Well today was a road trip from Gangtay in central Bhutan back to Paro in the west, where we spend the night before continuing on to Haa. This post is an episodic account of a few of the things along the way. That means that it is not burdened by anything so cumbersome as a theme or throughline, while rising, perhaps, above mere random typing.

The day started on an upbeat note with a visit to the Gangtay primary school. We walked to where we could see, around a corner, a throng of kids sitting attentively in a courtyard in the morning sun. We dithered about whether to go for a closer look and then heard footsteps behind us: the principal. Busted! But no – he greeted us warmly and invited us to join him as he walked around to the assembly. It was a celebration of World Health Day. Here in a remote valley a few score of little kids in their kiras and ghos were being shown how to properly wash their hands, and when, with one teacher on the microphone and another doing the demo. After that another teacher, a cool young guy, brought out the food pyramid and started going through all the sections. Kids were called on, and responded, we think, though the biggest response came when he trapped them into saying “yes” when he asked who wanted some bags of junk food he had on display.

Had lunch in the home of someone who has started a “homestay”, kind of like a B&B, in an old farmhouse 10 minutes down a steep and deeply rutted track off the main road. Up one steep flight of outdoor stairs to the first people floor (storage and formerly animals at ground level) then shoes off and up a slippery internal staircase to the living quarters, where a lunch was served. Every inch is decorated with painted walls and pictures of the king and his family. On the “how bad could it be” theory I tried the air cured pork and established a new benchmark. Afterward we went out back and played Bhutanese darts, which is nothing like the effete game played in the west. Each dart is about the same shape as a dart you throw at the wall, but about 5 to 10 times bigger, and the weighted part is the size of a spinning top or dreidel and weighed about a pound. You stand about 15-20 feet from a woooden board planted in the ground – maybe 2 feet high by 1 foot wide – and throw. Hard. A bunch of guides and drivers were watching me and came down to intervene, showing me how to hold and throw and doing a demo. One guy hit the target but split a piece right off it which does not count. I then stood in and nailed it – pure beginner’s luck – which prompted quite a lot of cheering and triggered two of the drivers to go into the same victory song and dance they do when an archer hits the target and then we heard a distant sound and it was the workers ramming earth to build the second floor walls of a house at least two switchbacks up the hill adding their congratulations to the confusion.

Dinner was also in someone’s house, a very basic spot in a village outside Paro where the visitors all sit on benches or chairs in one big and none too warm room with treats on the table and hot tea on the way. We had signed up for the famous Bhutanese hot stone bath. We were led to a cubicle in a concrete outbuilding where there was a little anteroom for undressing and then a bathing chamber with two “tubs”. It was now under 10C outside. And inside. The tubs – wooden sided and bottomed – were full of very hot water and with medicinal leaves floating around. The feet end of the tub is at the outside wall of the building and has a wooden board with holes in it so the water actually continues outside the building into a small holding area. And that is where they drop the red hot stones. Which boil and growl angrily the second they are submerged, and which sends really hot water into the tub a few seconds later. When the tub cools a bit you call out for another stone. We came back in for dinner and were joined by a cheery foursome from Germany and the Tyrol in Austria. We started with a strange warm drink of ara, the local home-brew schnapps, and scrambled egg (it is a lot better than it sounds) prepared by our guide. It was the birthday of one of the others, and their guide brought in a huge Bhutanese birthday cake that we ate as an appetizer and a butter lamp was lit in his honour. After dinner the Austrian guy, who had been on the national ski team in the 70s and who was therefore a demigod as powerful as any of the Buddhist demons we keep seeing, brought out a flask of apricot schnapps that he distills at home and shared that around. Maybe not exactly the traditional Bhutanese dinner that was advertised but very satisfactory all the same.

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