Category: Countries

Over the past year and a half, Marie has regularly come home from work, frustrated with stupid management style and government policy. I’ve had to tell her that it isn’t any better in the rest of the world. We all have the same complaints, though I’ve come to realise just how lucky I’ve been with… Continue reading Tea bags prove Bhutanese management like corporations

Bhutan has only had TV and internet since 1999, but they’ve taken to technology like stray dogs to a meat shop. One prime example is kuzuzangpo.com, a web forum for writers in or about Bhutan. I recently found out that it’s run by a young Bhutanese man studying in Bangkok, and has members throughout Bhutan… Continue reading Thimphu Writers Meet for first time

Recently, when I’ve walked out of our flat in the evening, there’s been a young girl sitting on the steps outside our door. She lives upstairs, but I guess there’s no room in the attic flats to study, so she brings her notebooks down and sits there to read them. This morning, Marie and I… Continue reading Exam time in Bhutan

Karma’s friend came with me this morning to see the Regional Transport Officer, which may or may not have helped. The RTO scanned my letter, scribbled dates on the page, checked his calculator, reminded me that I now owed 16,200 Nu, which included one month free and then offered a reduced fee of 4500. It… Continue reading A Ransom Paid; Confusion Caused

We leant our car to Sam, a visiting FAO consultant, for the weekend and he was stopped by police. They probably recognised that he wasn’t the usual driver, because even at the official checks, they wave me through and only ever ask Marie for her license – probably just so they can talk to her… Continue reading Registration for Ransom

It started out as a bike ride to Chelela, one of the highest passes on the road and to our west. It ended up as a ride down to Tsirang in the south of Bhutan. Carolyn, a fellow Aussie is dating a bloke called Kinzang who was posted there a year ago. Now he lives… Continue reading South

After so long that I can’t count the months, perhaps 8, we have chicken again. Most of the chicken in Bhutan is imported from India. That includes the day old chicks that are grown for laying eggs. As soon as there were confirmed cases of bird flu in India, Marie’s department closed the border for… Continue reading Chicken!

We’re lucky enough to have our own washing machine. It wasn’t always like that. We used to spend about five hours each week washing by hand and we still wore everything three days in a row to reduce the workload. Even most of those who have machines have the split washer / spinner type that… Continue reading Holy Smoke

I came home for lunch today, having forgotten my wallet. My favourite restaurant would have been happy to put lunch on my account, I’m sure, but something drew me home. It was no real surprise then, to find our landlord, one of the most respected men in the country, chopping meat in our car park.… Continue reading Shameless Meating

Something like 80% of Bhutan’s export revenue comes from power. The huge amounts of water coming off the mountains is easily converted to power with a little diversion and a drop of almost a kilometre before rejoining the main river. But today a Canadian joined us at rock climbing and he’s working on a problem… Continue reading Winter power problems