Bhutan: People

Photos taken by Scott on his Bhutan trip 2012.

Prayer wheels in the clock tower square of Thimphu.

Each wheel has a different prayer or mantra.  This woman, wearing traditional attire and holding her prayer beads, is spinning each wheel.

Archery is Bhutans national sport.  We were lucky and caught a tournament on a Saturday morning in Thimphu.  Teams stand at opposite sides of the field, each shooting in the others direction at their target.

The playing field is 130 meters long.  Teams score points by hitting different areas of the target (the white board with a circle painted on it).

It's a colorful event and draws quite a few spectators. 

Quite a score for the shooting team!

It feels a bit like a slow-motion, long distance tennis match only with lots of showboating and shouting.

A very serious sport.

Just outside of Thimphu (the capital of Bhutan) you see traditional culture mixed with the 21st century: a child tied to her mothers back who is sending a text message.  Cell coverage is actually quite good too.

Bhutan has quite a problem with litter and trash.  Modern plastic packaging is still a rather new phenomenon in Bhutan. Most of the older generations are accustomed to banana leaf wrappers for their food and products, which decomposes quickly.  Potato chip bags and soda bottles do not.  Here a local school group is picking up litter.

A woman carrying her daily wares of cucumbers and chillies.  She's walked up from the valley and will set up shop along the side of the highway.  Yes, that's the highway.  She's also chewing 'doma', a combination of areca nut and lime, wrapped in a leaf that many Bhutanese chew, causing all sorts of mouth problems and makes so many of them look like they're wearing red lipstick, until they smile.

Bag of fresh green chillies any one?

A nice section of the highway on the way to Bumthang.

A quick pit stop for a typical snack: roasted mais.

A farmers market.  Very colorful and pleasant and bartering seems more like a fun pastime than a purposeful challenge.

Other drivers definitely blow their horns, but rarely kept their distance.

One of the road blocks we ran into.  Here, when a truck breaks down (as in this case), it can shut the entire highway down.  Fortunately for us, our driver was skilled and somehow got our truck through. (Don't look down.)

A Bhutanese staple.

A decorated shop window.

Bhutanese shops and homes are almost always covered in these elaborate, hand painted decorations.  I was told that all of the ingredients to the paint are locally produced, included the vegetable dyes.

We were lucky to watch a soccer match near Bumthang.  The Institute is the team on the right. 

Family and spectators.

The Bhutanese version of the Inter Milano soccer!

A local spectator.

Intermission.

Grandma and grandchild.  There is a baby bundled in the pink wrap, somewhere.

An orchid painted on the door of my hotel room.

Walking to the store for some ice cream in Bumthang.

Success.

Yak cheese drying in the sun.

This guy was quite insistent that we take his picture.  Maybe he was just really proud of his grandson.

The American-Italian invasion of Bumthang 2012.

A traffic jam on our way out of Bumthang.  It seemed like every car in Bumthang was here.  According to our driver, the police trying to organize the situation were "useless".

The cause of the traffic jam: the propane tanker was in town.  And, in case you couldn't see it, you could hear the synchronized clanking of lp tanks from far away.

These girls were playing (and contently doing so it seemed) on the side of the highway while their entire family (~10yrs and up) worked to fix the road.

I was talking to her.

Our driver Sonam negotiating a deal on some cucumbers (during some road construction).  Whatever was being said, it must have been funny and effective; he walked away with five.