Bhutan
On September 14, 2001, three days after the horror of the World Trade Center, I received an e-mail from a dear friend in Bhutan, Tashi Tobden. I am copying Tashi’s message for you to read. I believe it is a message meant not only for me, but also for all of you.
Dear Elizabeth,
I am so sorry for I have taken so long to write you. I hope that all is well with you and your family. In light of Tuesday’s tragic events in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania, Bhutan honored and mourned with our national flag at half mast all over the country. All activities were remained closed and offered yak butter lamps at various monasteries and dzongs. The thoughts and prayers of everyone in Bhutan are with the victims, their families, the survivors and for the people who have been affected by this horrific event. We are really shocked sad for such inhuman act. I cannot express the pain and horror that I felt.
I have a special prayer on today’s prayer and remembrance day in US. May God protect us all.
Best wishes to you and your family.
Tashi.
One year ago I arrived in the Kingdom of Bhutan on one of the two airplanes operated by Druk Air, the national airline. There is only one airport in the country and the two airplanes fly back and forth constantly servicing Bangkok, New Delhi, Calcutta, Kathmandu and Dhaka. No other airline flies into Bhutan. The Bhutanese call their fleet “The little planes that could.” When I arrived last year, one of the planes was down for service.
As we banked over the runway in Paro, my first glance of Bhutan, out the tiny oval window, showed me a landscape of incredible beauty. The serenity and order of the country is, quite literally, reflected in its physical appearance. My comment to my travel companion was that I had just fallen in love!
This landlocked kingdom, which has only recently opened its doors to foreigners is roughly the size of Switzerland and sits in the eastern Himalayas. The entire country follows the gentle Buddhist faith. Magnificent temples and monasteries dating from as early as the 8th century pepper the country. The dzongs that Tashi mentioned in his e-mail are ancient, magical buildings, which still serve as seats of government but no longer as fortresses against invasions.
While I thought I had fallen in love with the beauty of the landscape in that first moment, I had no idea the depth to which Bhutan would affect me. In the weeks that followed and along the 160 miles I walked, there were faces of people, cloudscapes, extraordinary kindnesses and stories which enchanted and amazed me.
When I return from Turkey the end of October, I will share some of these stories with you. For the time being, I wanted to add a visual image to accompany Tashi’s e-mail.
The following photographs show masses of prayer flags which top every Himalayan pass the Bhutanese cross, their villages, and shrines which are found throughout the countryside. The Bhutanese are one with their faith and the presence of the prayer flags symbolize the reality and pervasiveness of their belief.
Nowhere in the world have I felt such a sense of peace and dedication to a way life as I felt in Bhutan. Before leaving the country, Tashi escorted my friend and I to an elementary school. The children were busy, before class, sweeping the schoolyard with hand made brooms. Their pride was evident everywhere. The school sits along a fast running river and adjacent to one of the oldest monasteries in the country. The picture below is Tashi standing in front of the wall of the monastery. Along the edge of the schoolyard, was an extensive garden, full of late summer blooms. A corner post in the garden captured the spirit of the country and its people, it read, “May Peace Prevail On Earth.”
The reason I wanted to share Tashi’s message with all of you, is that I know, the yak butter candles which burn in the monasteries in the high folds of the Himalayan mountains of Bhutan, are deeply heartfelt. Our pain is their pain also…I wanted you to know that those tiny flames burn brightly for all of us.
Elizabeth Rassiga
Photos and text © 2001
Tashi Tobden
Prayer Flags
Kitty napping under prayer wheel
Prayer flags in monastary courtyard
Prayer flags on pass
Corner post in schoolyard garden