And that abyss would be India. On arriving at the border Kaphel decided we’d just pop over to Jaigon, India to get my bus ticket to Darjeeling (plan A). ohmygod. The lonely planet has made a bit of an understatement when it describes the constrast in cleanliness and organization you experience when traveling to/from Bhutan & India. It is almost overwhelming. After switching to Hindi and discovering there is no direct bus from Jaigon to Darjeeling Kaphel and Thinley took me back to Bhutan (I don’t want to leave!) to try to get a ticket to Kalimphong, India at the Phuentsholing bus station (plan B). That too turned out to be a no-go so they took me to my home for the night, the very modern and spotlessly clean Lhaki Hotel. After we shared a pot of coffee they headed back over to Jaigon in India to see if they could get me a ticket to Kalimphong from the first bus station we visited (plan C). The place was intense and I am not looking forward to that ride but I am looking forward to the cool north of India where tea and cardamom plantations and mountain vistas await. Kaphel tells me it is chaotic and dirty but there is alot to see.

I kinda skipped over my dramatic journey to get to the border so I will fill you in. The Dorji boys and I left our hotel this morning just after 7:30 with an extra passenger, his best friend Tshering, a woman who owns a shop in Thimpu. We had to get an early start to catch the one hour when mountain road would be open. They are currently widening the road so it is closed most of the day. We arrived with about 20 minutes to spare and parked the car. As soon as the road opened we hopping into the car and took a spot at the back of the queue of cars only to have the first two through get in an accident. The word was that a policeman would have to come from Thimpu (a 45 minute drive) to document the accident and nothing could be moved until then. Thinley to the rescue. After hanging about for only about 10 minutes he decided he could fit the Toyota through the gap between the conjoined car & bus (with passenger barf visible on the sidewalls) that had the accident and the adjacent rock wall. Remarkably, he made it but only after folding the side-view mirrors in. The road work was wild to see: whole families working at breaking big rocks into little rocks. We’d seen Indian road-workers and their families all through Bhutan but this was the first time I saw children working alongside their parents.

The rest of our ride was fairly mellow with lovesongs of the 80s on the tape-deck and only a few holdups: another construction road-block & a government minister’s entourage spanning 10-20 cars.(i’m not exactly sure where his motorcade ended). The Bhutanese take their VIPs seriously. We picniced on the side of the road: potatoes, rice AND noodles. I kid you not. If you were to add bread, cauliflower and mushrooms you get an idea of what the past 10 days have been like, culinarily. I cannot wait to eat what I want, when I want.

Last night, Susan and I got to meet the owner of our tour company, a gracious and soft-spoken Bhutanese man named Pema. He told me he’d visited my website several times to view my art and had tons of questions for Susan. Despite the fact that he lives in a Buddhist country he has not had a personal meditation practice and was very interested in hearing about Susan’s brand of Buddhism. Although the dinner started out a little awkwardly we eventually got the conversation rolling and covered alot of topics including Bhutan’s approach to Buddhism, other religions, and toursim.

Susan and I parted this morning after a quick breakfast but she left me with earplugs, antiseptic wipes, pepto bismal, wholefoods raspberry/amond/chocolate trailmix, and a pair of warm socks (I destroyed mine on our potbellied stove in Bumthang in less than 30 seconds of trying to warm them up). It would have been fun to have some time for some free-form/non-tour travel with her. Some other time.

No pictures today as I’m just about out of Bhutanese Ngultrums. Next post from somewhere in India (Kalimphong or Siliguri, most likely).

Sue Borchardt in Phuentsholing, Bhutan. February 25, 2006 at 4:36 p.m. where it’s 80 degress.

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