Today I put on my big mountain boots because it is so cold inside the buildings and it was wonderful to have warm feet all day. It looked kind of stupid though with my long summer skirt and mountain boots but who cares ;-) I am still eating the antibiotic pills and I am starting to feel quite normal again. Saturday is my last day on pills.

The principle of the school brought us a new SIM card today to the data card and I was very excited - couldn't wait to get back home! Alas - it is still not working. I keep getting an error message that I can't connect to the remote computer :-( I will ask the Master Trainers and see if they can fix it.

Today we were not the only guests at the hotel - there were 3 more guests: a gentleman from Switzerland who is here to help the Bhutanese solve the problem with the youth unemployment (10.000 young people younger than 25 are unemployed here) and 2 Bhutanese men from some ministry.
We are surrounded by nature here and sometimes it feels like time is standing still - it is a funny feeling!

On Saturday both Aksel and I were teaching in the morning - till 12.30 - in my class we talked a lot about Milgram's experiment with obedience to an authority and everybody found it very interesting - and maybe a bit challenging since respect for authorities is a big thing in the Bhutanese culture. In the end we concluded that respect and obedience is not the same thing.

After lunch we all went on a trip up the mountain - 4500 meters (14800 feet). All the master trainers and some from Aksel's class went along and we drove off in the institute's bus, singing and telling jokes and having a good time. Bhutanese people have a lot of humor and I find that very attractive :-) The monastery we were to visit is hanging on the cliff high up when we look at it from the hotel so I was happy we had the bus. After visiting the first temple we climbed up a little higher to another one. It was very steep and even though it didn't take more than 10 minutes or so I had to stop several times on the way up to catch my breath. The air is pretty thin in this altitude.

The master trainers wanted to climb to the top of the mountain - it was supposed to be a very holy place and on the way they were to climb a very big rock. If you can do that it means that you will fulfill all the wishes and expectations of your parents. Later I saw pictures of how they fought to climb it - sometimes pushing and lifting each other to get to the top. It looked very difficult! It was a long climb also - it took them 2 hours to get to the top and back again. And even the master trainers had problems with the thin air, they told me. Actually they were surprised that Aksel and I didn't get a headache or vomited when climbing up, they said!

Aksel, one of the master trainers and I decided to wait at the temple and Rinzin, the master trainer, told us the story about the 6 boys from Thimphu, who went on a picnic to a nearby holy lake. They ate their food and threw the garbage into the lake. This made the deity of the lake very angry and she made a dense fog spread around the lake and the area around it. The boys could see only one path ahead of them so they followed it but alas - after a couple of hours they realized that they had lost their way in the forest, which is huge. They wandered through the forest for a month living from berries, plants and roots. 2 of them died during that month but at last the resisting 4 arrived at Paro - 50 km (31 miles) from Thimphu. This is a true story and they have made a film about it here in Bhutan. De 4 boys are grown men today, still living in Bhutan, and they still remember the experience - and I think they'll never throw garbage at holy places anymore!

While we were waiting it started raining and it became rather cold so we went down the mountain to the bus - hoping it would be a little warmer further down ;-) We saw several small houses close to the monastery and people were living in them. This must be a very isolated place to live - high up the mountain - without any central heating and only with a small gravel road leading to small villages at the foot of the mountain - just like the monks at the monastery. It must extremely cold in the winter!

After the trip on the mountain we were supposed to take a "hot stone bath" in the forest close to the school. You have a big tub and pour water into it, and then you warm some big silicon stones (which there are many of here) in the fire and throw them into the water. Now it is ready for 2 or 3 people to take a bath for about half an hour - it is supposed to be very hot but very healthy! It was a little after 6 pm when we came down from the mountain and Aksel and I were both tired (and I was reflecting on how I would be able to bathe naked with 25 Bhutanese men around me!) so we declined politely and were brought back to the hotel. We had a nice dinner and Aksel bought 2 bottles of Druk 11000 (a very good Bhutanese beer) and after that we went to bed and got a good night's sleep!