Are you takin or barkin?

One of the stops we made in Thimphu was Deer Park park. Here they kept deer and Takin to prevent extinction. When Karma told me that we were going to see a Takin I thought he was joking. He explained to me that the Takin in the national animal. It is an animal that has the head of a goat and the body of a cow. I thought it sounded that a weird mythical animal and was confused why this was their national animal since it didn't even exist. Diane and I were both shocked when we saw the actual Takin.

Baby Takins



With the takins were baby deer. But they were barking deer. Named such because sometimes they 'bark.' It sounds somewhat like a sick dog who was debarked but still has enough gusto to keep trying. Not very pleasant, but interesting creatures none the less.

Around Thimphu

I am in Bhutan. I have my own hotel room in the Dragon Roots, less than a minutes walk from John and Diane’s hotel. When we arrived, I was astonished. The country is better than I could have imagined. Once in Paro, good Karma drove us to Thimphu, about an hour away from Paro. Once I had my hotel room, I started to explore Thimphu. John and Diane where exhausted from traveling but I still had some adrenaline in me and decided to use it. Karma drove me up to a Stupa overlooking the city.

The Stupa


Unfortunately, I missed the memo that said that you had to walk around everything in three’s. Three times around the stupa, or six, or 21, 108. And you always have to walk clockwise around everything. I think that they purposefully had the driver on the right side of the car, just so they could drive clockwise around the roundabouts. There were many Bhutanese and tourists walking around the Stupa. They leave the gates to the stupa open all the time, there is always someone walking around the stupa when I pass it.

A very friendly looking, old, Bhutanese man


After looking around the stupa, I walked back down toward my hotel; back to the heart of Thimphu. At first I was a bit frightened walking around this completely foreign country by myself. My paranoia really set in when I felt like guys were smiling just a little too much. But everyone was very friendly and didn’t mind returning a smile anytime you threw one their way.

I ate with John, Diane, and Ugyen, the man who helped get me into Bhutan. He is a personal friend of the King, and a complete businessman. He had his blackberry and Iphone out faster than I could order a bottle of water. Having a few businessmen in the family, I could spot them from a mile away. He might as well have had a dunce cap on. Oh, everyone has cell phones in Bhutan, nice ones too. Iphones, blackberries, the works

Around 3 o’clock I crashed, hard. I started to get delirious and I swear I was hallucinating about monks and bunnies… I gained a bit of consciousness again at 6 and lost it shortly afterward. I came to at 1 a.m., fully conscious. What was I going to do at one in the morning? Around five I had had enough and left my room. Instead of walking towards the stupa, like the day before, I walked in the opposite direction. After a while I came upon a monastery on the outskirts of town. A monk approached me and we chatted about the monastery. The name of the monastery is Zangdo Pelri. The monk was very kind and was curious to know where I was from and what I was doing in Bhutan. He had grown up in Thimphu. I asked a very shy monk if I could take his picture and after a few minutes, he finally stood still.

Monk in front of fire with white smoke



Karma’s mother (the woman I was suppose to live with while I was in Bhutan) was out of town for over a week, so a Llama arranged for me to stay of one of the nunneries on the outskirts of town, Ziluhka nunnery. It worked out that I would go to the nunnery while John and Diane left and went to Punahka, a two-hour drive from Thimphu. A nunnery, what have I gotten myself into?

Prayer

A few prayers I learned along the way


OM GATE GATE
PARA GATE
PARA SAM GATE
BODHI SVAHA

loosely translated~ may I be free of attachments


OM MANI PADME OM

~ Praise to the jewell at the heart of the lotus


Two prayers Nawang Pal taught me

Eja:

OM BAZAR SATO SA MA YA
MANU PALA YA
BANZAR SATO TEY NO PA TIE THRA
DEDO MAY BA WA
SUTO KHA YO MAY BA WA
AA NU RATO MAY BA WA
SU PO KHA YO MAY BA WA
SARWA SE DE MA MAY TRA YA TSHA
SAR WA KARMA SU TSHA MAY
TSHE TAYAM SHERI YA
KU RU HUNG
HA, HA, HA, HA, HO
BA GA WAN SAR WA TA THA GA TA
BANZE BAWA MA HA
SA MA YA SA THO AA

used to cleanse yourself of the day's 'wrongs' or sings or bad actions, whichever way you want to look at it.

For white Tara:

OM TA RE TU TA RE TU RE SO WA HA

to bring wisdom

Travel to Bhutan

I have made it! I am on the plane to Bangkok. Quite a feat, eh? After walking around the Tokyo airport searching for Sake for about 30 minutes, I returned to our gate empty handed. I will have to flaunt my independence and legal drinking age in another country. I was only in the Tokyo airport for about an hour, and I was back on another plane to Bangkok. I wish I had more time to explore Tokyo. Even the courteous head bow in incredibly intriguing and intoxicating. I have an intense urge to explore and I hope the feeling lasts for the duration of my flight. It’s about 2 a.m. my time, and 5 p.m. in Tokyo, very confusing.

Me in the Bangkok airport, about to board plane to Bhutan.


I’ve made it to Bangkok. After countless hours of travel, I am in Thailand; but not for long. We got in at 11p.m. and have a 3 a.m. wake up call in order to catch our flight to Paro. Sleeping almost isn’t even worth it. Bangkok is big, hot, crowded, and humid. Sweat stared to collect on my hands within the 5 minutes after I deboarded. Thai is unlike any language that I have come across. On the way to Bangkok I thought I’d pass the time with a Thai newspaper. I swear, their entire language consists of u’s and n’s but with weird squiggles everywhere.
I believe that I’ve been traveling roughly 36 hours now, staring when we left Sun Valley. Now, in the comfort of the Novotel in Bangkok, Thailand, I have three hours to sleep before we depart. And John just left the room because he realized that he left one of his bags in baggage claim. In order to retrieve his bag he has to somehow get though customs and get to baggage claim. Luckily both Diane and I got all of our bags, even the cowboy hat.

Rough Itinerary:

3 hours travel to Boise
9 hours sleep
5 total hours of transport to Minneapolis
12 hours to Tokyo
1 hour in airport
7 hours to Bangkok
4 hours sleep in Bangkok
3 hours to Paro

We are on the plane on our way to Thimphu. I feel the confines of my old world lifting, and the mobility to explore and find the warrior within prevailing.