After a good night’s sleep that didn’t involve waking up at
3am cos of jetlag, it was time to get up, have a shower and head down for breakfast. After about 5 mins of twiddling the various
knobs on the shower but with still nothing but icy water to show for my
efforts, I realized that I needed to have turned the boiler on first (the large
white object in the corner of the shower I’d only just noticed). So, brekkie first then shower, I guess! Breakfast again was yummy if inauthentic –
cornflakes (with warm milk!), strawberries, eggs and toast with dollops of
Royal Bhutan marmalade and strawberry jam.
The tea was made using big old fashioned hot water thermos flasks with
cork stoppers – I felt as if I was in an Enid Blyton picnic! (save for the
lashings of ginger beer!). The owner of
the guest house, a wrinkled old Nepalese chap, came and plonked himself down at
my table (a little disconcerting before I realized who it was!) and started
chatting. I could understand him a bit,
but mostly it was a case of smiling and nodding and throwing in a few comments
about how fab his guest house was and how good the food is. That seemed to suffice. Honestly, I wanted to tell him to go away and
leave me in peace as I was trying to read through Loopy’s comments on my
Facebook photos, but I don’t think that would have gone down too well….
After breakfast and enough time for the water heater to do
its magic, it was time to for a quick shower – this time I KNEW there was hot
water in there somewhere, I just had to figure out the magic combination of
turns and dial twists to get to it. It
took me longer than it probably should have (my degree is in Pharmacology, not
hydrothermodynamics!), but finally I managed to coax some (boiling!) hot water
out of the little sod. Celebrate the little
victories, right?
Then it was time for today’s main event – going to see the
festival at Padtselling temple. Because
of the debacle with my visa and being on my itinerary a day later than I should
have been, I was worried that I would have missed it. Not to fear, though, as these festivals last
for a full three days, so I was catching it in its second day. To get to the temple, we then embarked on the
CRAZIEST drive yet – an hour’s “drive” up the mountain on the road which was no
more than a mud track. It was a new “road”
only having been built a year ago and I am still in complete disbelief we
managed to get a car up there. It would
have been challenging on a mountain bike to navigate the deep muddy ruts and
furrows but somehow Michael managed to coax this little 4 wheel drive Hyundai
through the muddy carnage and get us safely to the top. Where, again, the views of Bumthang valley
below were simply breathtaking.
The festival itself was in full swing when we arrived. The chief abbot, monks and dancers were
seated, chanting, and looked to be taking a tea-break. While they were doing that, we had a look
round the temple itself – because of the festival, it was the busiest I’d ever
seen a temple, with lots of people praying and making offerings. Again, I received a blessing from one of the
monks, a boy probably around 13-14 – this time, it was an oddly smelling orange
liquid that got poured into my palm for me to slurp and rub the rest on the top
of my head. We shall see what effect
that unknown unction will have on my guts later, I guess.
After a while, all the cushions and low tables got cleared,
everyone filed past the enormous paintings of the Buddha to pay their respects and
then the dancing started in earnest. It
was so colourful and fantastic to watch – they alternated between 6 dancers (3
men, 3 women) and then the monks performing, wearing a variety of different
masks, acting out various legends and stories.
The whirling and leaping and twisting and athletisicm was impressive –
what was unexpected, but equally as entertaining, were the 4 jesters also
sprinkled throughout the proceedings.
One of them (the Divine Madman) carried a 10 inch wooden phallus and
proceeded to get up to all sorts of high jinks and pranks on the crowd, the
dancers and the monks. It was actually
pretty funny and you could imagine how the same slapstick has been playing out
here for generations – some things never get old.
After a couple of hours of watching and madly taking
hundreds of pictures, it was time for lunch and I thought we were actually
going to be leaving and heading back down the mountain – but, no! The guest house had packed us up a delicious
picnic lunch and, after some searching, we managed to find a grassy spot in
amongst the mud banks, overlooking the valley, where my trusty guide unpacked a
delicious Indian-style lunch. Again, it
was packed up in adorable little thermos containers – makes me want to rush out
and buy an old-fashioned picnic hamper!
After lunch, we went back for another hour or so to watch
more dancing, before finally calling it a day around 3pm. Bouncing down the mud track in our trusty
little Hyundai was much easier this time, as the “road” had dried out from this
morning, so it was less sludgy and slippy.
Coming back down only took 20 mins, vs the hour it took to crawl our way
up. I still can’t believe we actually got
a car up that road – mud-a-licious! So,
but the time we got down, it was around 3.30pm, so just enough time to take a
quick trip and have a look round Jakar Dzong.
I’m getting to be a bit of a Dzong Aficionado so, though it was still impressive and Dzongy enough, this one didn’t make my heart burst into….um.. Dzong.
Anyway, back to the guest house by 4pm (we seem to always be
done by about 4pm!) and again, settled into the routine of working on my
pictures and catching up on my blog.
Got about 500 pictures to go through of the Festival, so that should
keep me busy for a couple of evenings!!
Day 5: Bhutan, you put on quite a show for me today. Do you do this for all the girls?
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