| As the dusky evening light dwindles slowly to darkness, I’m relishing one of my few moments of solitude here in Bhutan. For over two weeks I’ve trekked, toured, dined, and shared tents and rooms with my fellow Sierra Club tripmates as we travel around the country together. Although I like everybody, the nearly constant togetherness with 13 other Americans seems to filter my experience, preventing me from fully absorbing where I am. I need to be alone. This mountainous and relatively remote Buddhist kingdom, which lies just east of Nepal along the spine of the Himalayas, has been beckoning me to stop and silently, privately reflect. I’ve dreamt about coming here for over a decade and consumed all the books I could find about this place. I’ve imagined a quiet land of meditating monks and content people at one with their dramatic environment. But now that I’m finally here, our itinerary is tightly controlled and days are tightly scheduled. To maintain their culture as best they can in the face of increasing modernization, Bhutan requires that all foreign travelers be accompanied by Bhutanese guides. A little while ago, I’d asked to be let off the tourist bus in Trongsa so I could walk the rest of the way to Yangkhil Resort, our destination tonight about a mile beyond town. We’re returning after a few days farther east in the Bumthang region, where we attended a folk dance festival. We’ve had bits of free time here and there, but not much. So I’m surprised when our guide Karma allows me to get off the bus by myself in Trongsa this evening. Set on a steep mountainside in the lush green Himalayan foothills of central Bhutan overlooking the Mangde Chu River gorge, Trongsa has an elusive, mystical vibe—at least to us foreigners from the other side of the globe. As we approached Trongsa from the west a few days earlier, my buddy Steve said “It looks like we’re entering Rivendell,” Tolkien’s fictional Elven outpost in Middle-earth. Rivendell means deep valley of the cleft, which perfectly describes the setting here. Yea, I thought, he’s nailed it. Except the locals are Bhutanese, Tibetan exiles, and Nepalese émigrés instead of flaxen-haired elves like Orlando Bloom in the Lord of Rings movies. The Trongsa Dzong, an impressive seventeenth century, multi-level fortress adorned with pagoda-like turrets, seems to have sprung organically out of the hillside above a deep gorge. Although Trongsa town is over 6,500 feet above sea level, the air is soft, humid, and warm and the flora is lush and semi-tropical; we’re at about Latitude 27°. Monkeys, snakes, and other exotic creatures inhabit the surrounding forests. After I stop in a small shop and buy a bracelet, I set off down the narrow asphalt road towards the lodge. I get a few stares as I, a fair-haired and fair-skinned western woman alone, walk the two blocks of white-washed, four-story buildings and head out of town. A little farther on, two crimson-robed monks stroll past, talking and laughing. Below me on a green terrace in the hillside I see two dogs playing together, jumping on each other; unfamiliar bird calls are singing to the coming dusk. I finally feel a sense of place here in Bhutan, without the veil of escorted tourism. People I’ve passed are talking, laughing with monks, going about their business in their small-town (by U. S. standards) lives. I think about Canadian teacher Jaime Zeppa’s memoir about living and teaching here (Between the Earth and the Sky), which partially inspired me to come here, and imagine having an “authentic” experience like she did, away from controlled tourist travel. For a moment I stop and gaze down the steep slope that drops off quickly below the road—so steep I can’t see the bottom—and then glance across to the thickly forested slope across the gorge, a mile or so away. It’s quiet except for the birds and voices in the distance. No cars pass by. No city noises whatsoever. Just this. Just here. Just now. I have a Zen moment. Ahead of me two young Bhutanese women are talking on the side of the road. As I pass them, one breaks away and attaches herself to me. She is dark and very petite—at 5’2”, I am taller—and she appears to be ethnic Nepali or Indian rather than ethnic Bhutanese. “Are you alone? Are you a spinster or are you married? Do you have any children?” she asks me in a singsong, enthusiastic voice. Before I can answer, she says, “Are you American? I want to marry an American man and go to America! I don’t care how old he is.” “Yes, I’m American.” I continue with a few lies, “My husband and my children are home.” It’s easier that way. We continue down the road in the increasingly dark evening. She tells me she is going to see her brother, who works at Yangkhil Resort. Her black hair is parted down the middle and gathered in a tight knot at the nape of her neck. Under a short denim jacket she wears the traditional kira of Bhutanese women, an ankle-length hand-woven jumper of earthy blues, greens, and crimson. “Can you sing me any Christina Aguilera songs?” she demands hopefully. I disappoint her because I don’t know any Christina Aguilera tunes. She flips her left jacket lapel towards me, and I see a button with Christina Aguilera’s face framed in blonde hair and bright red lips. The resort compound looms just ahead, and my walking companion, whose name I can’t pronounce, chatters away as we walk up the steep driveway. “Good night. It was very nice to talk to you,” she says as we part ways. I wish her well and head to my room. My idyllic reverie was broken, but it occurs to me that I got exactly what I was hoping for anyway—an authentic Bhutanese experience. Back to TheTraveler.
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