DAY TOURING THIMPHU, SMALLEST CAPITAL, ONLY ONE WITH NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS!
JAN. 11, 2016

After breakfast, we headed for the Memorial Chorten, for World Peace/ also Memorial to the 3rd King, Jigme Dorji,Wangchuck, the father of modern Bhutan,  who died unexpectedly at 44 of a heart attack in 1972. The new king was only 16! and He's been king until 2006 when he turned 60 and abdicated in favor of his son, who is now 35 and expecting the Crown Prince next month! It'll be a big celebration.

People stop by this memorial stupa maybe on their way to work/ some spend the whole day there circumambulating for World Peace or whatever. He showed us the beads they carry - 108 of them (like a rosary) with 5 strings with extra beads extending out for hundreds, thousands, millions, etc. of prayers! Some were prostrating (sliding on a board facing the stupa down to "touch the earth."

KuZuZang PoLa - means hello in Bhutanese; or KuZu for Hi!

Then we headed uphill to the largest seated Buddha in the world, being built originally at a cost of $10 million but now escalated to $100 million! None paid by the government; all by private sponsors from Singapore and Hong Kong. When the king asked why they would do this, when they wouldn't get a penny of revenue back from this, their answer was to show "compassion for Mahayana Buddhism." So the government gave the land. It's 169 Ft. tall and weighs 600 tons! It's made of bronze and came in pieces to be welded together here. The statue has the "third eye" that stands for wisdom and contains diamonds. The whole thing and the tile around the stupa has gold gilt. It's called Buddha Varja, or the Thunderbolt Buddha, showing its indestructibility. In the front is a thunderbolt.

Gold trim on the Buddha monument

Decorations around the sides

I really liked C Ring's simile on religion; it's like a pyramid and you are climbing up your side, not seeing the other three sides that are also climbing - all reaching the top for God or Nirvana! No one side is the right side to climb! 80% of Bhutanese are Buddhists, 5% Christians and 10% Hindus.

Piece of Buddha from below

Detail of embroidery in Textile Museum

Construction of possibly a monastery next to the Buddha statue

new building with bamboo scaffolding going up in Thimphu

Thimphu holds the Guinness Book of Records for planting 49,000 trees by 100 people in 1 hour! The 4th King in his coronation speech announced the policy of Gross National Happiness, instead of emphasizing Gross National Product.  The four pillars of this are:
     -Good Governance
     -Preservation of culture
     -Conserving the environment
     -Sustainable development

Largest sitting Buddha in the world

There is NO mountaineering in Bhutan. Mountains are considered sacred. But there is a famous Snowman Trek - that takes 30 days, going up to 16,000-17,000 ft., considered the most difficult.

Marriage:  King #4 has 4 wives, all sisters that he married at the same time. They each have a palace. So there is polygamy AND polyandre (new word for me, more than one husband). This is a matriachal society, meaning the money and land is passed down through the daughters. So that property wouldn't be split up, they would marry ALL the sisters so it stays together. Nowadays it's not so common but still allowed. BUT the wife or husband has to AGREE to the extra marriage partner, or it's illegal! Sounds like a good plan to me!! :)

My room at the Kisa Hotel

4th King on right, 5th King on left middle back. 4 wives of 4th king, two on each side of Kings in back row. Rest of family and one grandson from a daughter of the King.

This was the Prime Minister on the plane with us yesterday. Very friendly!

The National Library was next, that contained books only in Bhutanese or Sanskrit. But it contained another Guinness World Record, the LARGEST book in the world, a gift from MIT. It was a photo journal of Bhutan.

prayer flags on the hillside

On to the paper making factory, where paper is made from the pulp made from the daphne tree, all done by hand except for pressing the water out once the sheets are made. First, ladies soak the fibers for 24 hours in cold water. Then in hot for 4 hours to separate the fibers and sort for quality. Next it gets mashed in the pulp machine. The pulp is mixed with glue from some plant I can't remember, then poured into big vats and workers use bamboo screens to fill a rectangle, drain it. The sheets are piled into stacks of 300 (the required quota per day for the worker-the fast workers can finish that by noon and do another 200 for overtime pay!) and then put under the press and squeezed overnight. They are then separated and hung on a hot metal wall to dry. Sometimes flowers and other plants are pressed in. I bought some for Doug to do calligraphy on, and a scroll with an elephant painted on it for Sarah's elephant collection. Most interesting!

Press to squeeze water out overnight

Pulp vat

forming sheet with bamboo screen

Soaking the dapne strips

Last stop of the day was the Post Office where some of us had postage stamps printed with OUR photo on it! Pretty cool! And we bought postcards to mail them on! We did a bit of shopping in some small markets where I got a male and female doll dressed in the gho and the women's dress (can't remember name), a little purse of the beautiful textiles woven here, and a couple of woven bracelets.
I forgot we visited a Textile Museum where we saw beautiful costumes from the royal family and traditional weavings from the various tribes around the country.