Land of the Thunder Dragon: Part I

India and China, the world’s two most populous countries, share nearly 3500 km of their border. Borders, by their nature, are prone to dispute. China calls one of the Indian states, Arunachal Pradesh, part of South Tibet. Not only foreigners, but Indians also require a permit to visit Arunachal. Over the last two months, a street-fight without casualties took place at a point called Doklam. China planned to build a road there. As the Chinese advanced with vehicles and construction materials, Indian soldiers confronted them with weapons and bulldozers. The standoff continued for two months. Finally better sense prevailed, and two weeks ago both sides withdrew. Some people who read the news were confused, because India openly admitted Doklam didn’t belong to India. India was fighting on behalf of Bhutan.

Many Indians are not certain if Bhutan is in or out of India. Non-Indians may not know where Bhutan is on the map. My family and I have fond memories of Bhutan - my wife, daughter and I had visited it for more than a month in 2009.

The Paro Airport

The kingdom of Bhutan has only one airport – Paro. We landed early in the morning. The quaint green airport rooftop made the building look like a Buddhist monastery. Outside, the magnificent Himalayas seemed close enough to touch. The air was so pure, we wanted to keep breathing it to fill our lungs. We drove straight to our hotel - Gangtey Palace, a former palace converted. We saw very few people, and they were differently dressed. Some men wore skirts.

In the hotel room, which was truly palatial, I unpacked the bags. I wished to take the passports and cash and deposit them in the hotel safe. I couldn’t find our passports.

‘Mena, where are the passports, I can’t find them.’ I said loudly.

Devyani, our daughter, five year old then, immediately said, “Dad, it’s great if you have lost the passports. We won’t need to go back.”

A five-year old had understood the spirituality of the place on arrival.

No backpackers please  

I am writing in the wrong chronological sequence. My preparation for the Bhutan trip had started more than six months before that. As I learnt in the process, we could go to Bhutan thanks to that long-term planning.

Only the Bhutanese airlines-Druk Air-is allowed to fly to Bhutan. And it wasn’t selling tickets online. I called their authorised agent in Calcutta.

‘You better hurry up,’ he said, ‘on the day you want to fly; only three seats are left.’

‘Sorry, maybe you misunderstood. We plan to fly six months from now, in April next year.’

“I understand,’ he said ‘that’s the flight where three seats are left.’

‘If the demand is so high, why doesn’t Druk air fly more often?’ I asked.

‘Bhutan doesn’t want tourists. The tourists will spoil it.’

I bought the tickets. We didn’t plan to spoil Bhutan.

‘All of you have Indian passports, right?”

“Yes. What difference does that make?”

“If you are not Indian, you will need to pay lots of money in advance.” He said, kindly.

As I learnt, all foreigners needed to deposit 250 US Dollars per day per person (now 300 USD) when applying for a visa. A family of four Americans visiting Bhutan for two weeks need to cough out nearly 17,000 dollars for a visa. That expense covers hotels and other expenses. But there is no way you can live cheaply. Foreigners must take a flight, meaning Druk Air, they can’t enter Bhutan by road.

Not surprisingly, throughout our travel across Bhutan, we never saw a single white (or black) backpacker. The only foreigners we met were mostly elderly, or if young, highly successful.

Indians, fortunately for my family, are not classified as foreigners. The visa rules don’t apply to Indians. When we went, Indians could enter Bhutan even with a driving licence or a voter card, allowed to enter by road.  

Why this special treatment? Because under a friendship treaty, India takes care of Bhutan’s defence. That is why when China tries to make inroads into Bhutan, Indian soldiers rush to help the Bhutanese.

The hereditary prime minister

India, Russia, United States of America celebrate their respective independence days. Bhutan doesn’t. Because it has always been independent.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British assessed the mountainous terrain and decided it was better to let Bhutan have their own king. Before 1905, the rulers were under the authority of the Tibetan Lamas – the spiritual masters. Bhutan was essentially made of warring tribes. The British stepped in and identified a wise man, Ugyen Dorji, as a king.

I don’t want to be the king, he said, but I would be happy to be the king-maker. He recommended the name of Ugyen Wangchuk, a great warrior who had won many battles and was the de facto ruler of Bhutan.

It was agreed Ugyen Wangchuk would become Bhutan’s first monarch. Ugyen Dorji would become the first prime minister. And both the royal lineage and the prime minister’s lineage would be hereditary. Not only that, the two families would inter-marry so as to preserve the power within the Wangchuk and Dorji dynasties. This arrangement continued well until 1964.

Jigme Palden Dorji was Bhutan’s PM from 1952 to 1964. Though a Dorji, he had some royal Wangchuk blood as well. He was a reformist, and an able administrator. The military and the monks didn’t like his modernization attempts. Jigme Dorji was assassinated in April 1964. Among those executed following his killing was the king’s uncle who had ordered the assassination.

Lhendup Dorji alias Lenny, brother of the assassinated PM was a playboy. He was showing Shirley MacLaine, the American actress, around Bhutan at the time when his brother was killed. Unfit to be a prime minister, Lhendup Dorji and the remaining family were sent into exile. The hereditary PM-ship ended with the assassination.

Bombay’s 200-year old Asiatic library had only six books on Bhutan. One of them was the ‘Dragon kingdom in crisis’ by Nari Rustomji, India’s political attaché to Bhutan at that time. He gave an excellent firsthand account of the events surrounding the assassination. Yangki, the king’s concubine, enjoyed unlimited informal powers through the king. Her relatives lived above the law. The mistress accompanied the king more often than the queen to government functions. She had two sons and two daughters from the king, but the children were without titles.  Yangki used the state’s resources as she wished. She once ordered the military vehicles to carry her luggage. The hyper-efficient prime minister, on hearing that, said military vehicles can’t be used by civilians and had the luggage unloaded. The king was ill in a hospital in Switzerland. The Army saw this as an insult to the honour of the king. According to Rustomji, this event may have sparked the assassination plot.

The queen is my fan

A few weeks before our trip to Bhutan, we were in Jagalbet, visiting Mena’s uncle Manohar Malgonkar, in his village house. Manohar Malgonkar, 96 then, was a well known novelist having written more than fifty books. (The Princes, A bend in the Ganges, Men who killed Gandhi, the Devil’s wind and others). We told him about our forthcoming trip to Bhutan.

“Oh,” he said. “You must meet the Queen. Only this week I have received a letter from her. Mena, you’ll find it on that table. She’s my fan. She has read many of my books. Every time she reads my book, I get a letter from her. You must go and meet her.”

We promptly found the letter in a gold-lettered royal envelope. Ashi Kesang Choden was her name. She was a queen when she started reading uncle’s books, but by 2009, she had already become a grandmother-queen, the world’s only grandmother-queen. We asked uncle’s permission to take the letter with us. Showing it may open the door of a palace.

The small cash

I was preparing for Bhutan on many fronts. Library books gave me a good background of Bhutan’s history. Internet research advised me on the practical aspects. Bhutan had its own currency, Ngultrum, but it also accepted Indian rupees. No credit cards, no debit cards, no traveller’s cheques, ATMs unlikely to work. You must carry cash for your entire journey. India’s two big denominations, Rs 500 and Rs 1000 were illegal in Bhutan. (The prescient Bhutan had demonetised them decades before Narendra Modi did).

Since the Indian ATMs usually give higher denominations, I called my bank manager and asked him to arrange cash in Rs 50/100 notes. That was the only time I had made such an unusual request. When I went to collect the money, the bank manager invited me to his cabin.

“Is everything alright?” He asked.

“Yes, of course. Why?” I said.

“Normally, people ask for cash in small denominations when someone is kidnapped. I was a bit worried.”

“Oh no, nobody is kidnapped. I am going with my family to Bhutan for a month.”

Gangtey Palace hotel

At the same time, I was sending emails to various hotels I had found through my internet research.

Gangtey Palace in Paro, where we would land, seemed like a great ‘value for money’ option. I didn’t know how good Bhutanese were with English. But some Chukie-om Dorji from the hotel wrote emails in excellent English. Not knowing the protocols in the kingdom, I initially addressed him as Mr Chukie-om but after a few emails simply as Chukie-om. He gave us what I thought was a fabulous deal – a suite like room, all three meals included for the price of a small room in a Bombay hotel with no food. We later learnt that in Bhutan all hotels include three meals for every guest. Only in Bumthang, much later during our trip, we would understand the reason for that custom.

No safes

Coming back to our room in Gangtey Palace, I finally managed to find the passports. Looking for a safe everywhere in our spacious suite, I didn’t find one. I decided to visit the reception with our passports and a bag full of Indian small currency notes.

‘I would like to deposit this in the hotel safe, please.’ I said to the person at the counter, speaking slowly and stressing on each syllable.

‘You...keep in the room.’ She said.

‘Sorry, there is no safe in the room. I looked everywhere. That’s why I came down.’

‘We have no safe in the hotel.’ The Bhutanese girl said. ‘Your room is very safe. Nothing will happen to your money or documents.’ None of the hotels we stayed at in Bhutan had a safe. And nothing ever happened to our money or documents. We could have probably left our suitcases on the road.

Chukie-om

‘Who is Chukie-om here?’ I asked the men at the reception. I had corresponded with him for weeks and found him to be quite helpful. I thought I should thank him in person.

‘Chukie-om Dorji? She lives in Thimpu, not here.’ The reception girl said.

‘She? I am talking of the person who emailed me.’

“Yes. Chukie-om. A girl. Lives in Thimpu. Would you like to speak to her?’

I said yes. The voice coming from Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan, was sweet and polished. I thanked her. After Paro, we would move to Thimpu, I said.

‘When you are in Thimpu, please give me a call. You can join my family for a cup of tea.’ She said.

I was delighted. I wanted to see a Bhutanese house anyway. To see how an average Bhutanese person lived. An opportunity had walked my way without any effort. I immediately said yes.

(To be continued)

Ravi