​Now it was my turn to get the nasty cold and cough Matt had been fighting since leaving Thimphu. Therefore, I was in a bit of a daze on the early morning bus ride from Trongsa to our jumping off point to begin the Nabji-Korphu trek, a low-elevation route good for the wintertime to rural communities of the Mon and Kheng peoples. The Monpa are believed to be the first inhabitants of Bhutan, numbering around 3,000. They speak their own language and sustain elements of their pre-Buddhist animistic Bon religion along side contemporary Buddhist practice. We had been in communication Phurba, a local guide from the Jangbi, one of just a few Monpa villages within Jigme Dorji National Park. He met us shortly after we deboarded the bus, and after sorting out a little mix up with our permit situation to enter the National Park with a few phone calls, we began hiking toward his village.

Local people believe that seeing a langur monkey on your journey is good luck, whereas spotting a mischievous macaque monkey will bring the opposite upon you. So we took it as a good omen for our trek (and my health) that we passed by a tree full of the gorgeous golden langurs shortly after crossing the river into the Park. After a few hours of walking uphill, we reached Jangbi, seemingly just a few houses and several of which belonged to members of Phurba’s family. We took tea in the altar room and chatted with his sister. Eventually, she invited us in to the much warmer kitchen with a bukhari, but warned us that we might think it was “dirty”. By dirty, she meant undeveloped and it became apparent that the family was a little self-conscious about having chilip guests in their humble home. We did our best to put them at ease, sitting on the wood floor, playing with the…uh, how to say, not-so-clean kids, and enthusiastically tucking in to the super spicy food Phurba’s brother, Chimi, prepared over an open hearth. Just before dusk, we took a tour of their farm, learning what cardamom plants look like, that porcupine are nuisance to their crops, and wondering about the unharvested pomelos rotting on the ground.

At dinner, we were offered homemade ara and Phurba’s father shared a hardcover book with us that turned out to be an Indian grad student’s dissertation on the Monpa’s intimate relationship with their forest environment, something we would see in practice time and again as we continued the trek. Already, we had been served at dinner a bitter dish of cane shoot collected from the forest. Phurba’s family had been interviewed in the data collection and thus received a copy of the dissertation in appreciation. I would have loved to review the research in more depth, but I was heading toward serious dysfunctionality with my cold, so we excused ourselves for an 8 o’clock bedtime.

We bid farewell to the family the next morning and set off with Phurba and Chimi into the jungle. I was grateful that the trek was not so strenuous since I was struggling for energy despite 11 hours of sleep and Dayquil in my system. We encountered golden langurs several times, as well as a striking rufous-necked hornbill. After a hot packed lunch at an overlook of the valley marked by a chorten, we passed by a historical site where Guru Rinpoche had meditated, the evidence being an imprint of his (quite large) head in an overhanging rock. He also left a few footprints and fingerprints in an impassable cliff face that he cut a path through.

About seven hours after departing, we reached the trekker’s campsite at Kudra, not quite as nicely maintained as the one in Jangbi that Phurba’s family is in charge of. There was no water and the boys had forgotten matches to start a fire, so they ran off to the two-house village to connect some hoses and borrow matches. Dinner included some wild spinach that they harvested along the trail. We ate next to a cozy campfire until a light rain sent us to bed in the cooking shelter since we did not bring a tent for this trek.

We visited four more historical sites of Guru Rinpoche’s adventures while trekking toward the village of Nabji the next day. The first was a cave system of tight passageways said to emerge at Kurjey Lhakhang in Bumthang, near where we live. In this one, we also encountered a tremendously scary spider on the wall where we had been bracing with our hands, but happily it did not move as we inspected it. Another was a deep bore hole in a rock, actually a phallus imprint where the mighty Guru had “subdued” a demoness. We had planned on camping in Nabji as well, but we found the campsite to be in disarray. Cows had been splatter painting with their poop inside the shelter where we would need to sleep and again there was no water. We sought out a homestay and learned that the village committee had decided that trekkers must stay in houses rather than camp, likely to generate more income for the community.

Our host, as well as the entire village, was in “celebration mode” thanks to the annual tshechu beginning the day before. We seemed to have a knack for happening upon these events. After Chimi took over the kitchen and we ate dinner, we headed down to the village’s temple for the evening session of masked dances, featuring a rare ter cham, or treasure dance. Before we arrived to the courtyard, Phurba emphasized that we could not take photos of this particular dance, and we clearly agreed. He reminded us several more times while we watched other dances leading up to it, and each time we reassured him we would not pull out our cameras or our phones. Then, an atsara (festival clown) came over to let us know there would be a “special” dance that we could not photograph. Laso (okay), no problem. Not long after that, a fire marshal type looking man introduced himself, then got right to the point of officially informing us there could be no photos. Yes sir, no photos. During a pause between performances, an announcement was made to the entire audience regarding the ban on photography for the next dance. Phurba translated for us, and we nodded in concurrence, then he translated it two more times just to be sure.

Finally, the lights in the courtyard were shut off, and only the glow of fire in the middle of the dance floor remained. A group of men and, surprisingly for us, young boys emerged from a nearby building wearing white cloths tied around their heads and…(almost) nothing else. The men wore a thong-like string configuration with their bare “treasure” tied up to it, so that it was better on display, I suppose. Many treasures were also decorated with puffs of fluffy feathers, colorful strings, perhaps bells. It was a little difficult to see the details in the dark. They whooped, hollered, and clanged bells as they danced, then took turns running around the perimeter of the dance area, pausing to energetically shake what they got. The younger boys left the dance as things got more intense, but returned towards the end to be part of the phallus blessing. The naked dancers formed a circle around the fire, and women of all ages walked clockwise within it, in a continuous bow to the men’s honored parts. In the fall, we had also witnessed a more sexualized and homoerotic version of this ter cham during the Jambay Lhakhang tshechu in Bumthang. It made this one seem tame in comparison. Nonetheless, seeing elderly women being blessed by the penises of boys who could be their grandchildren was one of those fascinating moments of travel that required a large helping of cultural relativism to appreciate.

Apparently, the naked dance originated in this village and the neighboring village of  Korphu in the 8th century. According to one travel company’s website, “legend has it that a band of devils were obstructing the construction of a Lhakhang (temple) in Nabjikorphu, delaying the work. As a ruse and to distract the devils, Terton Dorji Lingpa launched the naked dance. It served its purpose as the outrageous antics of the naked dancers kept the devils spellbound. The construction was thus completed. The dance reached Jambay Lhakhang since Terton Dorji Lingpa also consecrated [it].” A Terton is a treasure revealer, and refers to finding hidden scriptures and other religious artifacts, often in natural features like caves, as well as having dances such as this one revealed to their consciousness during deep meditations. Another travel company website claims, “The locals…believe that the penis is one of the most precious treasures, as all sentient beings are brought into the world by this organ.” Hmmm, interesting, because I can think of one other organ that might fit that description as well…

On the way back to our homestay, I considered playing a joke on Phurba by asking him if he’d like to see the amazing photos I took of the naked dance. I thought better of it though, fearing that if any other villagers overheard me, I might get instantly pummeled. And in a moment of sweet irony, we had spotted the pushy chilip photographer from the Trongsa tshechu at the naked dance as well, forced to actually stand back and watch something without his righteous tool to behave like a jack ass with.

We thought it was a little odd that two neighboring villages held their tshechus on the exact same dates until we learned from a German anthropologist studying the Korphu tshechu that they used to be staggered so both villages could attend the other's. A rivalry in recent years has caused them to competitively claim the same dates. We were trying not to play favorites though, and also wanted to explore another village, so we hiked for a couple of hours up to Korphu. After touring the village with Phurba’s monk friend and being offered some fresh homebrew known as singchang along the way, we entered the courtyard for the smallest tshechu we had ever seen with no more than fifty people in attendance. Despite this, we were intrigued that the atsaras were all about using a microphone hooked up to a large and in charge sound system, and got confirmation that this was a new adaptation as a result of the recently constructed road to the village. Like Nabji, there was also much more involvement of children in the tshechu than we had seen at the larger ones, from child atsaras to a lunch break karaoke/dance hour featuring most of the kids in the village.

We were so in love with this tshechu that we didn’t return to Nabji until its daytime festivities were wrapping up. However, just as we settled in to the kitchen for dinner at our homestay, we were informed that we needed to get out of the house because it would be “danger” to remain inside. Given our communication challenges with Phurba, the best we could surmise was that an intense fire ritual was about to be performed that could catch the house on fire. We rushed down to the Lhakhang just in time to watch a procession bringing down torma to eventually throw into a huge bonfire in the field below. We thus concluded the risk of remaining in the house was in a spiritual sense rather than a practical reality. The evening’s program continued with a very repetitive but endlessly humorous play, at least for those who could understand it. We sipped ara for our amusement instead, as well as to guard against the dropping temperature. Feeling a bit tshechu-ed out for the day, we took our leave just as a community dinner was being served, followed by more dances late into the night, of course. It seems these rural communities really go all out for their tshechus!

The following morning our packing routine was interrupted by Phurba excitedly busting in to our room to inform us of an old Monpa woman performing a shamanic ritual to rid a neighboring house of sickness. We were welcomed to observe the chanting and drumming on the deck of the house for a while, then returned to our hosts' house to settle up. Down at the Lhakhang, the tshechu was getting underway with blessing ceremonies. After getting some crowd-pleasing special attention from the atsaras, we joined the line to receive a blessing from the presiding rinpoche and another from a phallus presumably dipped in holy water. Afterwards, the women were getting picked up and twirled around by the men. I was no exception as the husband of the couple who hosted us grabbed me, although he noticeably went easy on me.

With that unexpected experience as our grand finale, we gave final assurances to multiple inquiries of which local tshechu was better that BOTH had been uniquely amazing, then started our hike down the road leading out of Nabji. While we were certainly honored to have witnessed these intimate community traditions up close and personal, our enthusiasm was ultimately no match for Phurba’s. He had not been to either of these Khengpa villages for eight years, yet he was constantly bumping into old classmates, friends, and acquaintances for whom he remembered exactly how they knew each other.

After all of the festivities of the few days, we were grateful for the simple, quiet movement of an easy hike down the road to the village of Nimshong. We noticed Chimi snapping off a couple of fern fiddleheads as he walked ahead of us and wondered if nakey would be on the dinner menu. When he answered in the affirmative, Matt pointed out that he would need to find a whole lot more. A grin spread across his face as he opened up the fold of his gho to reveal a heap of young fern fronds tucked inside. As we approached Nimshong late in the afternoon, Phurba informed us that we would ask around to stay in a house rather than using the campground as we had expected. We were a bit put off by this sudden change in plans, not because Nimshong appeared far less prosperous than Nabji and Korphu with its unadorned stilted wooden houses, but rather we were feeling saturated with wonderful but energy-intensive social interactions and were hoping for a more relaxing evening. Phurba put forth various reasons, but what it really came down to is that, except for the nakey collected on the hike, they were low on provisions.

After settling in to the altar room of a sweet old woman’s house, we were plied with tea and local mandarin oranges. Then Phurba informed us we had been invited to the annual prayer ritual at another house, similar to what we had experienced at the Haa Valley Homestay. We rallied our energy for the opportunity, amazed at how much ritual we had stumbled upon during this trek. We sat outside of their altar room and sipped ara while the monks prayed and played instruments inside. When the ceremony had finished, we were served bowls of rice topped with thick strips of chewy pork fat, considered the best part of the pig in Bhutan. We made a weak effort, but it was pretty difficult to stomach. Luckily, Chimi had also been cooking up the fiddleheads and other dishes for dinner back at our host’s home, so we excused ourselves for a second dinner. When we returned to the house having the annual ritual afterward, the mood had definitely turned purely celebratory and we were soon pulled into the circle of dancing in the tiny altar room. We captivated the attention of a very drunk young woman who repeatedly insisted that her (4-5 year old) “baby” told her that we were his true parents and that we needed to take her baby home with us. When this claim was less effective that she had hoped, she then tried to get us to come to her house to give us oranges. Phurba tried to help, but “My baby is sleeping. You are his momma.” persisted while firmly grabbing my hand, so we got out of there after just a few dances.
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The following morning, we rejoined with the main road running through Zhemgang and had our “divorce” with Phurba (and Chimi) as he called it, sealing the deal with a shot of whiskey at a roadside shop since they did not have ara. They caught a bus heading north back toward their village shortly thereafter. We were left once again on our own, sitting on the side of the road, but this time without the benefit of our trusty two-wheeled companions to help us get to where we were trying to go next…

After a few days of taking care of travel logistics in Thimphu, we were ready to take on the most intensive cycling section of our trip. We pedaled up to Dochu La for the second time, with the mountain panorama mostly enshrouded in clouds this time. Then we bundled up for the descent down the other side to Punakha, a fun ride on a freshly paved double-laned road, perhaps the most completed section of the ongoing effort to widen the entire East-West Highway.

However, we were far from finished climbing for the day, since we managed to select a homestay in a village high above the valley floor. We called our host, Aum Leki, at the turn off to begin the ascent and estimated it would take us an hour to reach her farmstead. She informed us that a monk would be waiting for us on the side of the road since it would be difficult to find her house on our own. One hour turned in to two hours, and after gaining about 2,500 feet, we finally saw a cell phone light illuminating the outline of crimson robes in the darkness. We apologized to the monk, who was Aum Leki’s neighbor, for the long roadside wait, but Sonam responded that he simply used the time to conduct his evening prayers and immediately launched in to the specifics of US politics until we reached his house. Then Aum Leki’s father-in-law took over escorting us down the rough dirt road to their house, unnecessarily grabbing on to my bike to “help” me walk it along. With only partial control it was a bit difficult to keep the bike steady with the weight of the panniers on the back rack, but he was quite determined not to let go.

Aum Leki was quite relieved to see us arrive and per Bhutanese custom, we immediately sat down in the altar room for tea, snacks, and welcome pours of ara. We were soon joined by a guide, Chencho, and his Australian client, Pete, both of whom we had met in the Bhutan Swallowtail office in Thimphu a couple of days before. At first we were a little put off by the “hotelness” of our room, but as soon as we realized our attached bathroom had a piping hot shower, all misgivings of lack of authenticity were somehow forgotten. After cleaning up from our long day of cycling, we headed over to the kitchen and sat on cushions around the bukhari to eat a typical Bhutanese dinner of red rice, ema datsi (chilies in cheese sauce), dal (blended lentil soup), and bitter gourd and finished up with a few more cups of ara before heading off for an early bedtime.

The next morning we bid farewell to Pete and Chencho and sat outside on a sunny patio with lovely views of the valley for a late leisurely breakfast. The lower elevation of Punakha made it feel semi-tropical with roses blooming in the garden and citrus ripening on the trees. We walked around the property and met Aum Leki’s “pet” wild boar kept in a tiny enclosure, which she caught in her fields as a boarlet. Apparently the boar is a picky eater and only eats rice, so she wants to give it away, but not to anyone who will eat it. Looks like she will be keeping it for a while…

Aum Leki took us on a short hike to Norbugang village, the home of the four Queen Mothers. We passed by their Royal Palace where preparations were underway to celebrate the first birthday of the Gyalsey (the Crown Prince) on February 5th. Then we met a Forestry Officer returning from a wood use inspection, and he invited to his house for tea. It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we began walking again and we were ready to chill back at the farm, but for some unknown reason Aum Leki seemed to really want us to see her daughter’s school, so we kept going. The students were on winter break, but we explored the grounds and met the friendly principal while he was washing his car in the driveway.

Meanwhile, the father-in-law had been preparing a hot stone bath for us, and indeed the third one of the trip was also a charm. It was one big tub sunken in to the ground enclosed in a wooden hut, but the open doorway allowed partial valley views. This time I overdid it asking for hot rocks, so we spent about as much time out of the tub cooling off as we did soaking, but it still worked wonders on our sore muscles from our ride the day before. After we were finished, their friends came over to enjoy the bath while dinner in the kitchen was a similar affair as the night before, this time with the addition of some fresh curd that Aum Leki had picked up at a neighbor’s on the way back from our walk.

The following morning, I bought one of Aum Leki’s weavings as a way to remember her sweetness, then got going on the epic day we had plotted out for ourselves. We zoomed down to the floor of the valley and crossed the river, rejoining the National Highway at Bajo. The reality of cycling through the road widening work hit us hard with a very dusty and loose gravel section right off the bat. Fortunately, as we slowly progressed up toward our next pass of Pele La, the road substrate improved even if the dust levels did not. Matt had developed an energy-zapping cough that was further aggravated by the cold temperature and road dust, so it became a struggle to reach the only lodging we knew of, a simple guesthouse a few miles below the pass. We rolled in around 7pm, tired and hungry, and grabbed one of the frigid rooms above the restaurant. After snarfing down rice, kewa datsi (potatoes and chilies in cheese sauce), and dried beef curry, we brought a bucket of hot water from the kitchen up to the bathroom since the pipes were frozen, then crashed in our sleeping bag on top of the bed, both for warmth and the fact that it was obvious the sheets had not been changed for quite some time. We know this because there were little pieces of chewed doma (betelnut) and stains of its characteristic red spit when we pulled back the covers, as well as a forgotten flashlight.

We got a fresh start on tackling Pele La the next morning, taking about two more hours to reach the top and having gained about 7,000 feet of elevation since leaving Punakha Valley the day before. With not much to see at the pass except a chorten and some souvenir stalls, we did not linger and began our hard-earned ride down towards Trongsa. It took most of the day to reach a famous viewpoint of the Trongsa Dzong at roughly the same elevation across the valley, so close but still so far away. We were reminded of cycling along the fjords of Iceland, as we had to descend all the way down to a river cutting through the back end of a side valley and ride all the way back up the other side to actually reach the spot we had gazed upon a few hours before.

The road dust had turned to mud in the side valley excursion, so we arrived to the wonderful Tashi Ninjay Guesthouse in a sorry state of cleanliness. The lovely staff were not phased in the least and gave us a great room with a balcony overlooking the massive, stately dzong brightly lit up in the night.

Purely by luck, we arrived to Trongsa midway through a multi-day tshechu (Buddhist festival) held in the courtyard of the dzong. We decided to stay an extra day to attend the remainder of it, as well as to let Matt recuperate. Pushing through his sickness for two big days of cycling had definitely caught up to him. Having observed several tshechus already, this one felt familiar, but also had a few dances that we had not seen before. Much like visiting Bhutan’s monasteries, there is a high degree of commonality between tshechus, but each provides a unique experience created by the setting, the local community in attendance, and paying attention to the details of the costumes and the dancing.

Matt rested up in the afternoon, while I watched until the end of the cham (sacred masked dance) performances. In the evening, we wandered through a temporary tent city of restaurants and karaoke bars that had popped up for the festival. We cozied up next to the bukhari in a particularly inviting tent for some momos (dumpings) and beers, trying not to be too obviously intrigued with a group of monks who were fully participating in the drunken revelry surrounding us.

The last day of the tshechu displayed a thondrol, a beautifully embroidered multi-storey tapestry featuring Guru Rinpoche, a great Tibetan saint that liberated many parts of Bhutan from demons. The thondrol is believed to be able to remove one’s sins upon sight. It is only unfurled once per year at daybreak, and while we were still snoring away at that point, we did make it to the courtyard before it was rolled up again. Semi-organized, or perhaps semi-chaotic, lines had formed in the courtyard to pass by the base of the thondrol and underneath a statue of Zhabdrung Ngawang Ngamyel, Bhutan’s unifier, to receive a blessing. We skipped the wait for the blessing and instead did some fascinating people watching from a balcony overlooking the entire courtyard.

Unfortunately, the person who most captivated our attention was a chilip in a bright green jacket and a camera with a tremendously long lens. He seemed to think that his camera gave him absolute entitlement to walk anywhere he pleased at any time and point it at anyone he felt like with any prior permission or interaction. He would stand in front of others and block their view, then walk across the dance floor in the middle of a performance for a new angle. With the lens he had, there was really no need to do either. Even if he was a legit professional, which somehow we highly doubted, his behavior made us cringe, yet we did not have the willpower to ignore him and gave in to watching his every annoying move.
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After we had done our own more discreet documenting, we took our leave from the tshechu and spent the remainder of the day cleaning off our bikes, hand washing some laundry, sorting out gear, and shopping for an immanent two-week diversion from the cycle tour to explore the little-visited southern district of Zhemgang the least developed dzongkhag of Bhutan.

We were proud of ourselves for getting a fairly early start (for us) to what we anticipated would be a challenging day of cycling over Chele La and down into Haa Valley. Even so, after a quick stop at the ol' ATM and a few photo shoots along the way, including a plane taking off through the narrow valley with Paro's majestic dzong in the background, it was late morning before we reached the turnoff for the pass and began our long ascent. We could see the summit from our base in the valley and it looked daunting. However, the road was graded consistently and quite reasonably, so we soon settled into a rhythm, albeit a slow one, switchbacking through the forest. 

Once while we were taking a break, it quickly became apparent that we managed to stop in the middle of a yak crossing and while the massive beasts shyly kept their distance, it was a bit unnerving to be completely surrounded by them. As we approached the top, we could see the wind blasting the extensive collection of prayer flags lining the road. The temperature was dropping quickly too, so we bundled up before cresting the pass and had just enough sunlight for a few photos before it sank into a bank of clouds sitting on the other ridge of the valley below us. We had pedaled against 6,000 feet worth of gravity to reach Bhutan's highest motorable, and cycleable, pass at an altitude of 13,000 feet. With the sun, we too began our hard earned descent, pausing a couple of times to rewarm fingers and toes and at least mentally combat the windchill with chocolate. Still, I can think of worse ways to spend Christmas.

We hit the valley bottom in total darkness and called our host at the Haa Valley Homestay for the last leg of directions. As soon as we reached the gates of their courtyard, we were ushered inside and our bikes were swiftly lifted up a ladder-like staircase for safe keeping inside on the first floor. We were shown our cozy room inside the historic house and after taking off a few layers, we sat down in front of the radiant bukhari in the kitchen for further rewarming with tea and bamboo baskets of Bhutanese snacks. We were introduced to some of the family members, Ugyen the father, Dole the mother, Tenzin the 13-year-old daughter, and "Auntie". Dole's aunt lives with them as well. Kinga, their 15-year-old son, was away at a football (soccer) camp. Ugyen's nephew and co-manager of the homestay, Sonam, was also there giving us a really helpful orientation to the house and the area. We soon figured out that through the ever present small country connections of Bhutan, Sonam had been recommended to us as a trekking guide by his ex-pat college professor whom we had randomly started chatting with at a coffee shop in Thimphu a few weeks before, completely separate from our booking at this homestay.

Despite our tired legs, we spent our first day in Haa getting a lay of the land by taking a leisurely cycle up to the end of the valley, or at least until the guarded gate of the Bhutan Army post. There is a permanent presence of both Bhutanese and Indian military in Haa due to its proximity to the Tibetan border. On our return, we stopped in Hatey village in search of the Lechuna Heritage Lodge where Lonely Planet made mention of serving filter coffee, as in real coffee. We instead found the Soednam Zingkha Heritage Lodge and ended up with some regular old Nescafé, not realizing the Lechuna was a separate entity until after it was too late. 

In the evening we rewarded our Chele La efforts with a hot stone bath in a private hut in the house's courtyard. This time we each had our own deep wooden "trough" to recline in, but similarly we would give a little holler when we needed new stones from the fire to be added to a compartment of the tub that stuck through the wall for outside access without disturbing the bathers. We felt that we could really become connoisseurs of the hot stone bath, except we felt guilty about how much work goes in to it and how much wood it burns. At least we were relieved of one worry when the family took advantage of the opportunity when were finished, even the adorable grandparents came over for a soak. As for the wood, Bhutan has 72% forest cover and is the only carbon negative country in the world. Of course, we all know that carbon emissions stay within national borders, right?

The next day we tried our hand at Bhutan's national sport, something I had been hoping to have the opportunity to do since moving here. Even though we stood at a fraction of the distance that Bhutanese archers shoot at the target from, our best attempts were quite amusing for the crowd that instantly materialized as soon as they saw two chilips pick up the traditional bamboo bows. Once our fingers hurt plenty and we fully acknowledged there was no hope for hitting the target, we tried a couple of other traditional target-aiming games that we had not seen before. Jigdum is sort of like knife throwing with a short stick whittled to a point on both ends. Soksum is akin to a javelin and the most difficult to use of the three.

In the afternoon, Tenzin became our de facto tour guide and showed us the recently renovated Lhakhang Kharpo, or White Temple, and the Lhakhang Nagpo, or Black Temple. Both were originally built in the 7th century by the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo, making them some of the oldest of their kind in Bhutan. The White Temple houses Haa's Dratshang, the monk body of the district, whereas the much smaller Black Temple is associated with the protective deity of Haa Valley. 

We still had some time to spare after a tea break back at the house, so Ugyen suggested that we visit the government run trout fishery. Since it was a few kilometers away, we asked Tenzin if she had a bike and she responded in the affirmative. As we were leaving, her father was urging her to wear a helmet and she used us as rationale why she didn't have to since we were skipping them for the minor ride. Only after we departed did we realize that she was not very confident with her bike riding skills and the bike was actually a rental for homestay guests, but fortunately there were no accidents. The fishery itself wasn't much to see, but Tenzin was so enjoying practicing riding a bike with us that we continued to explore down the valley and tried to teach her how to shift gears.

Our third day was the first day of Lomba, the Haap New Year, and the reason we timed our visit when we did. When planning our trip, I was searching for places to stay in Haa and came across a blog post by a couple of Australian teachers who visited Ugyen and family during Lomba a few years back. We began the day with a marathon hoentay making session, sitting crosslegged on the incredibly polished and always immaculately clean hard wood floor of the kitchen. As special food is central to most celebrations in the world, hoentay are an essential part of Lomba. No ordinary dumplings, the dough is made with buckwheat flour and the filling has no less than ten ingredients, depending on who was explaining hoentay to us. These included an item that no one new the English translation for but we suspect were ground black mustard seeds, as well as turnips, and turnip greens, Sichuan pepper, mushrooms, cheese, ginger, garlic, onion, butter, and of course, chili... Ugyen and Dole were the experts in the production line. Dole made perfectly symmetrical dough cups which would receive a spoonful of the filling by Ugyen before he shaped the mass and closed it with precise and delicate pinches. Then Dole would collect a batch and boil them on the wood burning stove. The more I tried to imitate Ugyen, the worse my hoentay would look, so eventually I "perfected" my own style that, while perhaps not proper, held their own in the aesthetics department. Matt and I also found redemption in the fact that our dumplings looked no worse that Tenzin's! I inquired how many hoentay the tremendous bowl of dough and filling would make and Ugyen estimated a couple hundred. Why so many? Well, it turns out that neighbors not only share hoentay with each other, essentially creating an elaborate hoentay swap, but send them across the country to dispersed relatives and friends via Bhutan's skeletal public transportation system. Adding to that, traditionally hoentay are the only food eaten at Lomba dinner!

Once the hoentay were all boiled up, we accompanied Sonam and Tenzin to the Black Temple where there was a ritual underway for the village's protector deity. Each household in Dumcho village had sent a younger family member to bring back a piece of torma, dough shaped into a small decorative tower, which had been blessed during the ceremony. This would then be mixed in with the dough that each household will use to create a lu, a small effigy that removes negative energy from the house at each new year. The youth also set about collecting samples of various plants that surround the lu.

Upon returning to the house, Sonam began molding the dough into a figurine of a little man riding a horse while we observed and sipped the obligatory late afternoon tea. We were impressed with how quickly he made it and the level of detail involved, even dressing the lu in a robe, and adding a miniature butter lamp, offerings of grains and hoentay and money. Each member of the house then created a chi chi by squeezing a length of dough inside their fist to make their unique palm print. The piece of dough was then passed around the body to remove the person’s negative energy and spit on, then placed on the plate bearing the lu. Lastly, the butter lamp was lit and a trail of flour spread from where the lu sat on the kitchen floor to the door of the house. As the lu was carried out of the house, Tenzin swept away the flour trail. Kinga carried it all the way down to the river and set it down facing south, all the while the group was yelling loudly to scare away the lu. As an extra precaution to ensure the lu did not return to the house with all of the negative energy it was carrying, the boys lit a couple of firecrackers, which didn’t exactly blow up the lu, but did crack the plate it sat on. Then we returned home and ate plenty of hoentay for dinner, of course.

The next morning we got a fairly early start on a hike that Sonam invited us to join him on, along with his friends from the village. The Tourism Council of Bhutan had recently built the Meri Puensum Nature Trail to help promote tourism in Haa, taking its name from a series of similarly shaped hills known as the Three Mountain Brothers. These sacred hills represent the Rigsum Gonpo, a trinity of three important deities called Chana Dorji, Chenrizig, and Jambayang. The group of young men from the village had decided to take on the upkeep of the trail and their mission that day was place rubbish bins proclaiming “Use Me!” at intervals along the way. We were pleased to keep pace with them in the middle of the pack while still stopping to pick up litter as we saw it, despite taking the steep shortcuts in between gentler graded switchbacks intended for mountain biking. Even though this was designed as a  mountain biking trail, it would have been a pretty rough one, requiring a good deal of pushing and even carrying in a few sections, so we were happy with our decision to be hiking it. 

The guys were quite welcoming to having two random tagalongs join their close knit group and while we didn’t understand their jokes or good natured banter, it was apparent that everyone was in high spirits. While I hold no illusions that “Happiness is a Place” as the Bhutanese tourism tagline would like the world to believe, I had an overwhelming feeling of contentment within myself on this particular day and sensed that our companions were experiencing the same. We stopped for a break in a meadow midway up and were amazed to watch most of them pull out full size thermoses of tea out of their small packs. Likewise, at lunch on top of the ridge that runs behind the Meri Puensum hills, bulky insulated containers of packed lunch appeared out of those same bags. While traversing the ridge, we had yet another great view of Jhomolhari from a new angle, then descended back into the forest to complete the kora (loop) around the three sacred hills. We returned to Ugyen’s house at dusk, to the surprise, and perhaps relief, of the older family members who were doubtful we would make it out of the forest before dark. Best of all, Sonam informed us that we must have been the first chilips to hike that trail, yet another place to add to our list of first foreigner to visit in Bhutan. 

We were awoken the next morning before daylight by a chorus of deep-toned horns, bells, drums, and guttural chanting. We laid in bed just listening to our unique but lovely alarm clock for a while. This was the first day of the family’s annual ritual, a two-day affair on auspicious dates determined by the local astrologer. Yesterday, a few monks had spent the day at the house creating torma, elaborate towers made of colored butter shaped onto a base of dough. The collection of torma were lined up the length of the altar where the monks had begun conducting extended ceremonies in honor of each torma in the altar room. Meanwhile, Ugyen’s family was busy preparing special foods for their relatives arriving from Thimphu, Phuentsholing, and perhaps beyond. We joined them in the kitchen just in time for some tasty thup, a savory spicy rice porridge, and filled up on it assuming that it was breakfast. It turns out it was just a pre-breakfast and a mid-morning feast of meat curries over rice was served as official breakfast. As soon as that was wrapped up, preparations for lunch began, with Ugyen and Dole donning their kabney or rachu to dash in to the altar room for a specific prayer or ritual as required, then returning to the kitchen.

Meanwhile, Matt and I gave a bike maintenance crash course to Sonam, Kinga, and their Uncle Dodo to help them take care of the rental bikes they had recently purchased for homestay visitors. At lunch, dried yak meat was served, including pieces of pure fat that Sonam coached us on the best way to eat: put the cubes on your plate first and cover with steaming rice to soften, then eat them last, like dessert. It didn’t exactly substitute for chocolate ice cream in my opinion, but it was still cool to try a delicacy that came from the family’s herd of yaks currently grazing at pasture above Paro. We socialized with recently arrived relatives in the afternoon, then got out for a stroll around the village just before dusk to get some fresh air and attempt to digest a bit before dinner. We had noticed that a suspicious number of dogs had been lurking around outside of the house that day and we soon figured out why. They recognized the sounds of the annual ritual and knew that the torma would be carried out of the house and discarded. As soon as Ugyen and Kinga set them down and walked away, a pack of black dogs devoured the beautiful displays of butter and then cows finished off the job with the dough and turnip bases. It was a good reminder of the prevalence of the concept of impermanence in Buddhist philosophy. By the time we ate the last large meal of the day, we were more stuffed than any Thanksgiving. In fact, the whole relaxed day filled with special food and family felt a lot like Thanksgiving, sans parades and football. And since we had not spent the holidays with our own families, this was the best substitute we could have imagined. 

Before departing the last morning, we were invited to join Ugyen and Kinga on the covered roof of their house, which serves as a "cellar" for dried turnip greens, strips of meat, chilies, and grass fodder for their cows. The father and son performed an offering ritual to Dumcho village’s protector deity and we were honored to witness it. It was one of those travel moments made more rich and meaningful because we chose not to bring our cameras up the ladder hewn out of a single massive log. We were fully focused on absorbing every vivid detail with our senses without the filter of lenses. 

As we bid farewell, Ugyen told us that it was karma that brought us together to celebrate Lomba and their annual ritual, because even members of their own family were not able to make it. Indeed, the traditions seemed strong and vibrant from our perspective, but some relatives spoke to us about how the current celebration is an echo of the past, a time when the entire family would gather for a week or more without the pressures of modernity and distractions of technology. Regardless, we were grateful for our temporary adoption into a welcoming Bhutanese household and earnest inclusion in their festivities.