secret kingdom

A very simple challenge today
- write an anecdote!

Did I tell you how I ended up playing soccer with baby monks in Bhutan? Magical. So – have you noticed that everyone starts stories with 'so' these days? – so I was travelling with Norma and Gus. Even the arrival in Bhutan was as good as it gets. The plane took a spectacular run along the vast wall of the Himalayas from Kathmandu and then did a left, plunging quickly into the clouds until suddenly we are in a deep sided high valley, the mountains rising up close on both sides. Monasteries and farmhouses so close that you think you can wave to the occupants as the plane banks steeply, following the twists and turns of the valley.

At Bhutan’s only airport Norma believed she was asked at the customs desk: ‘Do you have any secrets?’ and this somehow seems far more appropriate for this mysterious and unknown land than the prosaic ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’, which was the real question, though Gus and I let her believe her version for a few days.

Perhaps the best day was when our guide took us off the official itinerary into the valley of Punakha. Our guide, Rinchen, like most Bhutanese, always wore his traditional robe, the gho, a wrap around robe in patterns similar to tartans. He has been in the job for many years and it soon became clear he knew everyone along the route. We crossed over a high pass enveloped in cloud, where there is an isolated collection of stupas lost in mist, guarding against evil spirits that gather in such places, with colourful flags flapping in the breeze sending off prayers into the ether.

Rinchen had devised a walking route from the very top of the ridge surrounding the valley, down through his home village. We could see right down into the steep sided valley bottom and up to the high peaks of the Himalayas, up near the Tibetan border, white snow and black jagged rock stretching right across the whole horizon. We started at a pretty alpine-style village, and walked down through the farms and forests, down, down, yet the valley bottom never seemed to get closer. We reached the village where Rinchen had grown up, right next to the ancestral house of the King’s four wives. He had married four sisters, in a country where this is not an unknown practice. In fact, polyandry is even more common, where a woman marries more than one brother. Women inherit their parents' properties in Bhutan, not men, and the men have to find their own way.

We saw the queens' house as we descended, no larger than most but in perfect order, surrounded by hedges of flowering poinsettia. We could see a lot of activity, and Rinchen told us that the king’s wives’ older sister was there preparing for the family puja, the annual celebration that all families hold, when all family members try to get together for two or three days of religious ceremony and partying. Our route took us in the lane right by the house and Rinchen hurried us by, but just as we passed, who should happen to look over the wall but the Queens’ sister. She has known Rinchen all her life, but he bowed deeply and they exchanged greetings. Then she turned to us: ‘Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?’ Of course we accepted, much to Rinchen’s relief (to refuse would be impossible).

She was charming and quickly organised tea and crackers and delicious apples while she explained the preparations going on all around. She squinted up at the perfectly blue sky and hoped the good weather will continue. We all assured her it would. Rinchen seemed suddenly tongue tied and deferential, but we kept up a polite conversation until it was time to go – Norma’s Penelope Keith accent even more cut glass than usual.

Later, we visited the nearby monastery where preparations were under way for the religious part of the puja. The younger monks were making elaborate decorations out of cooked rice and butter.

Finally we reached the valley floor, and the town of Punakha itself, which has one of the grandest dzongs – the elaborate fortress-temples found all over the country – this the summer residence of Bhutan's chief abbot. It stands beautifully on small rounded hills, said to be a sleeping elephant, at the confluence of two rivers.

The elegant courtyards of the dzong swarmed with monks preparing for the arrival of the chief abbot. The main temple has a very fine, high galleried space, filled with shafts of warm late afternoon sunlight when we arrived, and with long lines of monks cross legged on the floor repeatedly chanting a mantra. Then suddenly a bell rang and everyone rushed out. It was play time for the novices, aged from ten to eighteen, until they got the call for their evening rice. They ran around in crimson robes and with shaven heads, but otherwise like any other group of wild boys. One of them produced a tennis ball and they started an improvised football game on the stone flagged forecourt. Then he ran up to us and with a beaming smile said ‘Would you care to participate in our game?’ in perfect English.