Last year it generally rained at night, leaving beautiful sunny days. This year it’s been raining many days, but never too hard. Not much harder than what we called ‘Brusseling’ – the rain that hangs in the air like a mist. But a couple of times this year, I’ve felt the power of a monsoon rain. Once I mentioned briefly about a month ago. The other was Sunday afternoon.
For only one hour from about 6pm, water poured from the sky, collected in the Himalayan valleys and rushed down the rivers. I went out just as it was finishing to meet a friend in town for dinner. Everything seemed normal until I reached the street below ours. It was ankle deep in fast flowing water and traffic was stuck, dodging large rocks that had washed down the creek from our street to this one. I stepped into the water, glad I’d thought to wear my sandals, and felt the water rush up to my knees in the effort to knock me over. Once across the street, I found that the street leading down the hill had turned into a waterfall and was carrying the rocks all the way to the bottom.
Yesterday, when I came down to work, I found that the water had cleared, but the lower streets were deep in mud, rocks and the rubbish that had been forced out of the drains. Indian workers were clearing it all up, pushing it all into piles then onto trucks to be taken away. It’s a shame that Bhutanese people have the opinion that because they’ve been to school, they’re above such manual labour. But then it gives jobs to Indians, so I shouldn’t complain. For my part, I’m glad I’ve had the chance to experience a Himalayan Monsoon and I’m glad it hasn’t rained like this for days, or even months as it’s known to do in the south of India. Thimphu would be somewhere down near Phuentsholing if that happened.