One People, Many Cultures

I don’t have many opportunities to test customer service in the private sector, but the experiences I’ve had have all been frustrating. The first was when my new laptop hard drive crashed. I didn’t know it was the hard drive – it looked more like BIOS and the support staff on the phone agreed with… Continue reading Customer Service?

I’ve just finished watching Krrish, a bollywood film about a boy with extraordinary abilities who grows up in the mountains where he can’t be exploited. The isolation and his grandmother’s love keep him honest and pure hearted. When he meets the gorgeous Priyanka Chopra, he follows her to Singapore where he dons a mask and… Continue reading Bollywood Superheroes

My little brother and I have never been close. While I wanted to learn languages, get out in nature and travel the world to see the way people from different cultures live, he wanted to hang around with his white Australia mates at home and smoke pot. He’s had a pretty tough life – always… Continue reading Back from Afghanistan

I’ve always loved mountains, though as an Australian, I’m easily pleased. Where I come from, 1000m is a mountain. So when I go to a place like Cochabamba in Bolivia and see a mountain at the end of every street, my mood is bouyed. Then I’ll visit a place like Grenoble in France and find… Continue reading Mountain Towns

A couple of months ago, while my parents and brother were here, the whole family went shopping at the market. Brady was looking for that useful souvenir that he could still carry on his travels, Mum and Dad were browsing and Marie ended up finding a necklace she liked. It looked African to me, but… Continue reading Treats

I pushed myself through writing 8 pages yesterday, when it turns out I should have been down watching the archery contest. While I sat here, I saw the owner of the recently blessed car pulling it all to bits. This car was being vaccuumed, scrubbed and polished to the state it had been before anyone… Continue reading Tool Love

I went to see a friend play in his band last night. It was a bit of a struggle because everyone seemed to be busy beforehand and if I’m home at 8pm, I’m home for the night. But I’ve never seen a Bhutanese band and Pelden is a great guy and known as a good… Continue reading Band

I took Marie to the airport on Sunday morning. It’s an early flight because Druk Air needs to get the plane up before the wind starts. Marie had spent a sleepless night worrying about all that she still needed to pack, what she would do with said bags for the 14 hours she was in… Continue reading Petrol problems

One of the best things about volunteering to help in a developing country is how much you can learn. Just because we’re here to give Bhutan the benefit of our years of experience and modern education, doesn’t mean that we’re better at everything than everyone here. I had this attitude when I was learning martial… Continue reading No help at all

As soon as summer began, a wave of new t-shirts appeared in Thimphu, Bhutan and in India with upbeat or humorous slogans. The most common is ‘Smile a lot, it costs nothing,’ but close behind that are ‘MBA: Master of Bad Activities’ and ‘I’m not totally useless. I can be used as a bad example.’… Continue reading T-Shirts