Home » Bhutan » Punakha, Saturday the 6th of August

I wake to the sounds of water and the smell of wood smoke. After a couple of nights here, I no longer feel cut off from the world but protected from it and not particularly anxious to move away.<br/><br/>

After a short breakfast we made our way to the Â“sports areaÂ” of the city to see an archery match. Archery is taken terribly seriously here, so seriously that it is the national sport and every village, no matter how small, has an archery range.
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Punakha, Saturday the 6th of August

Degrubenc
2005-12-09 17:52:26

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of the team on that side start dancing and chanting in front of the target. If the arrow misses the target, then the opposing team dances and sings I front of the target, most probably confirming the previous allegations concerning the archers abilities. Once all the archers from one side have shot their 20 arrows, the sides are reversed and they become the target dancers.

The spectacle is entertaining and full of passion and life, it is a sport which the population as a whole takes part in. The city is full of archery shops and the newspapers relate all the latest archery events on their front page. The sport is lively, full of dancing, shouting, singing, jumping about; even Mr Nice, normally so reserved, is hurling ferocious abuse at one of the teams.

After this fun sporting morning, we take the car and make our way to Punakha, north east of Thimphu. The road goes past a large monastery on top of a high mountain, at the Dochula Pass. There is a restaurant at the foot of the monastery. We stop for lunch and I realise that this is where Mr Nice keeps his numerous girlfriends: every waitress seems to be on most intimate terms with him. I eat alone while he gets reacquainted with his past loves. After lunch he tells me that he will soon marry one, or maybe two, of the girls at the restaurant. He made a deal with his mother where she will choose him a wife and he will take another one himself. He is thinking of starting off with two wives and then deciding if it is worth taking a third and, maybe, a fourth. Polygamy is a fact of life in Bhutan. His Majesty the King has married 4 sisters; each has her own palace while He lives deeper in the woods, on the other side of town. I whish Mr Nice all future success with his many wives and before we know it, we have arrived at the monastery of Wangdiphodrang.

This monastery is dedicated to the god (or goddess) of fertility. This is clearly visible from the higher concentration ...