The Birthday Blog + School

This month we celebrated Ted and Hope's birthdays.  Most unfortunately, Ted's birthday occurred during the Bhutanese Stomach Sickness that swept through our apartment rapidly and with a vengeance.  We managed to get Ted out of bed long enough to give him his presents and serve him a selection of cake slices we got from a local bakery.  The highlight of his day seemed to be that one of his presents was a super-warm and super-cozy blanket that he promptly wrapped himself up in and returned to his bed.  It is definitely one of his prize possessions here (and the envy of the rest of us!).  We have no pictures to post from that day; Ted was really not up for having his picture taken.

 

On February 16th, Hope turned 11!! Fortunately, by then we were all feeling well.  We started with a cake from the Art Café, a nice little place that not only makes cakes, but serves the best brownies we have found in Bhutan (and perhaps in America, for that matter).

 

We then ventured out for a walk.  It was a colder day than we had anticipated (one of the coldest days we have had here so far) but we were determined to reach Hope's chosen destination, the Botanical Gardens.  We walked along the river, where we found this beautiful bridge, covered in prayer flags.

We stopped for lunch at Hotel Migmar.  This is a place we had wanted to return to since Amy and Eden's first day in the country.  On that day we had wandered (more like stumbled) into the Migmar after walking for what seemed like 10 miles, trying to make it to Main Town (the downtown area of Thimpu).  The manager gently pointed out that we had walked the entire distance in the wrong direction, gave us each a much needed glass of juice (on the house), and got us a taxi back to main town for only 50 nu.  We realized later that no taxi ride anywhere only costs 50 nu, so he had to have pulled some strings with the taxi driver to get this rate. 

Anyway, we decided to celebrate Hope's birthday there as a way to repay him for his kindness.  Now here's Hope: After a nice lunch, I opened my presents. The picture below show my main present: a purse from the Textile Museum.   I also got a wallet, a brooch for my kira (the kira is the traditional Bhutanese dress that will be my school uniform - we will write more about this later), a pair of boots, and some money to go shopping. 

 All businesses seem to display a picture of the King.  This hotel had a very nice display of pictures of all the Kings of Bhutan, from the first King (on the left) to the current Fifth King on the right.

 After lunch we gave in to the cold and grabbed a taxi to the Botanical Gardens.  Unfortunately, when we arrived it was closed.  We do not know if we missed it by a couple of hours, or if it was closed for the day or even for the season.  Instead, we returned home for a celebration with our friends Brian, Sandra and Vincent that included cake, banana bread, and a raucous game of 'Upwards'.  All in all, a good day.

A SCHOOL UPDATE
Hope and Trey have chosen the Early Learning Center (ELC) as their school-away-from-school.  ELC is a small private school across town (they will ride a bus, which adds to the excitement).  Hope will be in 6th grade, and Trey in 3rd.  Eden is also going to work there as an intern, along with a few other girls who attended ELC and now are ready to attend college.  School officially starts the first week of March, but Hope and Eden have been attending for the past week.  Eden attends the teacher's professional development meetings and prepares for working in the "Gross National Happiness" room. She seems to be truly enjoying it, and is happy to have a schedule and friends and a social life. Hope spent the week preparing for the King's birthday celebration at the school, for which she wrote and delivered a very nice speech. 

Here is a view of the outside of the school:

Below is the school principal, Madam Deki, during the King's Birthday Celebration.

And finally, a mural (made from reused materials) that hangs on one of the walls surrounding the school.  I will leave you with it:

There are many things we should NOT segregate: Caste, Creed, Race, Color, Region, Religion, Gender.  WASTE is what we SHOULD segregate.

A Hike to Tango Goemba

Last weekend we went on a hike with our friends Brian, Sandra, and Vincent.  Our destination was the Tango Goemba (Monastery) 12 km north of Thimphu.  According to our new friend Piet (who works for the WWF and has written a book about the hikes here), on a scale of 1-10 in difficulty, this trek rates as "peanuts".   It was plenty challenging for us. 

(If you want to check it out, the book is called Mild and Mad Day Hikes around Thimpu, by Piet van der Poel & Rogier Gruys). 

  

Before we had gone 100 yards, we saw these monkeys.  We think they look like the photos of the golden langur, which are rare and only found in this part of the world.  But this has not been confirmed by anyone who actually knows what they are talking about.  We need to ask Piet.

The picture below is looking down at the trail.  It is hard to give a good perspective from this photo, but it was steep and very curvy (but still only "peanuts" on Piet's scale).

Trey went up the mountain this way.

Some people go up the mountain this way (look closely).

Below are some of the buildings around the monastery.  The site was founded in the 12th century.  Many of the present buildings date from the 15th century.  Tango (which translates as "Horse Head" and refers to the shape of an outcrop of the mountain) currently functions as a university of Buddhist studies for 280 monks.

Below is the entrance to a meditation cave.  I believe (but am not certain) that this was the meditation cave of the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the spiritual, cultural, and military leader who is regarded as the founder of the Bhutanese state.

 

This view shows a chorten (which holds religious relics and is a place to pray) with another monastery building in the background.  Some monks served us tea there later as we made our way back down.

                                            

And finally, we made it to the top.  The building below is the residence of the Gyalse Rinpoche, an important trulku (reincarnated lama).  According to Lonely Planet, he is recognized as the seventh reincarnation of the fourth desi, or secular ruler of the country.  We were able to go inside and receive a blessing from him, which was a very unique experience.  Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photos inside.

More views from the top.

On our way back to Thimphu, we were greeted by a procession of donkeys (mules?).  This one was dressed up nicely.