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From the current capital of Bhutan, Thimphu, we went to the former capital, Punakha. Much of the journey, and our time there, consisted of hikes that were covered in the last post. But there was more.

For one thing, having been the capital for a long time meant that Punakha has a huge and fabulous dzong, pictured above, located where two rivers – the male and the female – merge into one which, unlike in the biblical patriarchy, need not be the male. Beautifully sited and proportioned it is the most elaborate and best maintained of any dzong we have seen so far. We were then cajoled by our guide to walk to an allegedly famous historic suspension bridge across the male river which had a biggier crowd than the dzong, which says a lot about tourists. An attendant held us back waiting for others to exit, citing capacity constraints, but as he made no effort to actually count how many were entering or exiting it all seemed a bit arbitrary, and the many prayer flags all around seemed like a bad omen, but we survived.

And we drove impossibly far up the side of either a small mountain or an unusually tall hill to the Buddhist Institute, which we imagined as a university style centre of higher learning but which was simply an advanced monk school with (another) temple as the only accessible part. But we were in luck: there was a service in progress and we scurried in and plunked ourselves on a carpet in the corner and watched. Rows of monks a few feet away were either beating on drums with long curved sticks or playing horns or making no music but all were chanting, following the lead of the capo with a microphone, and reading from long strips of horizontally oriented paper that they flipped over to get to the next, except for a couple of guys sharing one set of papers who started whispering to each other and then to the guy next to them and you did not need to be able to lip read or speak Bhutanese to know they were saying “what flipping page are we on?” We were even luckier in that the service ended about fifteen minutes after we got in – no telling how long it was altogether and whether we could have left midstream. I desperately wanted to sneak my phone out to record at least the audio. But having seen at least a thousandd signs warning against photography or video in temples I thought it wise not to push it.

Finally, just to balance out all the monk stuff, we went to a nunnery. Scores of girls outside doing religious training, chanting, and a few off practising their horn playing out of the way where they could not hurt anyone. With shaved heads and wearing the same monks robes as the boys they seemed at first a slightly androgenous lot until you heard the pitch of their voices and the way they chattered and played with each other. Their temple, overlooking the valley, was itself looked over by a Tibetan style stupa with watchful eyes that clearly saw everything.

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