The Bulldozer

The day we left for the Haa Valley was bright and sunny. I was looking forward to driving over the 12,500 foot high Chele La Pass. The road to the Valley took us south from Thimphu, Bhutan's capital. At Chhuzom it split off. One fork went south to Phuentsholing and the border with India. The other took us into the Wang Chu valley and then Haa. It was open and lightly trafficked. I was relieved that we wouldn't have to face anything like the traffic jam from Paro to Thimphu. I was feeling relieved too soon. A man, a Nepalese road worker in full jumpsuit and fuller brush moustache, flagged us down. The road ahead was blocked by a landslide. We were not to worry, he said. He was going for the earth mover. Where on earth is he going to find an earth mover out here in the middle of almost nowhere? I wondered.

I got out of the van and walked toward the blockage. All I saw were a few stones in the road. This is nothing, I thought. We can move these ourselves. Then I turned the bend. The entire side of an overhanging cliff had broken off and tumbled into the road. There was no way we could get around this. This was a major catastrophe. We'll be here all day, I thought. Maybe even all night.

Namgey backed the van down onto a side slip. We waited. After a few minutes I heard a rumble. A huge bulldozer lumbered into view. I felt like a character in an American Wild West movie. I'm in a fort being besieged by marauders. At the moment of despair I heard the bugler sounding charge.

The driver of the bulldozer was the same Nepalese man in the jumpsuit, the one with the dark moustache. Somehow he conjured up a bulldozer on a narrow road leading up the Wang Chu Valley where there was hardly enough room for two cars, let alone an earth moving machine. Like Santa Claus he went right to his work. He started with the small stuff, nimbly dumping it over the cliff to the left of the road. Then came the big stuff, one, in particular, a giant boulder that had crashed down right smack in the middle of the road as if to say, Move me if you dare.

The driver, mirabilus dictum, moved it. He was a virtuoso with that machine, driving the blade under the boulder until it caught, then revving the engine while the boulder fought back, lifting the entire right rear end of the bulldozer off the ground. The driver backed off for another assault and then another and another until, amid the cheers of the crowd that had gathered, he sent the massive stone toppling over the road edge to its green grave in the valley far below. I raised my fist to him in a power salute. He saluted back, his bright, white teeth shining in his face like the moon in a dark sky.

Namgey drove the van up to where we'd been standing. I got back in, flushed with the excitement of the battle I'd just witnessed. "That was amazing, Namgey!" I said. "Have you ever seen anything like it?"

"Yes," said Namgey, and moved us on up the road toward Haa.

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The Royal Grandmother

A few weeks ago I visited the palace of Her Royal Highness Phuntsho Chhodon, the second Queen of Bhutan. After her husband's, the second king's death, she was known as the Royal Grandmother. The palace is high up on a mountain outside Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. A blue pine forest, an apple orchard and a Buddhist temple surround it. The Royal Grandmother wasn't home. She had died four years ago at the age of 92. For forty-nine days after her death the Bhutanese made a pilgrimage to this palace to pay their final respects.

The Royal Grandmother had a lifetime companion. The daughter of that companion is a friend of ours. That is why we were able to visit the palace. It is not open to the public. As we approached the gate, I heard barking. My friend said, "Wild dogs are a problem. They roam the streets in packs. Sometimes they attack people." Just then two dogs appeared on either side of the gate, glanced at us, and to my relief, veered off down the mountain.

Although the gate was more ceremonial than functional, stepping through it was like stepping-if not into another world-then out of this one. It was raining hard. A curtain of water spilled off the winged roof into a concrete channel twelve feet below it with mathematical precision. It was as if the roof and the channel were part of an elaborate fountain. Inside the palace, covered with a golden shawl, was a four-foot high solid jade statue of the Buddha. The face was painted gold. Next to the statue a monk in a red robe sat crossed legged on a mat reciting passages from a sacred text. Incense filled the room. It was as if the statue were chanting. Nearby, by order of her son, the bed in which the Royal Grandmother had died looked as if it had just been made.

My mind kept returning to the dogs. They were everywhere in Bhutan, including the Royal Grandmother's palace. Why? Because the Bhutanese value all forms of life, even those that are a nuisance. The idea of exterminating them just doesn't compute. Evidence of this habit of mind is everywhere. In the fields where crops are growing one sees tiny thatched huts. Farmers spend the night in these huts to chase away deer, wild boar, bear and, of course, wild dogs. They don't kill them. They clang pots together to frighten them away. If that doesn't work and the animals destroy the crops, the government reimburses the farmer. The government stands behind the view that all life is sacred. The idea is that one can't be happy unless everything alive is happy.

It is not surprising, then, that the Bhutanese government has decided that tallying the Gross Domestic Product of Bhutan-its GDP-must involve an assessment of the happiness of its people. Bhutan calls this Gross National Happiness. A countrywide poll was taken to see how well Bhutan was doing. 68% of the people said they were happy.

I recently read an article by Eric Weiner. It began, "What does the war in Iraq, the sale of cigarettes and the recent fires in southern California have in common?" The answer is: they all contribute positively to America's GDP. What, I wonder, would the GDP look like if our happiness were folded into the equation? As Robert Kennedy once said, the GDP measures everything except "that which makes life worthwhile."

Bhutan seems to have gotten something right, even if the barking of its wild dogs keeps you up at night.

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Gaylo, gati joem mo la?

The Buddhists believe the higher up you are the purer you are. That is why they build monasteries where eagles build nests. One of these monasteries, Tango, is perched on the side of a mountain 8,500 feet above sea level. Mercifully, the road comes within 1,000 feet of the gate. Then you have to walk. The path switches back and forth like a lion’s tail in the summertime, the air as thin as Oliver’s gruel. As I dragged myself up, monks from the monastery were tearing down the mountainside like antelope. They can make it up in 15 minutes. It took me well over an hour.

Halfway there I stopped a monk. Gaylo, gati joem mo la? “Monk, sir. Where are you going?”

“Down,” he answered, his interest piqued by a westerner addressing him in Dzongkha.

“I have a package for a monk who lives in Tango. His name is Jampal.”

“He is my roommate. He’s gone to town.” He answered in excellent English.

That is how Nancy and I came to be invited to tea in Uygen Tasho’s cell at Tango Monastery. The room, no bigger than a butler's pantry, could not have been simpler, just the barest of necessities for each of the four monks who lived there: a mattress, a shelf, a miniature desk. No television, no telephone. On the wall was a picture of the Buddha, a poster of Switzerland, and a number of calendars. There was one thing: the view from the cell window. Developers would pay an arm and two legs for it. It was of the blue pine covered mountains of the Thimphu Valley with the Wang Chu at the bottom wriggling its way like a silver snake toward the Thimphu Chu two miles away. Sitting in this cell, looking out that open window, it was hard to see how one could avoid serenity.

We talked a bit about my efforts to learn the language. I explained that I couldn’t find an English-Dzongkha grammar. One of Uygen’s roommates, Sonam, handed me a book. It was his high school text. He refused to take it back. He said it was a gift. I gave him a copy of my book, The Pond God and Other Stories. He gave me a wall hanging of the Buddha. In a gift war with Buddhist monks, it’s tough to fire the last shot.

Tango Monastery is famous for a number of things. It was built in the 13th century by the monk who introduced the Drukpa Kagyupa school of Buddhism into Bhutan. Tenzin Rabgye, the 4th Temporal Ruler of Bhutan, rebuilt it in 1688. It is also the residence of a fourteen-year old boy who is the re-incarnation of Tenzin Rabgye. When I gave my book to Sonam and Uygen, they asked me to send a copy to the re-incarnation. I have done that, suitably inscribed.

It is pleasant to know that my children's stories are in the library of the incarnation of the 4th ruler of Bhutan some 8,500 feet above the Wang Chu.

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