Final images from Bhutan: Taktsang Monastery (The Tiger’s Nest)

Jun 20 2011 under bhutan | Leave a comment

Taktsang is just one of those places. Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramids, Angkor Wat, the Taj Mahal —they don’t disappoint.

The hike was long. And in hindsight, the almost comically-large bottle of Johnny Walker Red that we somehow casually made disappear the night before probably wasn’t the smartest way to prepare for a three-hour trek uphill the following morning.

But like I said, Taktsang is one of those places in the world that’s worth almost anything to experience. A location on Earth to which very few others can be compared in any way.

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A farewell to Thimphu, and all of Bhutan

Jun 7 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

I wasn’t going to write a farewell post for Bhutan. Goodbyes have never been my thing.

But after five months living with Cara and working for Drukpa, I found that the words couldn’t help but come out.

The magazine fell apart and the Ministry of Information and Media expressed a refusal to continue extending my work permit. I wish I could have stayed longer. And still, I don’t know how to express my appreciation for the time I was able to spend in the tiny Himalayan kingdom. I’ve travelled some 25 countries on five continents and there is just no place like Bhutan.

To call it a “developing country” is a characterization I simply find inaccurate. Economic measurements may rank Bhutan low in terms of GDP and international trade. And admittedly, the friends I made in Bhutan were of Thimphu’s upper class. But after nearly half a year there, I cannot pool a country with people as friendly, generous, and above all, as happy, with so many impoverished and war-torn nations across the world.

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As Thimphu grows, gross national happiness for who?

May 31 2011 under bhutan | Leave a comment

Thimphu is a city growing on the backs of temporary foreign workers.

With a current population of roughly 80,000 expected to double over the next 25 years, Bhutan’s capital is exploding at the seams. And because most native Bhutanese deem construction work below their social status, it’s Indians who are raising the new apartment blocks you see cropping up in every direction you look.

Similar to the situation in Dubai—though, it must be noted, nowhere near as extreme or as cruel—this expatriate labour pool is growing to constitute a sizable chunk of Thimphu’s population. It is also, as I understand it, a group vulnerable to be taken advantage of.

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Photos of the rain in Thimphu

May 10 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

Things have been pretty slow around the office lately. The magazine is really struggling financially. For two months now, an unresolved debt owed to our printing press has prevented us from putting out an issue. Subscribers are beginning to call, et cetera. So there really hasn’t been a lot of work to do.

Most of us still come in every day. But we just hang out, more than anything else.

So yesterday, when Bhutan’s daily spring rains came, I thought I would take a break from a music download binge and go and try my hand at photographing water.

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My bartender in Thimphu

May 5 2011 under bhutan | Leave a comment

An introduction that is long overdue.

Anuge is my bartender.

Owner and operator of Benez. Connoisseur of spirits. Tobacco aficionado extraordinaire. Professor of cricket. Late-night musician. Therapist and confidant. Inadvertent guidance councillor. Occasional sage. And natural raconteur.

He takes good care of me.

Cheers.

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One month in Bhutan’s healthcare system

Apr 28 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

Over the course of the last month, I’ve gotten to know Bhutan’s public healthcare system pretty well.

I’ve had a sebacaceous cyst on my upper back since mid-January. It was completely benign, harmless, and did not require treatment of any sort. Until the girlfriend got to it.

A lesson learned: Do not, under any circumstances or state of intoxication, try and pop a cyst. One “super infection” later—as my medical chart actually reads —I now know that.

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Thimphu to Tehran? -Three hours on Google Maps

Apr 22 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment


Click to enlarge.

I haven’t written here in a while. Between a few different projects that I have on the go, I’ve been crushed under deadlines. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t made time to procrastinate, though.

Anybody who knows me knows that I love to travel and I love to plan trips. I have routes planned for the east coast of Africa, the west coast of Africa, down through the deep south of the United States, up through Kashmir, back and forth across South America -wherever.

Here’s a road trip that a guy here named Kyle and I came up with over a bottle of whiskey. Between a slow internet connection and the fact that Google Maps is utterly useless at calculating routes through any country between India and Turkey (who would have guessed?), that graphic took us three hours to create.

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Lost in the mountains below Dzongdrakha Gompa

Apr 8 2011 under bhutan | Leave a comment

I recently went and got myself lost in the mountains outside of Bondey, a small town just south of Paro.

I had with me was an expertly-drawn map (see below-right and note sarcasm). And I was never too far off the beaten path. But after going hours without seeing another person, I started to look at stray dogs as possible sources of warmth for the night. Thankfully, they weren’t needed.

I was out in the woods in search of a small hillside monastery called Dzongdrakha Gompa. Earlier in the week, I mentioned to my buddy Jake, a freelance reporter with an off-and-on relationship with NPR, that I might have an extra day or two to hang out around Paro. He suggested I make the hike to Dzongdrakha Gompa, which he had visited on assignment a while back.

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3:00 a.m. -The revealing of the great thangka

Mar 29 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

For days I hadn’t been able to sleep more than a couple of hours a night. On the eve of the final day of Paro Tsechu, it was no different.

And so, despite a state of exhaustion that was beginning to make me feel like my brain had been burned out of my skull, I had no trouble waking up at two in the morning for the unveiling of Bhutan’s “great thangka“. In my zombie state, I stumbled out of bed.

The thangka wasn’t going to be revealed for another hour but already, lines of Bhutanese pilgrims snaked down every street in town, merging to follow the river, and then move up the hill to Paro Dzong.

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Hitching a ride to Paro tsechu

Mar 26 2011 under bhutan | 1 Comment

We started off early, before dawn. I was hitching a ride with a UNICEF vehicle that was making a morning run to the airport. My friend Jake, a journalist with NPR who I’ve mentioned before, was catching the same free ride. Jake was on his way out of the country. I was on my way to Paro for tsechu, an annual Buddhist festival held each spring.

I’d been trying to get out of Thimphu for weeks, dying for a short break from the city. And when Jake told me about his free ride to Paro and I realized I could catch the last two days of tsechu, I figured I had my weekend getaway.

Once in Paro, locating a room wasn’t easy; a sizable chunk of the country makes the pilgrimage to the small town for tsechu. But after a couple of hours and a self-guided tour of practicably the entire town, I found a cheap enough little guesthouse. Bucket showers and no hot water, but a bed.

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