​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.

It’s funny to think back to nearly two years ago when we spent ten days in Bhutan as a “once in a lifetime” experience. As we careened around bend after bend on the narrow mountain roads with barely any traffic, I daydreamed about how amazing it would be to freely cycle Bhutan. Never gonna happen though, how would we ever get such an opportunity? At best, we might be able to join an organized cycling tour, someday, after first winning the lottery.

And now, with the School for Field Studies fall semester all wrapped up, that same dream was launched into reality. Panniers stuffed onto the back racks of our mountain bikes, mandatory route permit tucked in to a side pocket, and us wrapped in various warm and windproof layers to combat the winter morning chill, we set off from Hotel Sambauv, practically our second home in Bhutan. We were easing in to bicycle travel in Bhutan with a mini-tour from Thimphu to the top of the closest mountain pass, Dochu La, a wimpy 3,000 feet of elevation gain spread over 16 or so miles. We were relieved that it did not feel too strenuous, since that would not bode well for the rest of our itinerary, but in true Bhutanese fashion we stopped anyway for a tea break mid-journey in the village of Hongtsho. Of course, our ulterior motive was to locate the new Serbhum Brewery that had just started distributing Bhutan’s first stout to select pubs and bars in Thimphu. A nice local man offered to drive us a ways back down the hill, but the brewery was closed as the tasting room wasn’t finished and open to the public yet. But we will definitely keep checking on its progress during future trips to Thimphu.

We crested the pass and were greeted with a panorama of distant snowy peaks against a bluebird sky. After making the traditional three clockwise circles around a cluster of 108 small chortens (stupas) forming an island that gracefully separates the lanes of the East-West Highway, we continued a short distance down the other side of the pass to the Dochu La Eco Retreat. We settled in to a spacious but cozy wood-paneled room with a bukhari (wood burning stove) and an even more impressive view of the spread of mountains than from the pass. We felt high, at about 10,000 feet, but more so from a successful first day and the prospect of fifty more days of Bhutan exploration left ahead of us.

Our specific motivation for staying at Dochu La was the Druk Wangyel tshechu held the next day. This festival is unique in that it only occurs for one day every December 13th and commemorates the Fourth King Jigme Singye Wangchuck's efficient and effective expulsion of Assamese (Bodo) separatists hiding out in Southern Bhutan back in 2003. Dochu La is a fitting location since the 108 chortens were commissioned by Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, the eldest of the fourth king's four wives, as a memorial honoring the Bhutanese soldiers who lost their lives in the battle.

From the chortens, we passed through a decorative gate and down a long cobbled walkway, entering the festival grounds just ahead of the opening procession of dancers, dashos (VIPs), and even members of the Royal Family. One glance at the "dance floor", a perfectly rounded hillock rising above the seated audience, and we knew this would be a tshechu to remember. Not only was the backdrop of snowy peaks against a perfectly blue sky simply stunning, but the costumes were even more elaborate and vibrantly colorful than usual.

We were soon "adopted" for the day by a woman named Rinchen after we randomly began chatting with her while watching the dances. She claimed some of the limited chairs for us, introduced us to her husband and friends, and fed us tea and Bhutanese snacks like zau (puffed rice) throughout the day. We were meekly offered to join in their picnic lunch, but she was concerned that it had too much chili for us chilips (foreigners) to handle, so she did not insist as per usual Bhutanese hospitality.

Midway through the festival, some Royal Family members including one of the queen mothers, a princess, and a prince, as well as the Prime Minister, came out of a beautifully embroidered tent presiding over the festival grounds and mingled with the festival goers. When we noticed that they were greeting all of the chilips in particular and asking where they were from and about their experience in Bhutan, we tried to keep our distance and hide amongst the crowd. As much as it would have been an honor to meet them in person, we were unfortunately wearing our outdoorsy clothes. While tourists can get away with wearing Western clothes to a tshechu, Bhutanese must wear the national dress and usually opt for their finest ghos and kiras at that. We would not feel comfortable telling the Royal Family we live here in Bhutan while dressed as tourists at a tshechu, even with the excuse that our gho and kira would have taken up half the space in our bicycle panniers.

After watching the entirety of the program, including some dances specially choreographed to represent the battle with the Assamese militants, we returned to 108 chortens and combed the stretch of vendors set up along the road. We picked up some tasty beef samosas, amazing cheese momos (dumplings), some peppery thup (a savory rice porridge with bits of fresh cheese), and some ngaja (milk tea), then sat out on a lawn with other picnicing folks before wandering back to our hotel. That evening we were treated to even more beauty with a nearly full moon rising up through a hazy pink and purple glow on the mountains.

The following morning we set off for a hike through a dense rhododendron forest up to Lungchutse Goempa. The temple was locked and the only monk we could see around was meditating on a flat rock embedded into a ridge running below the monastery. We were not disappointed though, since the location provided our first glimpse of Jhomolhari, Bhutan's second highest peak. We descended down a different trail to Trashigang Goempa where we inadvertently aggravated a dog as we passed by the monks' living quarters. A monk, who later turned out to be much more afraid of the dogs than us, came out of his house to see what the commotion was and immediately invited us in for tea. While sitting in his courtyard and chatting, we learned that his monk friend staying with him was one of the dancers in the tshechu the day before. We happened to have a video clip of him, unmistakable in a large wooden mask of a blue-faced wrathful deity, which we showed him. Then he pulled his phone out of his robe and showed us an almost identical video of his performance, taken by one of his friends at the tshechu as well.

Our host, Penjor, gave us a thorough tour of the 18th century monastery which houses statues of certain Je Khenpos (Chief Abbots) who meditated there. While Himalayan Buddhist monasteries share many characteristics in common, each one still has a distinctive feel if you pay attention to the details. This time, while scanning an altar cluttered with relics, a brown oval-shaped polished stone set upright in a chalice caught my eye, much like a poached egg. Indeed, we were informed it was a dragon egg when I inquired about it. Penjor then took us to the monastery's source of water, a drupchu (holy spring) encased in a chorten. We filled our water bottles with the sacred water and wondered if the UV light of a SteriPen would also kill its holiness along with the bacteria. We parted ways with Penjor after forcing a small donation upon him and caught a ride back to Dochu La after walking for a while down down the dirt track from the monastery.

Our third time to a monastery that day was less than a charm. Despite having crossed Dochu La plenty of times since first coming to Bhutan, we had never visited the Druk Wangyel Lhakhang, a modern temple dedicated to the Fourth King that includes murals of monks using laptops, a DrukAir plane, portraits of members of the Royal Family and contemporary events. Unfortunately, the temple was guarded by a disgruntled monk who did not look pleased at the arrival of some chilips without a guide. Matt only enhanced his surliness when he unknowingly began to enter a side chapel with open doors that he was not allowed in to. Therefore, when I politely asked if we could go upstairs to see the unique murals, I was met with a harsh no without further explanation. We left without further ado and decided we would have to try again another time, already knowing that other chilips had been allowed upstairs in recent times.

Before leaving the hotel the next morning, we took a last look through the incredible gigantic binoculars mounted on the balcony of the Dochu La Eco Retreat. Besides seeing every detail of the mountains and villages below them, we lingered over the view of the Gasa Dzong, so close but so far away. Our intention for staying in Bhutan for the duration of the break between programs was to see new regions, so we had planned to cycle up to the northern district of Gasa after our time at Dochu La. It would have been a challenging ride made worthwhile by hot springs at the end of it, but the Immigration Office would not approve a route permit to go up there. Apparently there is no problem for tourists, but within the last year they have denied ex-pats entry. We were curious as to why, but no one ever offered any explanations. Since independent travel is outside of the norm of tourism in Bhutan, it tends to works in mysterious ways, so instead we headed back to Thimphu on a quick downhill ride.