218:The Festivals of Bhutan from the 1000 places to see before you die book

With a bit of juggling I managed to time my trip to Bhutan to coincide with not one, but two festivals. The first was the largest in Bhutan- Thimphu Tsechu. Deeply religious, this festival is held in the consecrated grounds of the Tashichhodzong in the Bhutan capital Thimphu and at the end of the four days of dances, blessings by the monks are given to attendees. Its a time for the Bhutanese to lay down their rice cutters, scrub up in their best gear and hit what is essentially an extremely large, unshaded courtyard in an impressive building housing the offices of the Kingdom and the central monastic body for four days of sitting in the sun watching a variety of dances designed to promote happiness and an enlightened mind. It would be my second time in Bhutan to get a gold star for blessings!!

During the masked dances, the monks fall into a trance and take on the spirit of the deities they are representing. In doing so, evil spirits are conquered so that Buddhism can flourish and misfortunes are removed for the spectators. The Government is very quick to warn tourists that these are religious festivals, they are not put on for tourists, and dressing up in good clothes and not drinking, smoking, dancing, talking loudly or running is the only acceptable behaviour.  And so it was that i found myself spending 6 hours in the sun, no hat (as its a religious site), feeling like a bit of a prawn amongst the locals with their gold threads. Not as much of a prawn however as a few tourists who had gone the whole nine yards and bought local costumes...right down to the surreal but rather special boots which I saw very few people wearing.

Young girls coming in to watch the festival

Twenty four folk songs and twenty five sacred dances are performed over the four days. I only had time however to do a bit of day three and some of day four. Which I have to admit, given the rather monotonous background music (bit like their food) and the fact Id sadly positioned myself right outside the speakers in the full sun like a beginner on my first trip, I think is more than enough! Thankfully, brochures explaining the dances had been given to me by my tour operator who I knocked off for the day as I thought it was a bit cruel, despite the blessings angle, to spend the whole day in the sun with me. Such is the sacredness of these festivals however that he actually left me then came back by himself to watch the dancing.

Dance of the Stag and the Hounds 2nd part

Dance of the stag and the hounds 2nd part 

This clash of drums and symbols that went on for three hours was perhaps one of the more painful of all the dances but none more so in the Dance of the Stag and the Hounds.

 Two people- representing two hounds-  rolled around themselves in yellow garb from one side of the square to the other for a few hours.

Now, conscious that culture is protected by the passing down of stories, one can only balance it by reporting what the two hours of this dance was all about. The story is about the conversion to Buddhism of a hunter named Gonpo Dorji by a great saint called Jetsun Milarepa. Jetsun was meditating and heard a stag shaking with fear so he sang a song and the stag lay down. The hunting dog then arrived and the saint did the same….and then the hunter arrived in the clearing.  The hunter was enraged and shot an arrow which the saint deflected and told him to listen to a story. The hunter became overcome on hearing about the story and repented and converted to Buddhism, the latter which is represented by the rope that the dogs and the hunter jump over.

The philosophy is that even cruel people can be changed to embrace the Dharma.

A clown (i think!!)

One of the clowns who runs around the dancers mimicking them...and also collecting monies from the audience

The venue...one side of it at least. All the monks get to sit in the shade on the second and third storey

 

My second day of the festival started rather much like the day before albeit Id determined the better positioning to be in so didn't have to subject quite as much of my ears to the clash of the drums and the odd horn noises.

Dance of the judgement of the dead

The Dance of the Judgement of the Dead is based on the Book of the Dead, a text hidden by Guru Rinpoche and later rediscovered by Karma Lingpa in 14^th century. It is about the "Bardo", a state where the departed spirit exists with the mind and the body for a period of 49 days before rebirthing into the fields of no suffering. This dance, which was over 2 hours long, included an ox leading one row of 14 dancers and a stag the other lions of dancers. The costumes were rather amazing- reflecting how animal faced guardian deities in the Bardo state judge the dead person's evil and virtuous deeds....a process which in this dance takes a few hours!

Dance of the judgement of the dead

Dance of the Heroes

The heroes, named as they are wearing five kinds of ornaments on the body,  hold a small drum and bell. Their role is to awaken the gods of the tantras from their sleep of ignorance. This dance was seen by the great Treasure Revealer Pema Lingpa in the paradise of Guru Rinpoche. In the dance the heroes and the heroines perform a range of dances. It was one of the prettier ones!

Dance of the Ging and Tsoling...this is the Ging

This is a dance initiated by Guru Rinpoche to show the people of Tibet his paradise. The Ging dance is about the treasure discoverers and disciples being present in the company of fairies and heroes and deities who perform offerings. The dance of the Tsolingis about the four Guardian Kings of the Directions who command an army who subdue all demons and enermies who are creating obstacles to the doctrine of Buddha.  People whistle during the dance to chase away evil spirits and the Ging hit people on the head to chase away impurities from the body. This dance gives blessings to those who witness it and removes obstacles fro the doctrine of Buddha.

A clown

One of the new dances devised by the head monk

A couple chat

the venue

Bumthang Festival...the second one I attended. This one involved a 7 hour drive west through Bhutan. The festival was very different to Thimphu, largely due to the fact it was a rural festival so there were less people and less tourists...ie I saw 5 all day. Very different to Thimphu in terms of the number of dances and the number of days as the festival was a day long event, and only involved a cast of four people doing a dance for 30 minutes before torching some hay in a field.

the haystacks...pre torching

Im probably underestimating the significance of torching hay in a field….it was two 8 foot high hay stacks about 2 feet apart which were then torched. All the locals then ran between the two flaming stacks to cleanse themselves of their sins and receive blessings.

The firelighters

the monks coming out to give blessings

 It was a bit frightening the first ten minutes due to the crush of people trying to get through as people at the front tripped and had to get pulled out of the burning hay.

Meanwhile the whole area was covered in smoke making visibility hard and burning the eyes of all the people trying to give assistance to the fallen people. Add to the combination of torched polyester in their garments and it was a bit of a screaming, crying bit at the beginning.

The torchers...looking very happy with themselves

Page marked or tear out of book....well from a cultural point of view it was very interesting. But as you watch it starved due to the poor food Id be leaving Bhutan off the list for a bit!

217: Tiger’s Nest Monastery or Paro Taktsang or Weight Watchers Bhutan, Bhutan from the 1000 places to see before you die

After experiencing terrible food in the hotels
I had my guide take me
to a restaurant frequented by locals to compare.
On the left is chicken chilli and the
right is pork chilli

Well there is something that the government of Bhutan hasn’t yet cottoned on to…..trips for fatties. As the man next to me said when looking at this morning’s buffet “I feed my animals better.” A culinary trip Bhutan certainly isn’t. Breakfast consists of scrambled eggs with chilli, sliced processed sausage, roasted banana and toast……every day. Lunch consists of thinly sliced beef and potatoes, sliced mixed vegetables, chillis with cheese, red rice and broccoli……every day. Dinner consists of one inch chopped chicken with bones swimming in a thin clear soup, chillis with cheese, red rice, chunks of some meat in a thin soup or deep fried, potatoes and broccoli in chilli….every day.

This is the restaurants beef chilli and cheese

With most of us on 8 to 10 day tours, its quite common to find the buffet overlooked by tourists more content to talk and catch up on their notes than eat the food.

So….thats 1kg off due to eating less and a further 1kg off as everything has chillies in it to rev up your metabolism. I convinced my guide to take me to a restaurant where Bhutanese eat …you can decide for yourself from the photos!!

And then there’s the nightly noises which will keep the fatties pacing the floor most of the night and then help them leap out of bed in the morning. Most of these hotels are newly built and sound proofing isn’t something that has arrived in Bhutan, nor double glazing it appears. Add that the positioning of the hotels is splat in the middle of town or along the airstrip and the timing of going to bed and getting up becomes a carefully worked out objective for the day.  Nothing like knowing the flight timetables so that you can be up to witness the thundering of glass in your room and the roar of an Airbus 319 landing a few hundred metres away, or having that extra glass of red wine because the local dancers in the hotel over the road wont finish until 9pm, or knowing that the kitchen shift arrives at 6am so you can forgo a wake up call for the sounds of frying pans being banged together. Put another kilo loss down for all of that.

And then there’s Tigers Nest Monastery. A perfect half day exercise for the fatties, already bleary eyed from the night’s revelry over the road and the kitchen crew wake up call, hallucinating from a lack of food in their system they square up at the bottom of the mountain to listen to their guide explain that it is a minimum of 2 hours to visit…but overlooks to mention that that is the one way, “best time” done by a horse, or the fact that its 900m (that’s 2000 feet) pretty much straight up a mountain…at just a smidge over 3 kilometres (that’s 10,240 feet), above sea level. 5 kilos about to melt away.

In the mountain top hump right in the middle of the photo,  one third down from the top of the hump you can faintly see a white patch about 3mm by 1mm....thats the monastery

Making my way through the few hawkers, I gazed at the horses with their pretty saddlecloths and the knowledge that for a meager $10 it could take me up the mountain (sadly they don’t carry passengers down due to the slope) but my guide said that it was better to go by foot. Thinking that was because of some special sites to see on the way, or optimistically thinking that the horses went on a different track so I didn’t have to negotiate horse shit while I clambered ever upwards over the rocks and mud, I set off.

Prayer wheels dot the path

 Half an hour later, after setting a good clip I thought, I was overtaken by a horse. With a 20 stone fattie on board. Given that the horses here are more polo pony size and, like us tourists, probably exist on a diet of chilli cheese and broccoli, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for the horse. Consequently I decided to keep the nag company and one hour later both horse, two tour guides, one fattie, and I arrived at the cafeteria marking the half way point.  Half way point that is for fit fuckers like me, and end of the line for unfit fatties like her.

Almost half way point

You can just spy the monastery in the distance

Paro Valley

prayer wheel at the cafeteria

She was destined to join the rest of the members from Weight Watchers Bhutan (I joke!), the pensioners with hip replacements, and the faded footballers with their buggered knees, to gaze over their tea cups at the monastery a tantalizing 400 or metres up the cliff but a further one hour vertical hike.

View from the cafeteria 

And it was here that my guide told me that the reason why walking was better was that it was meant to be a spiritual journey of penance. If you went up by horse then you’d lose the spiritual element, and if you then walked down you’d gain the spiritual element but the sum total would be neutral. Goody. Double penance points for me I thought even if I felt like throwing up from exhaustion.

Saying goodbye to Mary from Tennessee and “Horse” we hit the path again, renewed by our sweet milky tea, only to find that our legs had filled with lactic acid with the short stop so it was agony for the first 15 minutes as we tried to get back into our stride. My guide seemed to be flagging at the pace I was setting, but lured by the sights and smells of fresh horse shit in front of me, I upped the pace to catch up with what I knew must be shortly around the next bend…….Horse 2. Sadly, it was about five punishing bends later at full pace that I came across Horse 2 and Horse 3 and a couple from London astride their bony brown backs. 

The cruel deception...so close..and now starts the Thigh Master
Work out

Ever a fount of useful facts my guide then told me that walking behind the horses is very good for altitude sickness as the smell of the horse shit reduces the symptoms. What the….??!!  I then had to explain the term “the horse owner was pulling your leg” to my guide. Finally we hit what must be the end of the line because the horsies slowed down. Ahh sweet deception to those fatties that had managed up this far as it was merely the end of where the horses could go. Seems that everyone must do some form of penance and there it was in front of me. I could reach out my hand and it was parallel to the entrance of the monastery but, in between me and it was a gorge and a waterfall to master and, as a result of the building of a tiny bridge where the gorge met, rather than a massive bridge higher up, I still had a punishing 400 vertical steps straight down followed by 300 vertical steps straight up. Sweet Buddha!!

The little bridge crossing

I was almost prostrate by the time I dragged my legs up the last step. Suitable I guess given that this was one of the most religious sites in Bhutan. Guru Rinpoche introduced Buddhism to Bhutan, transformed his favourite consort into a tigress and rode her around the Indian subcontinent landing at thirteen caves, of which this monastery was built around one. After meditating for 3 years he popped out in eight reincarnated forms, all of which I was going to see shortly at the Thimphu Tsechu festival.

Prayer flags criss cross across the ravine

60m waterfall

Aside from its benefits to fatties, the monastery was rather spiritual. The roar of the 60 metre high waterfall, the whisper from the pine trees, the flutter of the prayer flags on the surrounding hills, the bells from the prayer wheels, all contributed to a scene of serenity and contemplation. Discretely positioned above the monastery were houses of meditation for the monks, some of whom stay up for three years at a time, following Guru Rinpoche’s lead.

Dont fiddle the religious objects!

Clay and ashes....
memories of the dead made into little painted cakes

The meditation huts for the monks

 As for me, it was time to amble back down the slope and have a Tiger beer in celebration.

Up close.....worth it!