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 with Ugyen, the brother of my office mate and the policeman in charge of the Tsirang checkpost. They’re both friends with Pemba, the son of the family we used to live under, who is managing part of a big power project down there.
Marie had been trying to pull out of the trip since I suggested going with Michelle, another Aussie, to see the gang. Her excuse was the amount of work she has to do and the stress that’s causing her. All the more reason to get out in the fresh air and exercise for a couple of days, I said. Even that sounded pretty lame when we woke to rain yesterday morning. Somehow, I managed to drag her along.
Due to the distance (known only from the long straight line on the map in the front of the Lonely Planet), we put the three bikes in a taxi and were driven over Dochula to the Wangdue checkpost on the tropical side of the pass. The road was generally downhill, much fewer bends than usual, and through beautiful scenery with aqua rivers at the base of lush green mountains. Some hillsides so steep that tree branches seemed to dig into the soil in an effort to stop the tree from falling over. And then there was the drizzle, but that didn’t really bother us.
We made the Tsirang checkpost by 2:40 and chatted with the police for a while. One of them asked the usual question, ‘where’s your guide.’ I gave my usual response, ‘I’m the guide,’ which got the usual laughter. Marie took it to the next level, by telling them that I was from Lunana, a village at about 5000m and 3-4 days walk from the nearest road. ‘You’ve never been to Lunana, have you. They all have blue eyes and blonde hair because of the altitude.’ This was good enough to be translated into Dzongkha and passed around the whole station. I’m sure it was repeated to the next 20 travellers that passed through.
Carolyn was meant to meet us at the checkpoint but we decided to push on up the hill to Damphu which sounded like a 3 hour ride. We met Carolyn coming the other way in her little Alto before the climb really started and Michelle put her bike in for a luxury arrival. This was meant to be our weekend together, so I pushed on to find Marie. By the time I caught her (only because she was waiting for me) the now torrential rain had soaked us through and showed no sign of abating.
No problem. We had a hotel room booked and it could only be another 2 hours to the top.
2 hours later, there was no blood flow to my legs and Marie was stopping more often to let me catch up. Just when I was about to fail even in granny gear, Carolyn and Kinzang turned up in his work truck and helped me throw it in the back. There were still 15 steep km to go. Marie wouldn’t join me. ‘I said I was going to the top, so I’m going.’ I knew that if I stopped her, she’d insist on doing the return trip the next day and I was just as sure that my arse couldn’t take another day on the old fashioned bike seat.
Kinzang leant me some spare clothes and the hotel promised to send up a bucket of hot water to bathe in, since the taps in the room weren’t running. That also meant that the squat toilet was full of shit that couldn’t be flushed. When the water arrived after half an hour of shivering, it was too hot to even put a finger in, so I had to wait for it to cool.
Marie arrived before that happened, shaking from her fear of getting lost in the misty darkness and the dogs that followed her, but triumphant at having completed her goal. We got a bucket of cold water and scooped a mix of both buckets over us to warm up. It was a relief to be in our clothes borrowed from our hosts and into their living room, sipping whisky and chatting. Ugyen had claimed some of the chicken newly imported and made us a delicious dinner of chicken curry, ema datshi, rice and dahl.
His house is decorated with pictures of the royal family and him in his finest police dress – receiving a medal on behalf of all militia a couple of years before, in one. Kinzang doesn’t appear anywhere, but Ugyen showed us a patch of wall he’d left for anything Kinzang cared to put up. Conversation carried us through until 10pm when 3 exhausted chilips asked to be taken back to the hotel.
This morning dawned clear and beautiful. Michelle got up in time to see the distant snowy peaks glowing red in the dawn light. We missed that by minutes, but caught the sun settling onto the King’s guest house and the weekend market being laid out. Pemba picked us up and took us to his house for breakfast where he told us how much he liked working for his dad, how he was saving up to buy cars for his sisters and how happy he was that his younger sister was able to sleep until noon and enjoy partying with her friends because of the good work he was doing there. And he meant it.
Despite the weather, we took a taxi all the way back to Thimphu, stopping to take pictures of the scenery that had been washed out the day before and to chat to the police at the checkpoints. Dochula was in a rare gay mood, shedding its mist to reveal an expanse of tall snow capped mountains. A fitting end to a great weekend.