November 12, 2019
It is difficult to believe that we are beginning the last part of our trip. Wang and Mr. Poo met us at 8:30 am to take us to the airport. Wang had had another late night at the snooker tables; he is the one who kept the group up late this time because he did well. He won seven of fifteen games. One of his guide friends had to get up to take his guests for a 4 am departure! As payback to Wang, the friend made several calls to Wang just to wake him up. It certainly seems like Wang leads two lives, one as the family man and the other as the college boy.
Yesterday during our descent from the Tiger’s Nest, I learned more about Wang’s family. He and his wife bought his wife’s store from Wang’s sister, the oldest one who is living in Australia. His wife sells mostly clothing that is imported from Nepal and India. She gets most of her merchandise from importers but she does occasionally travel to buy some goods. She gets the mens samples in Wang’s size so he can wear anything that doesn’t sell.
Their son is four and started speaking English at one year old. He learns most of it online watching YouTube and playing games. He is evidently the favorite grandchild of both sets of grandparents because he is very polite! Wang said it is difficult to get childcare; they rely on family members. When his nephew leaves to go to Australia, his wife’s niece will live with them during her winter break to take care of their son. If/when they move to his wife’s family’s farm, they will need to sell the store but they will have built in child care from her parents. He told me that at that point they may have another child.
I realize I never said much about the Bhutanese food. That is probably because there really isn’t much to say. Each meal, including breakfast, consists of rice: red, white, or plain, or sometimes all three! They use lots of vegetables including tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes, beans, onions etc. They serve some lamb and chicken but none of us tried any of the meat. Before we left Nepal, Christian advised us to avoid the meat unless we could be assured it was fresh. That was enough to keep any of us from trying any of it! The one thing that really distinguishes the food is the spice. Even the non spicy food tends to have a bit of a “bite” to it. They have a chili paste that they use at every meal. Most of the time, Wang would eat with us but he would have a different plate of food that was much spicier. After only a few meals, it was easy to understand why there were chilies drying on so many roofs!
We arrived at the airport fairly quickly and got through the check in, immigration and security easily. Unlike Nepal, this airport is very nice and it only has about seven flights in and out each day! There were numerous shops, a coffee shop and a restaurant. One of the shops specialized in selling a Bhutanese herb that is supposed to be good for your health…Maryse decided to try some! From what we could tell, this little thing comes from the ground and the bigger it is, the more expensive it becomes.
After a bit of retail therapy, it was time to wait for our flight.
Unfortunately, we were not as lucky as we had been on the way out, we were on the right side of the plane but not by a window. It was a very clear day and all the mountains were in view.
Maryse found a group of French speakers who we had seen one day at lunch. In French, she asked, Philippe, who was sitting next to Kathy and me to take some photos using my camera.
The view inside the place was quite interesting too. This woman was sitting across the aisle from me:
We got another snack on the flight, and once again I stuck to the water!
Fortunately, we didn’t have any delays and landed in Kathmandu on time. Also fortunately, we didn’t have to buy another visa! Ours allow for multiple entries so we could go directly to immigration. We made our way down stairs to the Metal Free Area.
Once again, the women at the metal detector machines paid zero attention to the screen. Their role seemed solely to monitor the speed that the items traveled on the belt so as to avoid having anything fall on the ground at the end! Most people seemed to set off the machine through which we walked, but there wasn’t anyone around to pay any attention. Of course, the basic question could be asked… why are people screened at all when walking into the baggage claim area ?
We then collected our luggage and found Christian outside. He got us into a van and sent us on our way to our hotel in the Kathmandu valley. The first thing we noted was that the road was lined with both school children and a massive police presence to welcome the King of Bangladesh. The king didn’t seem to be going to the same place that we were because at a fork in the road, the police all lined the other road. Our ride took just under ninety minutes in bumper to bumper traffic for the entire drive. For about half way we were on a divided four lane road and then on a basic paved road with one lane going each way. The roadsides were busy and active for the entire ride. We saw school children on their way home, businesses of all kinds, some residences and even a bit of farmland. We did not see any cattle or horses, on this trip that seems to be more of a Bhutanese phenomenon.
We all had a brief moment of concern when the driver pulled off the road into what looked like a very rudimentary service station. He and the worked had some conversations about the tires, during which I had visions of being stuck on this busy dusty road in the middle of our drive. Fortunately, the air seemed to do the trick and we made it safely to our destination.
Our hotel is lovely. It is all built and designed around the ideals of healing living, particularly using the Ayurvedic philosophy. I’ll be able to tell you more after I’ve been here for a bit.
I did take a walk to explore the resort which is built entirely on the side of a mountain. We haven’t gotten away from climbing just yet!
They have signs with “food for thought” throughout the resort.
Maryse, Kathy and I went to the lounge at the very top for a drink before going to dinner. It turns out that we were finished in time to go to the nightly blessing done by a Hindu priest. It was done in the meditation maze. It never ceases to amaze me how much religions have in common. Basically, we asked for forgiveness of our sins and for a blessing to a good life going forward. The priest had us repeat a number of things as part of the ceremony. We also received the red dot on our foreheads and a red thread “bracelet” that we are to keep on for a week. When we take if off, we are to put it in nature and not throw it away in someplace dirty.
After the ceremony, we made our way all the way from the top of the hill to close to the bottom, where the restaurant is, for dinner.
Tomorrow the three of us are going to do a cooking class later in the afternoon, other than that we will each do our own thing until dinner. There are lots of things to do here, I’m sure it won’t be difficult to fill the time.
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