasteries. He has a great sense of humor. He did seem, over and over, to take us into many many small temples for blessings, and we had such good luck with him. We got to see so much more than we expected. we got special blessings, for example with a small gilded bhudda that flew to the monastery in jakar from the burning lake, that is only on display at most a single day a year. We think that Tshewang was the reason we were so fortunate, to see so many festivals, so much dancing and get so many blessings.
Yesterday we flew from pastoral tranquility, high in the himalayas, and today we are in the epitomy of modernism, the Bangkok airport.
We have found an excellent place to retreat to in Bangkok, the phranakorn-nornlen hotel, which is in a neighborhood, Thewet I think, which is just enough north of the main backpackers street (Khao San) to be tranquil and friendly not pushy and just about three blocks away from the river. It's near where Ayuthaya avenue dead ends near the river. This hotel gets Trip advisor's #2 spot for bangkok and it is $60 a night. (we found it in a hurry yesterday when we learned that Bhutan's airline, Druk Air, had switched us from the 4 pm flight to the 8 am flight which meant we could spend a lot more time in bangkok... we emailed the hotel, and had an affirmative confirmation from them within 20 minutes). This hotel is a retreat; driving onto a sidestreet and then down an alley, or 'soi', then a smaller alley, you enter in a lovely little garden and it's very homey and extremely welcoming. they have a little rooftop organic garden... the sheets are perfectly soft and smooth... our 'twin' room had two double beds right next to each other so lots of space and nice windows out to other buildings verandahs, private and cozy.
since we arrived about an hour and half before dusk and the main old bangkok attractions were all closed, our hotel recommended we take a riverboat down to the flower market and come back by taxi. We set out and within a quarter block were already trying the most delicious abundant street food. first we had freshly fried warm little fish cakes with sweet sauce (tod mun) and a tasty clump of deep fried shrimp. then we noticed a little alley with many noodle makers... but first we planned to walk... but then suddenly thunder, lightning and downpours started so we came back to our alley. One vendor in the alley was searing pork ribs on a barbecue made of old oil drums, but he was not ready yet; so we went into the cluster of cafes and first we had a hot pork noodle soup with two pepsis, then we had some fried noodles with vegetables and green onions. delish. slowly my thai phrases from 20 years ago came back, 'how much is that', 'that's delicious'. mostly we got along with point and smile (and show calculators). We did get to discuss the upcoming american elections, once again everyone smiled when we said obama and frowned when they not we said mccain... Meanwhile, rain was pouring down off every roof and many of the street vendors set out their buckets to collect gallons of clean water to use for washing up. When the rain stopped and the eaves stopped dripping, we set out again.
our hotel's alley comes out on a side street with one of the many tiny 7-11 stores and right on a khlong, the canals... turning left we crossed a large intersection and then down a street by the khlong, lined with little shops selling nursery plants. about a block or so on, pedestrian traffic thickened and we entered a row of food shops and then, docks on the river... this was the Chao Phraya ferry stop number 13 or 15, something like that. After a few minutes of watching fast river boats come quickly into the docks and load up, we figured out how to get one of the orange flag lines going south, hopped quickly on to the next ferry, paid our 15 baht each (50 cents), and our ferry swept rapidly downriver. Great voyage. because of the rain the temperatures were perfect and the city was starting to light up. the main temples and complexes along the river (behind the warehouses) are the temple of the emerald bhudda, the grand palace, and so forth and they are all gilded and lit spectacularly. Across the river on the Thonburi side are a few more temples and also a few riverside restaurants. Every few minutes we'd pull up to a dock, zigzagging across the river, and take on and let off commuters. Only a few 'farangs' like us. Finally, we got off at dock 6; we were not sure where we were, the usual wet smelly dockside dark streets, but within a few blocks north and east suddenly we found the flower market, and how great. lots of flowers of every color and the stall owners were expertly fashioning them into the spectacular sculptures made of banana leaves twisted and furled into great shapes and with tiny buds and blossoms attached here and there. there are flower offerings in ropes; in loops; in little castles; in little crowns.
unintentionally, we kept walking, maybe 5 miles, all the way back through old bangkok to our hotel. every time we felt hungry we could get another great street food; little sweet coconut cream khanoms, wrapped in tiny pancakes with bait doey jasmine type flavoring; there were fish, clams, shrimp, noodles, pork. we were too full from our rain retreat stop to eat much but it was so much fun to look at it all. we saw the good, the bad, the ugly but mostly it was terrific. we stuck to streets with less traffic but there were still plenty of small brightly painted tuk tuks and also the bright pink and bright blue cabs. not nearly as many motorcycles as I remembered from bangkok 20 years ago... we walked past all the major temples, which of course were closed since it was long past nightfall. we saw all kinds of vendors and interesting shops. Most streets and boulevards were fairly dark, just local stores open here and there. But finally after an hour or so we found Khao San road which is a riot - filled with neon signs in all colors, hundreds of t shirts, hundreds of stalls, signs in english, lots of young backpacker type tourists and plenty of girls with pretty makeup and very short shorts selling guess what. it's just a few blocks long.. very entertaining. then we turned north on Thanon Ratchasima which is at the west end of the street... and found just what we needed then, an outdoor foot massage venue. really fun... there were about 12 chairs, set up in a row in a sort of vacant lot; we got chairs side by side, reclined on soft pillows with our feet up while our nice masseuses pampered us for a half hour each for 120 baht, or about $3.50, with vigourous massages of our feet, ankles, calves and thighs, using their hands and these little wooden implements and soft towels and plenty of perfumed oil something like camphor. it was really fun. Meanwhile just across the way there was loud pop music playing, thai style. My masseuse was just absolutely beautiful and did a great job...
finally we walked home again stopping for one last bowl of fragrant noodle soup and two more pepsis... what a great bangkok experience before tucking in to our peaceful serene little garden hotel. got up this morning, we are flying to Krabi and Railay beach today... here in the most sophisticated of all airports paying $8 an hour for email... which is probably more than we spent last night on everything, foot massages included... that's modern life for you
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Last memories from Bhutan
This is my first time on the blog since posting 6 days ago. I have read Craig's blogs and they are fabulous. what can I add...
Again one of the nicest things about bhutan was seeing this nation working on blending old and new. I think that for those who live in the main valleys near the road, modernization is going to come quickly... it's clear that there is wealth and well being enough to build a number of solid large bhutanese houses with cars near them... as a result there is a lot of partial construction and building detritus that I noticed as we came back from the more distant parts of bhutan, into Thimpu and Paro. It's also clear there are several economic classes in bhutan... and there were a few really ugly, though very small, shanty towns, probably mostly where the roadworkers from India have to stay during their temporary stays..
the folks with access to education, who probably come from families that for generations have had educated monks and administrators. I read a really great book while we overnighted at Ogyen Choling, the Hero with a Thousand Eyes by Karma Ura, it was about a young man who was supposed to become a lama but was called to be a scribe for the 3rd king, in the 1940s or 50s. It is based on a real person's memoirs. Anyway from this I learned lots about how the older feudal style government marshalled the wealth of goods and distributed them in a way that kept the subjects fairly content but made it clear who was boss... the king and the local governors. The bhutanese have always been led to expect strong leadership and strong demands for voluntary participation and contributions of goods or money, from their kings. So the families that have always been close to the ruling class, are often the ones who own hotels and restaurants and weaving shops. nevertheless when we went into the farmhouse at Ogyen Choling I also realized that the traditional bhutanese farmer worked hard but had a lot of comforts as well... seems a lot like switzerland perhaps... hard work but a clean comfortable farmers type life.
When we were at the temple initiation ceremony at Gangtey Dzhong, I got to wander through the 'fair stalls' surrounding the temple. there were a few shops selling very old kiras (woven silk fabrics) and later on in our trip, I saw women weaving them... obviously each one truly does take months to complete... maybe even a year... and the combinations of the multicolored skirt/dresses called kiras, with the bright outer jackets of brocades, and the inner jackets of bright silky fabrics, were great. the inner collar, and the ends of the sleeves are folded so the inner blouse color acts like a great accent. they love to combine rich hues; turquoise with purple; deep brown with red. then each jacket (toego) is closed with a brooch covered with jewels; and then the women wear heavy colorful thibetan/nepalese style necklaces with lots of turquoise or coral colors... something that picks up the colors in the skirts. The young college educated women pull this off in a very stylish modern flavored way, with just the right dark glasses and hairstyles to pull it into the 21st century.
During festivals, the women must also wear a long slightly stiff 'scarf' about 2 meters long, about a handspan wide, often red or orange.
The men also look very classy. They always seem to be in ghos that are blends of red or orange plaids, sometimes with a dark green part to it; or, a very elegant muted gray color. there is a very elegant white shawl they must put on in temples and there is a way of draping it that totally looks masculine. Our guide Tshewang Dorji who we grew to love dearly was particularly good looking. he wore these soft slipperlike shoes. we will add some photos of him when we return.
About Tshewang Dorji, can't say enough good things - very intelligent, very learned, very eager to teach us thibetan bhuddist dharma, seeming to get a lot of joy out of making us comfortable, very patient with our social blunders (like blowing out incense instead of waving it out)... we got to show him a few new things, like the Tang Valley and Ogyen Choling, and also, on our last day with him, we took a side hike at the tiger's nest up a side canyon to a small temple tended by an older couple and their cat... he said in all his tours he has only gone there 3 times and I think he liked that we wanted to hike up their. Our favorite times with him were on our hikes up to monasteries. He has a great sense of humor. He did seem, over and over, to take us into many many small temples for blessings, and we had such good luck with him. We got to see so much more than we expected. we got special blessings, for example with a small gilded bhudda that flew to the monastery in jakar from the burning lake, that is only on display at most a single day a year. We think that Tshewang was the reason we were so fortunate, to see so many festivals, so much dancing and get so many blessings.
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