Dunkhar, Bhutan

Michael was right about the leeches. When they bite, you tend to bleed a lot - I'll make a point to be extra careful about midnight bathroom runs in the future. They are all over the ground where we are camping because it has been raining quite a lot in Dunkhar, which is pretty much the end of the road in Bhutan. Our guide, Sonam, is from here as is the King's ancestral family - but it is a small, little visited village near the Tibet border. Now I'm back in my sleeping bag, and I am surprisingly clear headed after all the locally brewed ara (moonshine) and Bhutanese whiskey that I drank last night. The villagers that came to greet us last night welcomed us with some very sweet  woman's songs, sung in a circle with swaying and shuffling of feet. Our group responded with attempts at songs that everyone might know, which was mostly limited to Amazing Grace, and Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.
The following day, the process repeats, with the villagers coming to welcome us, sing songs and offer ara, but we are able to add Row, Row, Row Your Boat to our repertoire under the rising full moon that illuminates the snow on the high peaks near us.

On our way here, we traveled about six hours, first along the main (only) East - West  road which  is one lane and little trafficked but then we turn north along a smaller road that follows a spectacular river valley North to our campsite. Long stretches of the road are paved recently,  but the unpaved sections are ... interesting.

Everyone that we meet are sweet and considerate,  and the Buddhist premise of living a compassionate life seems to permeate the country.

Auspicious Number

108 is an Auspicious Number. Our guide Sonam explains that the number is important in Buddhist culture - Sonam's name actually means Auspicious. There are 108 verses in the teachings of Buddha.  A family will erect 108 tall white  prayer flags to commemorate the death of a family member. At he the top of a mountain we pass  we visit 108 white stupas that were erected by the king's mother who was actually visiting them also while we were there.

Today we set off to visit local holy site. We drive, but then start to walk after our bus has difficulty navigating a washed out bridge workaround. The walk turns into a hike and finally into a climb to find a cave that was once a shelter to Guru Rinpicne when he brought the reform form of Buddhism to Bhutan maybe a thousand years ago.  Once we reach the small temple erected in the cave, Sonam leads us in a chant of 108 repetitions of the guru's mantra. He keeps count on his prayer beads, which has 108 beads. As we repeat the mantra, thunder echoes outside. In the land of the Thunder Dragon - heavy stuff.

Later, traveling on the bus, someone starts a round of 108 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, but enthusiasm fades quickly.

Festivals

After a long day and evening at the big Cherry Blossom Festival in Kitikami, we are on our way to a smaller village festival at Kakunodate. We take the bullet train one hour north for our day trip to the town with a large neighborhood of original Samurai houses, built in perhaps the 1600's. During the day, lots of visitors flood in via tour buses and the streets are full of selfy sticks. Roads are lined with blooming weeping cherry trees. I walk the town in the heat of the day and it wears me out so I walk the riverbank and see some of our group lounging on the grass, so I join them and watch the blossoms grow. They are not yet in full  bloom, and I  swear they are fuller than this morning.

As the sun sets, many of the visitors have left the area around the food vendors, and things quiet down a bit until the local high school lets out and the students swarm the area. Bikes are left unattended, and backpacks are left on the ground as the uniformed students wander in groups - boys over here, and girls over there. The boys look a bit militaristic in trim, dark uniforms and the girls are a bit giggly in their groups. 

 Now that the sun is setting, the festival has a local feel and we are able to try chatting with some of the crowd. There is a man who is selling puffed rice that he roasts himself and then fires the rice out of a cannon (Do I remember Quaker puffed rice being shot form guns?) - he blows a whistle as warning before shooting the thing. 

I see some schoolgirls that I had met walking in town, and they are taken by our group and want to try their English on us. Our group is camped at the table in front of the liquor vendor, and Arthur is inspired to get us all to buy masks from the stall across the way. The girls think this is great and many, many cell phone photos are taken. I try some barbecue wild boar, and find that it pairs quite nicely with the sake that's sold in the individual glass jars with pop-off tops

At the end of the evening, we have to say goodbye and make our way back to the train station for the return trip. At the station, George panics when he thinks he lost key to the locker that has all our rail passes, but it is found and we return safely to the hotel.

Leaving Tokyo

We leave Tokyo and head north, first to Sendai and then west into the mountains, but it is a little more complicated than that. The sleek Shinkansen bullet train leaves Tokyo and arrives at Sendai exactly on schedule. From there we transfer to a local train set to leave in 20 minutes, until George hears an announcement and explains we have to get of the train right away. Our route through a mountain pass is closed due to a storm, and the train we are on has been redirected elsewhere. So we get to a public intercity bus full of businessmen and take that around the mountains to another local train, now heading back toward Sendai. 

 

 

A quick stop at Yamadera to visit a celebrated potter and make some dishes and cups under his direction. The results run across the spectrum of styles and refinement and they will get glazed and make our way to us in time. Back on another chartered bus that George scrounged up to get us to our hotel that is on the closed section of train line. Snow on the sides of the road and the wind is fierce and cold. The hotel is known for its natural hot springs, but I can't keep my eyes open after a multi-course private dinner and will have to try them tomorrow.

 

In the morning, it is still windy, and in the lower 40's but the rain and sleet is gone. Back to Yamadera on the working train line and a visit to the Mountain Temple complex on the top of the mountain behind the small town. One thousand steps, says the sign but there is so much to see along the way - small shrines and offerings to both Buddhist and Shinto structures, tall aromatic cedars cover the mountain, a huge troop of high spirited school kids races past us on their way to the top.

 

 We do see some cherry blossoms, but for the most part, the trees are bare or are just budding. Looking for more along the way over the next week.