April 20, 2012 - Bhutan
News break: the Himalayas are hilly! Surprised? Neither was I. I knew going into this trip that the three weeks of flat, sea level riding I'd gotten in after the snow had melted off the Valdez roads was not going to prepare me for riding in Bhutan, and I was right. Today kicked my butt.
The plan was to ride from our hotel to the end of the road at Jigme Dorji National Park. I think it's quite poosible I walked more than I rode. Vicky and I were the back-of-the-packers all day, walking up the steep hills and riding down the other sides. At one point, Yeshey was outdistancing us while pushing both our bikes up a hill! Ah, to be 26 and acclimated to 8,000+ feet.
Many wonderful photo opportunities also gave me ample time to rest. I will let the photos speak for themselves (with a little help from captions).
Bhutan is so hilly that most farming is done in terraced fields like these.
A random Bhutanese man - I love taking photos of people when I can do it without intruding on their privacy.
I'm not sure why this woman had the cloth on her head, but isn't she interesting? She's holding a strand of prayer beads.
I think I was actually pedaling for once when I came upon this image of Chenresig, the Buddha of Compassion, painted on a cliff face. There was a chorten and a water-driven prayer wheel at this site, too. I asked Yeshey how often it had to be repainted. He thought about every 10-15 years, depending on how rainy it had been.
I don't recall why this chorten was built in this spot (there was undoubtedly something auspicious about it), but it wasn't uncommon to see roads split to go around chortens.
White prayer flags, either vertical ones like these or long strings of them, are hung in honor of someone who has died.
These structures are built over a stream. Each one houses a giant prayer wheel that is continuously turned by the stream. If I had a stream on my property, I'd build one of these.
The colorful object is part of the prayer wheel. The little cones are made from a ground up piece of bone left after a cremation and mud. The cone is left in an auspicious place to honor the deceased.
We cycled along the Wang Chhu today. The long-needled pine trees were the most common trees I saw.
The temple at the end of the road.
High above the temple were these meditation cells for monks. It is traditional for a monk to commit to meditating in silence for 3 years, 3 months, 3 days and 3 hours. For the first 3 months they cannot see any family members; after that they have to communicate with sign language. For they last six weeks, they consume nothing but water. (I don't know if it was water vapor in the air or what, but distance views were frequently hazy - very annoying.)
A local house with a ubiquitous phallic painting. More on the origins of these later.
Vicky and Kimberley bringing up the rear. Kimberley's here because it's part of her job, otherwise she'd be kicking all our butts. Vicky's smile proves that even at the back of the pack, we're having a great time.
After we drove back to Thimphu we stopped at Bhutan's only bike shop. It's owned by Rinzin's brother (Rinzin is our bike guide).
Here's Rinzin modeling his Tour of the Dragon jersey. The Tour is a bike race from Bumthang to Thimphu - a way long way. Everyone but me bought jerseys - they didn't have one in my size.
The weekend farmers market in Thimphu. Much of the produce is local, but some is imported from India, Bhutan's primary trade partner.
Chillies are the main source of seasoning in Bhutan. They don't use curries, etc. like Indians do.
Fiddlehead ferns were in season while we were in Bhutan. We ate them at every lunch and dinner for about a week.
They don't look like much, but these are the best bananas. They're very sweet and remind me of apple bananas in Hawaii.
Judy, who had her 74th birthday on our trip, on the bridge leading to the non-food market across the river from the farmers market.
Oodles of goods at the market - clothing, handcrafts, religious objects, etc.
Kira stall - the vendor is wearing traditional women's wear, a kira, a long skirt and jacket. They come in a rainbow of wonderful colors and patterns.
After dinner we were treated to a performance of traditional music and dance. I got videos of five of the dances, but I haven't figured out how to post them yet. The man is wearing traditional men's wear, a gho, with a very fancy pair of traditional boots. The kira and gho are still commonly worn daily, but the boots are not.
I resisted the urge to buy a pair of these boots at the handicraft school's gift shop.