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| These teenagers certainly aren't stealing money from their Mum's purses and buying cheap vodka |
Bhutan is not for peasants. Well Bhutanese peasants already living there - sure, keep on toiling those paddies, but foreign peasants? Well don't even bother to set a toenail in the country. Nobody wants you, you bloody tight arse paupers. Piss off and spend your measly coins on chai teas in India. It doesn't matter how spiritual you are or how much you'd like a gawk at the Tigers Nest monastery you ain't ever gunna get there, so suck it up and weep like a baby over the pretty Internet photos. I've just come back from there everyone, so suck shit. Am I a bloody little poor person? Well considering I haven't had a job for quite some time the answer would be a resounding "I don't have a cent to my name". I do however have friends in high places, and when I say I have friends, I actually mean my husband has friends, and I tag along like little a hideous little leech.
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| The Enabler and The Leech |
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| We're blocking The Tigers Nest in this shot |
Personally if I was going to sponsor a gang of freeloaders to come and celebrate a half century of life with me I would get them along to take part in the laziest thing possible (I'm not though, and never will, so starting to be extra nice to me 8 years in advance is a useless endeavour). That desire to infect others with my own apathy is probably a reflection of the type of layabout I really am - slackness loves other slackers. I'd almost describe myself as a motivation assassin. However, the man of honour spurring this adventure on had other ideas in mind, aiming (and succeeding, god damn it) to take us all 'out of our comfort zones' and drag us up to 4000 metres above sea level in one of the most isolated, difficult-to-get-to countries in the world.
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| 10 hours of work in this bad boy |
I didn't even know where Bhutan was a year ago, and let me tell you I wasn't the only one. The best I could do was "Himalayas somewhere", which is pretty accurate considering. Now I can, of course, do better - Bhutan is a landlocked country in the eastern Himalayas and shares a northern border with Tibet (let's not pretend though - it's bloody China isn't it, sorry Dalai Lama, and good luck with getting your country back and everything....), and the rest of the borders with India. It's a bit over half the size of Tassie for spatial enthusiasts. Bhutan is quite a bit more fond of India than they are of China - on account of China openly wanting to 'bring them under the thumb of communism". Unlikely now though, China should have just snuck up on them rather than shouted it from the mountain tops in order to have a decent shot at invasion.
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| Freakiest Landing Ever - be drunk or drugged |
Luckily the Himalayas are a bit of deterrence for hostile take overs. In fact they are a bit of a deterrent for friendly visits too. To get here we took a four hour flight from Bangkok, landed in Calcutta and then we took a 55 minute flight through the Himalayas to Paro. This leg of the journey is so fucking treacherous to fly, and the landing is so complicated to execute, that only 5 pilots in the world fly this leg. I overheard the trip planner excitedly telling someone that there once used to be 8 capable pilots, and I just didn't dare to ask what happened to the other 3. The pilots are not flying a small plane either - it is a large passenger jet. They have to bank round the sides of high mountains on the descent, and steer the plane through a winding valley, only to emerge out of it at exactly the right height to pull off a landing on a shorter-than-normal runway. It was intense. I popped a Xanax at Bangkok airport in preparation, but it was a bit of a preemptive strike and I subsequently had to be helped onto the plane. I then passed out in a extremely awkward position and woke up four hours later with a really sore neck for the last 55 minutes of crucial sedation flying. I did somewhat enjoy it though, so perhaps there was still some residue left from my little purple friends.
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| City streets |
What a place. It seriously looks like somewhere from the reasonably distant past - apart from the cars....and the planes. Bhutan only got TV in the 90s, thats only 20 years ago - can you believe the poor fucks missed out on Alf? - I feel their pain. It is a naturally stunning place as well. A fertile green valley surrounded by mountain peaks. The river that runs through the valley next to Paro is as clear as bathwater. It's actually weird. You forget how much we are used to seeing rivers the colour of shit flowing through our towns and cities. But in Bhutan it was so pure - everything was. Driving through the town was just as amazing. All the buildings in the country have to be constructed and painted in the traditional way, so every building - no matter if it was a hovel or a souvenir store or the airport - looked like a temple. All the people were out cruising round in traditional dress looking fucking awesome. Men in dresses rock. A friend once told me that the first time he slipped on a ladies skirt it was so incredibly freeing for his nut sack that he didn't know how he'd ever go back to pants. He should move to Bhutan.
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| If in doubt just get around in national dress |
Listen - they didn't even get one outside foreign visitor until 1974, and the government has restricted visitor numbers and tourist infrastructure ever since. It's hard to believe, but they just don't want us, any of us really, but especially the povo backpacker types. To the Bhutanese, a set of dreadlocks, a jambe and a pair of fisherman's pants equals 'fuck off loser'. They don't even want too many of the money splashers either - getting a visa is not cheap, and it's not easy. This place is just not interested in making the tourist bucks at the expense of their country's natural environment. That kind of shit has got to be respected, and seeing as they were the world's first negative carbon country, they are actually leading the way worldwide with all things environmental - Bhutan is aiming for zero net greenhouse gas emissions, zero-waste by 2030 and to grow 100 percent organic food by 2020. Export logging is banned. It's a pity they are sandwiched next to possibly the world's worst environmental polluter....but far be it from me to point out the negatives in their plan.
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| Smokin' (not literally, that would be illegal) |
Bhutan is actually a kingdom, and the current King and Queen are hot stuff. He is called King Jigme Wangchuck and she is Queen Jetsun Pema, which you have to admit are awesome names. Not only are they young and good looking with fabulous names, but they are also officially known as the Dragon King and the Dragon Queen - and they are the real thing, so shove it Khaleesi (no, I still love you, I take that back - you'll always be the Queen and Mother of Dragons). The King's father (who abdicated early to give his son a crack at ruling), was the man responsible for introducing the measure of the Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) in the 1970s, after he pledged to build an economy based upon Buddhist spiritual values rather than money; ie. rather than the boring Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that all the other world suckers use. The GDH is not just hippy shit, it is a real and tangible measurement. Hats off Former King, hats off.
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| Rake that gunja my dress wearing friend |
That's not to say that it's a perfect paradise in Bhutan - they have their issues. And they are there despite the fact that marijuana grows wild EVERYWHERE (seriously - it pushes up through the cracks in the city streets). What a land of plenty - who cares about poverty when the green gear grows wild! Wooo hooo - we're jammin'.....Unfortunately you'd have to smoke a few pounds of the wild Bhutanese strain to get a mild tingle - there wasn't a single bud to be seen. And I looked, oh god I looked. Smoking anything isn't really kosher there anyway, and tobacco is definitely illegal (as it really should be) - so pack that bong away. Killing animals is also against the law - which just makes me feel so good - I can finally look chickens in the eye, although their eyes are still definitely beady and just as evasive. It's not easy to hold eye contact with a chicken - apparently it's worth it though. It's how you make inter-species friends according to vegans. The Bhutanese don't euthanise any of the stray dogs either, and there are tons of them around - all looking totally healthy and relaxed, safe in the knowledge that they don't have the hangman's noose around their filthy matted necks. However, meat to eat is available, but it's brought over the border from India so that the animals don't actually have to have their throats cut in the country - all the Bhutanese cows can therefore pretend like they aren't future hamburgers.
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| Penis Framed |
Another endearing feature??? Sure, why not - Bhutan is a country of dick pics. And who doesn't love a dick pic? Personally I just like saying 'dick pic', as I really feel that the penis is the least photogenic subject for wider distribution. However, the Bhutanese are not with me on this. Come to mention it, neither are the Japanese. Over there you can go to a festival especially to carry a giant dick and wear dick hats, help yourself to a dick lollypop - whatever takes your fancy. It looks awesome. I would go 100%. In fact I might put that on my 'To Do' list; #28 Wear Pink Dick Hat. I'm not even joking, I think it's an essential life experience. Historically, in Bhutan anyway, there was some sort of mystic penis-loving fellow that's inspired the countrywide dick pic trend - a Tibetan Buddhist monk named Drukpa Kunley (1455–1529) who used sexual intercourse, alcohol and dirty poetry to spread Buddhist teachings - The world's first Sleazy Shaman....Whatever is the case, penises are everywhere. Some are actually painted in mid spoof, and most of the ball sacks are painted with hairs. Enjoy.
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| Just one from Japan - cheer up love, you're wearing a pink penis on your head |
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| My face kind of says it all in this picture |
Trekking in the mountains is another experience altogether. Apart from revelling in my first ever trip to the highest mountain range in the world (you can see Everest from the plane on the journey from North India to Bhutan), I learnt an important thing. I'm just not built for altitude. Despite training hard for a month before the trip, doing an acclimatisation walk, drinking 25 litres of ginger tea, having awesome hiking poles, and sucking on oxygen canisters, I was forced to accept that I'm just not a mountain person. I somehow suspected this after my unfortunate performance in the French Alps a couple of years back when I lost the PLOT at 3800 metres and basically disgraced myself with terror induced paralysis on a rock mounted platform. I didn't fair much better on the overnight trek to a similar altitude in Bhutan. I was pretty useless and spent quite sometime cocooned in blankets around the fire sucking on oxygen. Luckily I managed to narrowly avoid having to walk 3 hours down off the mountain in the pitch black at 2am to sleep at a monastery below to recover. My relief at not having to be evacuated was tenfold when I later found out there were tigers and bears roaming the mountains around us all night....excellent news not to share.
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| The greatest camp ever - at almost 4000 metres in the Himalayas..... |
If I had had to be evacuated that evening, I wouldn't have seen the Tigers Nest Monastery the following day and that would have sucked big time. Yep, it was insanely good, and obviously the highlight of any trip to Bhutan. Though it's a funny thing; when you actually lay eyes on these beautiful and familiar world sights; sights you have seen in countless photographs, you can't really process that it's the real thing that you're looking at initially. It still looked like a picture to me - Later on, when I looked back on my snaps, it's as though I expected the feeling of actually being there to come across in my photographs. No, they just looked like regular photographs - the specialness comes only from the memory. To actually go inside and hear the stories about the legends of Paro Taktsang (Tigers Nest) was fascinating - and we also learnt that despite being nearly 400 years old, it had to be rebuilt in 2005 after disaster struck and the entire place burnt down in 1998 thanks to a rogue candle. Nice one to whoever REALLY fucked up there - probably a trainee monk sneaking out in the middle of the night to grab a midnight snack from the food offerings bowl. One thing that the monks really need to sort out though are the boggers. I have never seen worse toilets than those in a Bhutanese monastery (and I visited 4). Sort it out fellas - crack open the money donations box and get a cleaner or something. I'm thinking about the monks even more than myself here; negotiating robes through that kind of filth must be highly awkward.
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| In all it's glory |
It was an incredible trip. So many good things happened that there's no way I cannot properly explain it all (I tried, but my husband said it was a boring as batshit so I deleted most of it). The country is stunning, and you honestly feel like you are having an authentic cultural experience - whatever that really is.....We spent hours climbing Himalayan peaks, and were invited into nunneries and monasteries along the way and allowed to observe ancient traditions, and hear the stories behind the temples and places of religious importance. That kind of privilege is so rare these days as the world gets more and more accessible. Rites and rituals are often played out for gawkers purely for monetary gain - not that is something wrong with this - people have to earn a living, but you can feel when something isn't genuine. Bhutan actually feels completely 'real', a tiny peek into a world you know you'll never see again, and if you do again, it won't be the same. I would love to go back and stay longer, see more, try to somehow become a part of this amazing place on a non superficial level. But that's how I feel about everywhere I go really - I want to know what it's really like to be from there - an impossible dream I know. But I guess for now, it's goodbye privileged tranquil spirituality, and back to the land of filth, noise and scumbag peasants. We were off to the Aussie bogan's second Asian home after Kuta Beach - Fucken Phuket mate.
