My Beloved Yak goes to London

How did I get to Bhutan?

Readers of this blog rightly asked how I had got to Bhutan. Here is my story:

I was working for the Levi Strauss Foundation when I came across with the London-based 'think and do tank' the New Economics Foundation. nef explores new ways of organizing our economic system as if people and the planet mattered. In 2006, nef published the first Happy Planet Index that was basically a list of countries in the world ranked according to happiness or unhappiness of their citizens. More precisely, the index combines environmental impact with human well-being to measure the environmental efficiency with which, country by country, people live long and happy lives. Bhutan, by the way, ranked 13. in the first and 17. in the second index published.

Through discussions with nef staff about the report and their work, I discovered Bhutan as the only country on earth where the government declared that GNH or Gross National Happiness was more important than GNP and GDP or Gross National / Domestic Product. That was very exciting and I tried to learn more about this approach to development.

In 2010, I was in London to attend a board meeting of the Resource Alliance that builds fundraising capacity of nonprofits across the globe. At the dinner that was organized for board and staff members, I got introduced to Dawa Dem, a new staff member who happened to be the first Bhutanese I had met. I got excited about the opportunity to discuss GNH with someone who actually lived in  the country. As I learned Dawa and her husband, Dr Karma Phuntsho, were associated with Bhutan's first registered charity, the Loden Foundation.

Meanwhile, I decided to leave the Levi Strauss Foundation after 12 great years and pursue new opportunities which meant that I suddenly had more time for volunteering. Given my interest in Bhutan and my acquittance with Dawa Dem, it made sense to explore if I could support Loden as a volunteer. The answer was positive and I got invited.

Voilà, that is the way I have got here to spend 9 weeks working with the leadership of Loden  and its network of young entrepreneurs as well as study GNH in practice, in other words: the everyday life in Bhutan. 

My project was made possible thanks to help and support of several people such as staff at nef; Prof. Laszlo Zsolnai promoting Buddhist economics; Dawa Dem, Dr. Karma Phuntsho, Gerard Tardy, Anne Tardy, and Dorji Tashi from Loden; the Bhutan government that issued my visa; and last, but not least my wife, Heni, and the rest of my family who have been supporting me in this adventure. I hope to give them back at least as much as they gave me.

Cleaning up, football game and prayer flags

Last weekend was about physical exercise. Saturday morning, I joined around 100 volunteers from the Royal Society for Protection of Nature, the Bhutan Olympic Committee, and one local recycling business, Greener Way. With the support of  the City, we cleaned up parts of the town alongside main roads for an upcoming international SAARC meeting. People agreed that it is not good practice to clean up the town for important meetings only and Thimphu urgently needs a waste management strategy to efficiently deal with its increasing solid waste that is becoming quite visible all over the place.

Passionate young entrepreneur, Karma Yonten, who started Greener Way together with his wife using a start up loan from the Loden Foundation is well aware of this emerging issue. He has not only started his unique and innovative business collecting and recycling solid waste, but his mission also includes advocating for change at all levels of society and the government. It seems to be timely for Bhutan to implement a waste management program with no delay before the garbage in the streets becomes a major concern for citizens and tourists alike. Community-based organizations like Greener Way are great partners for this endeavor.

Saturday afternoon, I joined a team of friends to play football against a team of policemen at the Police Camp. It was a serious game on a very rough, rocky pitch with referee and two assistants. I really enjoyed playing, although it was tough for me ! 90 minutes played in  midfield at this altitude with strong sun first and then with sudden cold was a challenge. I survived, but our team lost. Actually, they have never won against the police yet. Next time !

Sunday I walked up to a nearby peak from 2400m to 3000m altitude. The view was great, I could see the whole valley. Along the road, playful blue, red, green, yellow and white prayer flags in the wind cheered me up whenever I got tired.



Thimphu center from the Telecom Tower hill



Prayer flags blessing Thimphu and hopefully the hikers

There are two basic types of flags: horizontal ones on ropes and vertical ones on poles

Prayer flags are also blessing street dogs who wanted my food

 

Ema, Shamu and Kewa Datshi = one nice family

Most Bhutanese love spicy food with sun-dried green and red chillies. The favorite dishes among others are Ema Datshi (chilli with local cottage cheese), Shamu Datshi (mushroom with cheese and chilli), and Kewa Datshi (potatoes with cheese and chilli). I have tasted them all, they are good. They use a sort of semi-dry local cottage  cheese (cow), except when served for tourists with imported Indian cheese.

Popular beverages include simple hot water, suja (salted butter tea), ara (home made spirit), and beer. I have tried them, they are good, too. The hard one is the butter tea for the first time, because your brain expects a tea and then you drink a salted soup. Once one got used to it, it is an excellent drink in a cold day.

Some readers asked for the recipe of Kewa Datshi which I also made some days ago. It is, in fact, quite simple:

Kewa Datshi recipe

• potatoes
• Bhutanese cheese (semi-dry cottage cheese or any white cheese that melts easily)
• chopped red onions  and, if you want, tomato
• oil
• salt
• red or green chilli (quantity according to your tolerance)
• rice, if you want to eat more than the potato

Cut potatoes into smaller pieces. Put the potatoes along with the chilli, some oil and salt in a saucepan or pot. Add some water and boil it. You don't want too much water in this dish, but don't let it dry up completely neither. You can add some chopped onions and tomatoes to taste. Cut the cheese into small pieces and when the potato is almost cooked, add the cheese to well melt and mix. Soon it is ready. You can serve it with rice if you wish.

A big bottle of beer or hot water is a must to compensate the chilli feeling.

You can make a box office movie for $35,000

I went to see my first Bhutanese movie. A few years ago, Indian and American movies attracted most people to the country’s few movie theatres. Today, only local films are screened and local producers are queuing for airtime with their completed movies. Making a movie requires the investment of around $35,000.

Thimphu has two cinemas that screen films once in each weekday and twice in weekends in local language, Dzongkha. Popular movies tend to last longer than 2.5 hours with lots of music and a 15-minute popcorn and bio break in the middle. Art movies, like in other countries, often deal with issues like drug abuse, gender inequalities, environment or unemployment.

This time I saw a pop movie that was shot in London and Bhutan with two young actors in the story who return to Bhutan from a long stay in London under the influence of Western culture to discover the traditional Bhutanese life in the countryside. It was not the best ever, but great fun for me.

Based on this movie and what I read about mainstream Bhutanese movies, here are a few general rules for them:

1.   There is always a love story in the film.

2.   A moment of happiness or sadness is immediately followed by a song and dance sequence. These songs are shot either at mountain tops, river banks or  tea gardens and as the music plays on, at some moment, the actor and actress running towards each other in slow motion.

3.   If the story is set in rural Bhutan, there is a ‘night hunting” scene. Don’t you know what it is? I will tell you later, but it is something between men and women …

4.   There must be a dwarf in the film whether it is necessary or not.

5.   In every film, there is Phurba Thinlay as the funny man. He is Bhutan’s most popular comedian. He’s really funny.



The nation's funny man



As I said: Thimphu is small. One of the actresses in the film, Kezang D Wangmo, happened to be my local colleague’s wife and I was invited to their home after the show. I was served excellent chili food, hot water which is very common here, and a bit of local spirit: ara.

The day after, I just entered a DVD rental place (50 Ngultrum for a DVD per day, $1.25) and I bumped into one of the leading characters of last night. I couldn’t resist to contributing to the emerging celebrity culture and asked him for a picture.



Movie stars



Thimphu's two cinemas. I went to the new one.



Small country with many interesting people

In Bhutan, there are 670,000 inhabitants, around 100,000 of whom live in Thimphu, the capital, where I'm based. During my four days walking around I realized how small the town is. Here is a list of few interesting people I accidentally met, got introduced and had a chat with:

• John Collett, Water Sanitation and Hygiene Specialist working for the Ministry of Health. John gave a few valuable advices about hygiene and invited me to an upcoming event at a center supporting drug abusers.
• Alain Duhaut, advisor to the General Manager of Drukair, the national airlines. He introduced me to the restaurant scheme in the city. He's French, so one would expect such advise from him :)
• Tashi Dorji, General Manager of the National TV Department who was buying local tomato before me and then kindly explained how to prepare them.
• Sangay Tshering who has recently started his business, Mops&Condoms. I met with him in Ambient Cafe and he turned out to be one of the young entrepreneurs who has received loan and support from the Loden Foundation where I am volunteering. You will read more about what his Mops&Condoms is all about in my future posts.
• Khenpo Tashi, an international Buddhist teacher, curator of Bhutan’s national museum, and friend of the royal family. We were sitting at the same table at a small restaurant that has pizza and goulash on the menu. He and his friends were kind enough to speak English with one another so that I could follow the conversation.
• Sofie de Roos from Gent, Belgium working for RENEW, a local nonprofit that supports battered women.
• Andre Brantz from Canada consulting for the United Nations and spending a few days here.
• Kunzang Norbu from the Tourism Council of Bhutan who briefly spoke about key ethical principles followed by the government when strategically and gradually developing tourism.

What a fascinating group of people! I have decided to get back to most of them and learn more about their life in Bhutan. Of course, I will post what they have to share with us.

DAY 2-4: Super strong chilli and super strong beer

One has to eat to survive. So over the weekend I started discovering what Bhutan has to offer food-wise. First, I went to a safe place: a nearby store where almost every product seemed to be a well-known brand made in neighboring India. I got my cornflakes, rice, milk, tea, instant coffee, and lots of local bottled water. One of the Bhutanese mineral waters is called Kurje Drupchu and its label celebrates the SAARC Summit (South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation) which was last year held, for the first time, in Bhutan. Imagine your favorite Evian bottle promoting the last G8 meeting held in your country and you immediately feel why Bhutan is a unique place.

Currently, I drink, cook, and wash my teeth only with this bottled water. It may be an exaggerated measure to avoid bacteria, but I can't afford becoming ill. I still have a lot to do.

On Saturday, I went to the weekend food market which is in a two-storey building in Thimphu center. Downstairs, again, every vegetable and fruit is imported from India and they are far from being organic. Upstairs, you find more or less the same products - except most fruits - from local farms with no chemicals in them.

In the evening, I had dinner at the Druk Hotel where I was the only guest due to off-season and renovation. I paid 400 Ngultrum ($10) for two great vegetarian dishes with Indian garlic nan bread and a bottle of 8% local beer labelled as Super Strong Beer. And I had an excellent conversation with two very friendly waiters, one of whom used to play football at school as a right winger and earns 5000 Ngultrum ($25) a month without tips.

If you wish, you can buy the original Druk 11000 label on Ebay for $4.

On Sunday, I stayed at home and tried to cook what I ate at the hotel: Kewa Datsi, the traditional Bhutanese potato, cheese and chilli meal.  Deviating from the hotel recipe designed for Western tourists, I decided to use local cheese, not Indian, and put a bit more chilli in it to make it HOT. I'm not sure if I followed the original recipe, but it was REALLY hot and I didn't have any super strong beer at home to kill the fire...

Landing in Paro is something to remember - VIDEO

DAY ONE: Flying from Nepal to Bhutan one can see the Mount Everest

The Mount Everest (Chomolungma) is covered by clouds rather than snow

 
 


Paro Airport is located in a valley at about 2300m altitude. On the billboard, there are the five kings of Bhutan (previous and current) welcoming visitors. Landing video will be uploaded soon!



Building roads is a hard job of Indian companies in Bhutan. The best one links Paro with Thimphu, the capital. Landslides and blocks are common. This one here is due to roadwork and did not slow us down too much.