Leaving Lobesa for a night on Dochu La

Lungchutse Goempa

Wednesday 29^th  March

Karma was to pick us up at 9:30 so I rose at 6 to start my sorting out and packing.  The concept of reduced volume since I had given away teaching resources and gifts somehow does not seem to be working, but I sorted out what I might need for a night on Dochula and put the rest in my larger suitcase.

I had been trying for 3 days to borrow the hotel iron, but it was always locked away by the responsible laundry person, who was not there and the girls forgot to put it in my room.  I had washed kira and would have preferred to iron them, in case of need, but it was about 9:20 before the laundry girl was there and Karma’s arrival was imminent.  Assuming he was not working on BST!

Furry Caterpillar

I’d given Joan some of my Travacalm with the hope that it would improve the comfort of her journey – and it subsequently seemed to, although the slower trip might have also helped.

I was able to quietly make a couple of arrangements and queries of Karma, including arranging dinner for the following evening, to discuss a return trip to Bhutan.

From the hotel garden

At my request and with Joan’s quite enthusiastic agreement to a pause in the journey and a walk, we stopped at the Royal Botanical Park below Dochula.  I’d hoped for a longer walk along the ancient trail from Thimphu to Punakha, through the forests, which are rhododendron and magnolia, (random question:  do magnolia grow in the wild…) but Karma had in mind a shorter interlude and we circled the small lake, looked at a tiny garden planted with all 28 varieties of rhododendron found in the park, spotted a pica and admired the deer that had been relocated from Thimphu zoo.  We also visited the visitor’s information centre, a well set up, and informative facility.

We continued to my accommodation for the night and I was pleasantly surprised by my room;  I’d read some fairly ordinary reviews on trip advisor and my expectations were mid level.  The room is spacious and wood paneled with windows on 2 sides, which would provide panoramic views were the hotel not in mist.

 

Karma had suggested that I could get one of the hotel staff to take me to Lungchutse, a monastery on a 3,566m peak above Dochula.  It was not quite what I had been thinking – I’d been thinking a trail from Dochula back to the botanical park, but was happy enough with his idea and with the idea of company given the mistiness.

We were, of course, offered refreshments and while we were drinking tea, my order for lunch was taken; much to Joan’s amusement I ordered momo.  One cannot have too many momo!  She commented that she would look forward to a report on my total momo consumption for the 24 hours, and I commented that it would depend on whether the hotel would serve me momo for breakfast!

After Karma and Joan had departed, I sat chatting with the hotel owner, Karma Phuntsho, who turned out to be one of Nancy’s ex-students from Trashigang in the late 1980’s.  He is another of her students who has done well for himself.

The lady on reception, Deki, was to be my guide, although she had not been there before and she chose another worker to come with us, a younger worker called Ugyen but generally known and Bumchu – “little girl” – as she was the youngest worker.

Daphne

They had sensibly changed out of their kira into trousers and added warm jackets.  We headed out of the back door of the hotel on a short cut (of course there is a short cut…) to the main trail.  It would be a 2-hour hike each way.

The forest that we walked through was just delightful.  Ancient, enormous cypress towering high above us and rhododendrons, their trunks twisted and pitted with age and either covered with moss, or shades of bright pink or white.  Their red flowers splashed the greenery and occasionally littered the path.  The understory, not far out of the hotel, was daphne, gloriously in flower.  There were some magnolia with the white flowers on their bare branches looking a little surreal.

Deki shared with me that the rhododendron flowers are not cut and put in people’s houses or the monasteries, as the traditional belief is that the red flowers are the menstrual blood of the fairies.

The lake at Lamperi

With a head cold and the increasing altitude, the failure of my ears to clear was becoming a little uncomfortable and the boiled sweets that Deki was offering were not sufficient to deal with the discomfort so I excavated my first aid kit for pharmaceuticals and a couple of ibuprofen did the trick, along with clearing a mild headache; I had forgotten to take diamox for altitude that morning – not realizing that I might be going higher than Dochula!

Deki told me a little about the hotel – there is accommodation provided for the staff, as there would need to be in a facility distant from a village, and all meals are provided – a much better deal than in the hotel in which she had previously worked, where the staff were expected to provide their own meals on their days off.  

Fungi

She does not get any time off, as such, unless she request special leave, but works 8am to 9pm when there are guests at the hotel.  Starting in housekeeping in her previous hotel, she was promoted to reception and here is also in charge of hotel operations. She is an intelligent girl who could not continue to tertiary studies (she was accepted to study physics and chemistry at Sherubse) because of economic constraints.

She comes from a poor, single parent family, her own father having died when she was 5 and her stepfather having left after the birth of her second stepsister.  She tells me that Karma, as the hotel owner, owns 2 other hotels and has the goal of providing employment to young people from poor families – a most commendable goal, and her own sister also works at the hotel and our other companion Ugyen, a shy young lady with a black belt in Tai Kwon Do, lived with her grandparents.

Pica

At one of our rest stops, as we contemplate the beauty and mystery of the moss covered twisted and intertwined limbs, I commented that one could easily imagine mythical beings and beasts coming alive at night.  The conversation turns to the migoi, the Bhutanese version of the wild man, or yeti.  Deki shares with me one of her grandmother’s stories from her home place in Kurtoe, about returning to her house and finding what she believed to be migoi footprints near the fireplace.  Deki believes that the migoi has largely disappeared from much of Bhutan but probably still survives in the remote forests of Kurtoe in Lhuentse.  In Bhutan anything might be possible.

Tame deer from Thimpu Zoo with Park Ranger

We proceeded up the trail and she also shares that she used to go to the forest with her aunt, who would encourage her to make loud voices to scare off bears.  From time to time as we walked, Deki would emit something between a coo-ee and a bird imitation, a not unpleasant sound, with that intent.  It clearly worked.  We saw no bears or tigers.

Twisted, mossy rhododendron trunks

After 2 hours we reached the monastery, perched high on its peak at 3,566m, and Deki commented on a strong sense of déjà vu – something she regularly experiences in new places.  We circled the monastery – in the correct direction, of course, and entered to pay our respects to the resident monk and perform our prostrations and make our offerings.  Other than the monastery was 300 years old and had recently been expanded by the Queen Mother, there was little information gleaned about it.  I was shown a small statue of the goddess of wisdom, Tshering Ma – one I had not seen or heard of before, and admired the new paintings on the wall, below the much older ones. 

Deki

We received our blessing and were invited to have tea, but as it was already 3:40pm and I considered it highly desirable to not be walking in the dark, I suggested it might be better to start our return journey, which we did after the monk had shared some of the junk food offerings brought to the monastery.

Even the chocolate biscuit bars have very strong artificial colour/flavour tastes – something I am concerned about in terms of long term effects on the health of Bhutan’s young people.

As we were leaving we spotted a squirrel feasting on some fruit the monk had left out.

On the way back down, Deki continued her noises to discourage the animals – and the method worked, except for the small herd of yak, which we encountered in one of the alpine meadow clearings on the way.  

Rhododendron

The sky was darkening and there a few drops of rain and the occasional hailstone, then the rain got a bit steadier, but as we were in thick forest, we felt little of it.  As the forest thinned as we descended, we encountered some interesting, fresh, animal droppings.  Definitely not cow, horse or yak.  Too big for monkey or goat … a mystery!  I have no idea what wild pig droppings look like but subsequent consultation of Google suggested they might have been.  That was an encounter I would rather not have!  I recalled Tim and another companion discussing their encounter while out roaming one day.

We had agreed that we would visit the 108 stupas on Dochu La on the way back and Ugyen led us down a “shortcut” that probably took me longer to negotiate than the walk down the path would have.  Once on the road, we needed to walk in the opposite direction to the hotel to get to the stupas – I was initially not sure if my young companions actually wanted to do that or the suggestion was for my benefit, but it seemed that they did, so we headed up and did our 3 circumambulations before returning to the hotel.

Magnolia

There was clearly no chance of sunset colours on the high peaks – we were lucky to see any of the nearby hills!

I was feeling tired and aching and accepted the offer of a cup of ginger tea in my room, then decadently used an indecently large quantity of hot water in the small bathtub to relax some aching muscles. 

My room at Dochu La Resort

One of the staff came to my room as I had just finished my bath, to request my dinner order.  I finished dressing and went down 15 minutes later and, after finding Deki to give her my tip for her kindness during the afternoon, passed an American couple in the dining room with a spread before them that would be enough to feed a small army.  I dryly commented that I hoped they were going to eat all that food!  Just a typical dinner for 2 in Bhutan!

I ate my comparatively meager but more than enough red rice and paneer palek, then sat around the giant bukari for a while chatting and headed for my room, but not before being asked for my breakfast order – I requested fried rice – as it would be eaten by the Bhutanese, not tourists – with chilli.