Bhutan Diaries

Paro Valley

Wanderlust and Marathon Odyssey chose Bhutan to be the next destination. Bhutan, a mystic Himalayan kingdom that measures its progress by Gross National Happiness, instead of Gross Domestic Product, stands out in several ways.

Our visit started at Paro, the only place in Bhutan with an international airport. As the country, that's full of valleys and beautiful landscapes, doesn't have any flat-land at all, it must have been hard to find  a place for large planes to land. Paro valley is the widest among the places that we visited. Even at that width, landing and take-off were predictably turbulent. The flight from Delhi (via Kathmandu) to Bhutan gave us a chance to have a peek at some of the tallest peaks in the world - Mount Everest and Kanchenjunga.

Though the country appears to be stagnated in time, when it comes to the facilities for tourists, not much has been left to be desired. Good hotels, high-end cars, English speaking guides and drivers, make it easy and comfortable for tourists. In fact, almost all the people that we interacted with, spoke good English. The king seems to have mandated that English should be the medium of instruction in school, to make it easy for them to interact with the world. Except Indians (who are treated as special in Bhutan), foreign tourists have to pay a minimum of 200/250$ per day to visit Bhutan. This amount takes care of a minimum 3-star Hotel, a vehicle to roam around, guide and driver, permits to trek/ride/visits, all meals etc., Apparently, 1/3rd of that amount goes to social welfare schemes by the Govt. The number of tourists within the country at any point of time is controlled by the Govt. through permits.

Punakha Dzong

On the day of our arrival, we visited the Dzong in Paro. Dzong is the most prominent place in every town of Bhutan. It's a fortress with a complex structure that doubles as accommodation for monks and local administrative office (Monastic Body still holds a lot of power). The bigger the village/town/city, the grander the Dzong. Some of the areas of prominent Dzongs are off the limits for tourists and even for locals. Only Royal family and high-ranking officials can visit. They apparently believe that a monk who united Bhutan, several hundred years back, is still living in Punakha Dzong, and serve him food every day. 

Bhutan International Marathon was started 5 years back and is still a low-key event. There were 200+ runners for Marathon and a bit more Half-Marathon. The base for the event was in Punakha, a small town, 150 KM North-East of Paro. Marathon started 30 KM east of Punakha. The start point was up in hills with freezing temperatures, and Marathon course was largely down-hill from there. The course goes through some routinely beautiful hills, valleys, streams and villages. Finish-line was next to Punakha Dzong and in scorching sun.

Taktsang Monastery

We did a small trek to Taktsang Monastery close to Paro, the day after the Marathon. It's one of the most sacred buddhist sites in Bhutan. Apparently, the monk who introduced Buddhism to Bhutan had meditated at this site, several hundred years ago. It's again a complex structure, on the side of a cliff. It takes a couple of hours of good trek to get there. First half of the trek can be done using ponies as well. Despite the tired legs due to previous day's run, we decided to climb up to recover from the run. There is a cafe half-way that serves as a pit-stop. The second half of the trek is mostly steps, with some mesmerising views of cliffs and the monastery. The monastery itself doesn't have anything interesting to explore. It's like any other Dzong that we had visited. But, the trek and views were worth it.

Gross National Happiness

We were curious about this Happiness thing, and did quite a lot of chatting with our English speaking guide to understand how does that work. Population of the entire country is 750,000 (around 6% of Bangalore). Govt. seems to do a survey every year that covers each and every one of them, to know their top 3 problems and work on them. They could be access to hospital, quality of road close to the place where they live etc., Sounds quite simple and easy. They didn't have much exposure to the world, due to lack of TV/Internet (until a few years back) and lack of education to get work anywhere else in the world. Their bureaucrats, doctors and lawyers are also trained/educated in India or Sri Lanka. That's the story till now. But now, they have access to TV/Internet, and are exposed to the world. Youngsters seems to be already vulnerable to drugs. Economy, that's largely dependant on Hydel electricity (sold to India) and Tourism, doesn't seem to be flourishing. Not many things are manufactured with-in the country. With these conditions, it would be interesting to follow the progress of their Gross National Happiness project.

Book Review: Serious Men

Serious Men - Manu Joseph

Serious Men falls under one of my favourite categories of good books -  Books that can be read in transit airports and in red-eye flights (Not that I spend a lot of time in those conditions, just to emphasise that how much I despise those, and how fun those books must be). It's a debut fictional novel that won several awards for the author, who was a Journalist with New York Times and Hindustan Times.

The protagonist is a Dalit clerk who lives in Mumbai slums and works in a Brahmin dominated research institute. Emphasis on the qualifiers - Dalit/Brahmin, is of paramount importance. While the self-important and routinely casteist researchers are busy with the great questions of universe - whether there is life outside of earth, is Bing Bang Theory a Christian conspiracy to leave space for the God to create it etc., intertwined with their greater egos, the street-smart Dalit clerk silently observes them, and works his way to exploit the system to balance out the injustice (that be believes had been done to many communities), to create a genius out of his ordinary son. 

 I haven't heard about the Author before reading this book. I was watching Shut Up Ya Kunal series by stand-up comedian Kunal Karma, when I bumped into an interview with the Author to promote his latest book (Miss Laila Armed and Dangerous). I found him very witty and expected him to be great at satire, and picked up his first book. I was not disappointed. Besides the satire, I loved his attention to detail and his style of describing ordinary events with the ease of a seasoned writer. I read that this is going to be a movie soon. But, I can't tell whether I had just read a book or I had watched it in its entirety.