BHUTAN VISIT - 9/19/07-10/1/07

Introduction

In June, my sister Susan sent me an e-mail saying she always wanted to visit Bhutan and now was the time to go.  Did I want to join her?  Not knowing anything about the place, I said okay.  I am sure many of you reading this post are in the same position, so I am including a brief introduction to the country.

Bhutan is a small (about the size of Switzerland), Himalayan country, just south of Tibet, east of Nepal, north of India and west of China.  It is the only Buddhist kingdom remaining in the Himalayas.  It has about 700,000 people spread out over many small valleys, most of whom are farmers and 6,000 are monks.  The largest city is the capital Thimpu (pronounced “Timpu”), which has about 98,000 people.

Until the 1960’s, the country had no roads, no electricity.  After the invasion of Tibet by the Chinese in the 1950’s, the king of Bhutan realized his country could not remain isolated from the world.  He embarked on a process of modernization and economic development including building hydroelectric dams, roads, and schools and joining international organizations including the UN.  There is now a road going across the middle of the country though the main valleys and south at strategic points.  There are still many villages that can only be reached by walking 1-3 days over the mountains.

The country has an open border with India which is its main source of labor and goods and its main export market.  The Indians built the roads and buildings and supply the trucks and other industrial goods needed to build a modern country.

Bhutan was opened to tourists in 1974 but only in 1990’s were private tour operators allowed to offer tours.  One must use an official tour operator to visit the country.  To keep out the rif raf/backpackers, one must spend at least $200 per day of one’s tour package, a portion of which goes to the government.  There are no quotas on the number of tourists but there are only about 17,000 visitors per year

Bhutanese Buildings

Bhutanese buildings are extremely picturesque, built in the traditional style, by royal decree.  They have sloping shingled roofs, many held down by rocks.  The walls are either built of compacted mud or stones, which is then whitewashed.  The windows, door frames and all wood trim are all painted in colorful traditional designs.  Frequently there are also pictures painted on the walls.  The mud walls are very hard and durable.  We saw many ruins of houses where the mud walls were still standing after the roof and wood had rotted away,

Traditional Dress

Bhutanese have a traditional style of clothing which they wear most of the time.  The men wear a “gho”  (pronounced “go’), which is like a robe, hitched up to the knees with a sash.  Underneath is worn a shirt and shorts.  Shoes and knee socks complete the outfit, except in cold weather, when long johns are frequently worn.

Women wear a kira, a long seamless ankle length dress, folded under the right arm and wrapped around, fastened at both shoulders with two silver brooches and tied with a sash.  They wear a blouse underneath the kira and frequently wear a waist length button less jacket over it.

Both men and women must wear a ceremonial scarf over their traditional dress, when they visit a government building.  For men, this is called a kabne and the color denotes their position - white for most people, orange for senior officials, yellow for the king and chief abbot, etc.