In one of the most remote Eastern Bhutanese villages called Ranjung, where Wild Frontiers groups stay in the local monastery’s rather primitive guesthouse, lives a girl called Dekyi. Dekyi has been my friend and self-proclaimed “daughter” ever since I first visited here many years ago and one of the delights of my repeated visits has been to watch her grow into a lovely shy and yet self-possessed young lady of 14 years old.
When we reach the guesthouse and are just getting settled into our rooms, she appears breathless from running yet overjoyed to see us and launches into an enthusiastic explanation that we have just arrived in time for one of the village’s most wonderful celebrations, the return of Buddha to earth after his time in heaven.
I don’t want to quell her excitement but the group have already seen two festivals.
One in the most important monastery in the whole of Bhutan, which was glorious but attended by several small groups of tourists.
The second on the afternoon of the same day was a more private affair in a lesser known monastery which was much more fun, as cows, dogs and cats wandered into the arena where the dances were being performed. We had found our way (having first been invited) into the monk’s quarters where they were preparing for their various dance performances and I was introduced to several of them by their sisters and brothers who were encouraging their religious siblings to give of their best in their annual festivities.
However, in the face of Dekyi’s clear delight, I was unable to resist her invitation for us to join her and her friends the next morning at the monastery set just at the foot of our guesthouse.
It proved to be one of the best decisions I made on this trip!
The celebrations (rather unfortunately for us) started at dawn to a loud chorus of trumpets, bells and drums emanating from the monastery as they rang in the beginning of a highly auspicious day. Over breakfast we watched hundreds of local people dressed in their very finest traditional costumes wend their way down the hill and we joined them just in time to see two dances, which each last for up to 20 minutes, with the performers arrayed in the most dramatically elaborate costumes we had seen so far. With only two other “foreign” people in the audience apart from ourselves (and they were the two local teachers who come from Australia) we were quite a curiosity to the others who couldn’t help but watch us as much as the performers and wonder what had brought us to their very local celebrations. Luckily most Bhutanese people speak some English so interaction is easy and really rewarding. We felt thoroughly included as people went to great lengths to tell us the meaning of the dances, and ensure we received cups of butter tea and sweet buns given out by the host monks. The jokers (rather like our medieval jesters) who wander amongst the crowds picking on unsuspecting victims to make fun of and elicit money from had a field day with us much to the amusement of everyone else.
Suddenly everyone got up and swarmed towards the main temple where the next part of the ceremony would commence. Stacked piles of their sacred texts were brought out on a bearer and disseminated to the local students to carry, behind a procession of monk musicians and flag bearers, all around the valley – a good four to five hour walk – again to bring cornucopia to the area.
With this break in the festivities, we were taken by Dekyi to see her family at their little Hotel-Cum-Bar (remember the phalluses!) where they heaped hospitality on us with tea, some of their local delicacies like dried yak jerky (a tooth if not jaw breaker!), their variant on an onion bhajee (delicious), local biscuits and finally, to warm the cockles of our hearts, some of their homebrewed Ara. As we left, with them refusing any form of payment, they invited us to dinner at their hotel that night. My group were delighted at the prospect and so it was agreed and a menu chosen of yak stew, cheesy potatoes, local red rice, curried veg and naan.
As we were strolling up the main street, a crowd of people all gathered around the local little shrine caught our eye. They were burning sacred juniper by the village’s beautiful chorten and under a tarpaulin to protect them from possible rain (they needn’t have worried the skies were cloudless), many of the women of the village were sat in four straight lines with bells, dorjees, drums and sacred texts placed carefully before them in readiness for their own form of puja to Buddha. As Dekyi’s mother was one of the worshippers we were invited by the presiding lama to join them cross legged on the ground and watch this amazing, melodic and beautifully rehearsed form of devotion. I quickly bought a packet of biscuits from the nearby general store to offer to the Chief Priest and have it placed with other like offerings at the small alter and then we sat back and drank in the atmosphere and inclusiveness of this wonderfully moving ceremony.
Eventually, lunchtime came around and we had to unwillingly leave the ladies but just as we had finished eating at a local family home we sometimes visit, the sound of horns and drums came through the door and we ran out onto the road just in time to greet the procession from the monastery as they brought their holy burdens down past our house. We solemnly bowed our heads to be blessed by each and everyone of the students (and their were hundreds of them) as they donged us on the head, some more violently than others – as a joke!, with the scriptures.
What blessings were raining down on us! Our final visit for the day was to drive out to Thekchhog Kunzang Chhodon Nunnery (the only one we visit in Bhutan) high on a lonely promontory above the valley, where you are always assured of another warm welcome and we were asked to join them in their prayer hall as they too offered their praise to Buddha. Again, we were quietly and gently offered tea and snacks while the nuns chanted and sang their prayers.
That night the dinner proved tremendous fun and caused quite a bit of excitement in the hotel as they were unused to serving 12 foreign guests at their simple local establishment and the whole day was ended around a bonfire back at our guesthouse joined still by Dekyi and her friends, little Dechen Pem and Kinley Bidha, where we did our own singing (often humming forgotten lyrics) and drank the last of the Bhutanese vodka and ara.
What a day! What experiences, what memories of our last and possibly best day in Bhutan as tomorrow we drive down again to the Indian plains and fly back to Delhi for one last night before breaking up and going our separate ways on to other destinations.
A Postscript
Everything on our Land of the Thunder Dragon ran extraordinarily smoothly, although not always exactly as scheduled on the Itinerary.
It was only as we were flying over the English Channel and finally heading towards LHR, that things went completely awry.
The pilot announces when we are on approach that he has been told to divert to Manchester Airport. You can imagine the gasps of annoyance and incredulity that come from his passengers.
Most of my group have stayed behind in India doing extensions to our trip but four are still with me and the last place on earth they wish to visit now is Manchester.
Nevertheless, on our flight information map, the plane symbol curves up to the North West and half an hour later we land in the rain but none of the London fog that has closed Heathrow.
Indecision on the next course of action continues for over an hour as we are held in the aircraft while plans for our onward transport by either plane or bus or train are considered.
Finally we are offloaded, go through Immigration and collect our luggage but still no final decisions have been made and a full Boeing 777 planeload of passengers gather as requested around the one and only café in the airport.
Two unfortunate ground staff belonging to BAA seem to be the only people on duty in the entire airport (luckily it seems no one else was diverted here) and they have no megaphones or other means of communication other than their rather soft girlish voices. Some heavily equipped policemen are close by looking as if they are anticipating an imminent riot and as we wait and wait for further announcements and none are forthcoming, mayhem starts to break out as people jostle one another for the closest position to the exit doors hoping to make a quick get away if the anticipated transport arrives! When a bus driver comes through these same automatic doors announcing that he has a few more places for anyone wanting to go to Heathrow Terminal 4, an unruly onslaught of tired and infuriated passengers nearly mow him down as well as elbowing, shoving and pushing each other and being generally very “unBritish”! Suitcases are thrust into the underbelly of the bus by frantic passengers and arguments break out amongst those who have fought their way into a seat and others less fortunate.
After a further hour of what can only be described as “faffing” by everyone in authority, we take off for London in the oldest and most uncomfortable bus in the whole of the British Isles.
Seven hours after we were hovering overhead, we eventually arrive at Terminal 4 at a quarter to one in the morning - hot (my boots’ soles had melted over the heater they were forced up against), exhausted and desperate for a pee!
The last few members of my group and I bid our farewells and I get a lift home with one lovely couple. As we sit back in the limousine we can’t help but laugh. By the comparative ease with which our adventure ran and this absolute cock-up by BAA, it seems the newly emerged India and remote Kingdom of Bhutan could teach us in the UK a thing or two about organisation.
Read more about our Holidays to Bhutan
