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Tuesday Aksel and I had an audience with the Honorable Minister. I had one on my 2 earlier trips here but it is always quite an experience. There are certain rules to follow when visiting the Minister and I am sure I don't know all of them yet ;-) One thing is that we never speak unless the Minister asks us something, and another that we don't turn our back to the Minister. We got a nice cup of tea and talked about our mission here and what we will accomplish. The Minister is a very kind man and even though we probably don't follow the rules he doesn't get offended - he has been to Denmark twice and knows that our culture is different in many ways. Our Bhutanese colleagues are VERY polite when visiting the Minister together with us.
Aksel went out to see some more building sites and some water cleaning and I worked on the education for counselors. At lunch Carsten, Aksel and I all went to the Khang for lunch and poor Carsten had got a very bad cold. But despite this he brought us a home baked rye bread to take with us to Bumthang, which is another part of Bhutan - the area where the plumbing institute is situated and the same place where I am to conduct my second course with the Master Trainers. They say it is very beautiful so I look forward to this. Karma Dorji told us to be ready at 7 am Wednesday morning because there is some road construction going on right now and the road to and from Thimphu will close for an hour or two, and then be open for an hour or two, etc. during the whole day and we want to get through before they close it at 8 am. The management at the Khang was very kind and agreed to make us some breakfast at 6.30 even though they normally don't open the restaurant till 7 am.
So Wednesday morning we got up very early (5.15 am) to take a shower, pack the rest of our things, eat some breakfast and be ready for 7 am. 5 minutes to 7 we were ready to go with our entire luggage packed. Guess what happened? We waited…… and waited ……. and waited and at 7.25 I called Karma Dorji and asked where he was and when he was coming? He explained that they were delayed at the Ministry and were packing the car. We would be picked up in half an hour! "But what about the road construction?" I asked. "We'll try to get there in time," was the answer and I wondered how he could even THINK that we were going to make it. Very Bhutanese time planning ;-) Karma and the driver arrived a little before 8, we packed the already full car with our 3 suitcases and smaller bags, climbed into the backseats and finally we were on our way to Bumthang.
I must admit that the driver did his best to get to the road construction fast - 1 hour's drive from Thimphu. He went as quickly as he could on the narrow, winding mountain roads, passing several big trucks and other vehicles and we reached the place at 10 minutes to 9 - just to find it closed. There was a sign telling us that it would open at 10 o'clock :-( But hey we are not in Denmark; we are in Bhutan, so Karma and the driver did their best to persuade the guardto let us through NOW. After a few minutes of talking and begging the guard picked up his cell phone and talked to somebody, then opened the gate and let us through - and all the big construction machines just stood still waiting for us to pass :-) This is also Bhutan!
The trip to Bumthang was amazing! We drove 245 km (152 miles) in 10 hours and passed 3 mountain tops. (It also took us 10 hours to fly from Copenhagen to Bangkok!) We met lots of cows using the same road as us and going up the mountain. They are definitely not scared of cars and we had a difficult time passing in between them. But here we love animals and take care of them so we were very patient with all the cows. In one place it wasn't cows but wild yak oxen on the road - they were not scared of the car either and I rolled down my window and took a picture of one of them. The landscape is incredible with wild rhododendron trees all over - pink and red. They looked so pretty. Of course the mountains are amazing, too. We stopped on the way and looked back to see a distant mountain which we had passed earlier in the day and I can't describe the mountain roads going right and left, sometimes in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go but in the end they lead us to Chumey, a small town in the middle of nowhere. Here we were brought to Chumey Nature Resort, a very beautiful little hotel with small cottages, which will be our home for the next 19 days. It is close to perfect - the only thing we miss is an Internet connection! But they say there is a good one at the school. We hope so.
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Mihaela Oh for the love of all that is holy, you are THE. BEST. I want to say 1,000 wonderful thngis about this (I tried a bit of haggis once. I can't remember it, but I do know the thought of it makes me want to cry for baby Jesus. And blood sausage? Really? I mean, is that really necessary?) lovely blog entry, but my brain is fried. Fried! Work.Stress.Life.Marrying "that foreigner" as we call him has been such an eye (read heart) opening experience. And we're from relatively similar cultures! I often wonder how loving Namgay and Bhutan has ripped your world open. Mostly Mark has taught me the fine art of gratitude. My American-ness sometimes feels like a never ending cycle of want and greed. My husband experiences joy and gratitude over thngis I normally dismiss. It cracks my heart open. I need to shut up because I'm rambling like a crazy person.