bhutan - punakha

The High Himalayas and the deeply incised Punakha valley, seen from half way up its flanks





Next we travel to the old winter capital, Punakha. Tshering has had to leave us to do a course, and our new guide, Rinchen, takes up the challenge of entertaining and marshalling us. He’s been in the job for many years and it soon becomes clear he knows everyone along the route. He quickly suggests some improvements to the official itinerary, which is designed more for spring than late autumn/winter. We cross over a high pass enveloped in cloud, where there is a new monument of 108 stupas, and then down again into Punakha’s valley.

In the late afternoon we have a gentle climb from the valley to a small temple, where we try chatting with an old couple walking round and round muttering their prayers and swinging little prayer wheels.

Next day we start early for a long walk devised by Rinchen from the very top of the ridge surrounding the valley, down through his home village. It’s a lovely walk with views right down into the steep sided valley bottom and up to the peaks of the Himalayas, up near the Tibetan border, which today appear very clear on the horizon, white snow and black jagged rock stretching right across our view. We start at a pretty Alpine village, and walk down through the farms and forests, down, down, yet the valley bottom never gets closer. We reach the village where Rinchen’s family home used to be, right next to the ancestral house of the King’s four wives (see Bhutan – monarchy).

We can see their house as we descend, no larger than most but in perfect order, surrounded by hedges of flowering poinsettia. We can see a lot of activity, and Rinchen tells us that the king’s wives’ older sister is 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 takes us in the lane right by the house and Rinchen hurries us by, but just as we pass who should happen to look over the wall but the Queens’ sister. She has known Rinchen all her life, but he bows deeply and they exchange words. Then she turns to us: ‘Would you like to join me for a cup of tea?’ Of course we accept, much to Rinchen’s relief (to refuse would be impossible).

She is charming and quickly organises tea and crackers and delicious apples while she explains the preparations going on all around for the three day puja. She squints up at the perfectly blue sky and hopes the good weather will continue. We all assure her it will. Rinchen and the province’s assistant governor, who now joins us, seem suddenly tongue tied and deferential, but we keep up a polite conversation until it’s time to go – Norma’s Penelope Keith accent even more cut glass than usual.

We also visit the nearby monastery where preparations are under way for the religious part of the puja. The younger monks are making elaborate decorations out of cooked rice and butter.

Later we visit the dzong, which is beautifully sited at the meeting of two rivers (‘Male River’ and ‘Female River’ whose different coloured waters can be seen to mix at the confluence. Fancifully, the hill is seen as sitting on the trunk of a sleeping elephant - the penisinula formed between the two rivers - with the rivers themselves seen as its tusks and the adjacent rounded hillocks its head and body. A disastrous flood a few years back has led to the river being diverted a little way back on one side.

The elegant courtyards of the dzong are swarming with monks as the chief abbot decamps here for the winter, as he has since the days of the Shabdrung. In the main temple, a very fine, high galleried space filled with shafts of warm late afternoon sunlight, long lines of monks sit cross legged on the floor repeatedly chanting a mantra. Then suddenly a bell rings and everyone rushes out. It’s play time for the novices and the laugh, joke and run outside until it’s time to return for their evening rice.