On My Trip to Bhutan

My recent trip to Bhutan in July of 2017 was the first time I was outside India.

Two of my friends had taken a direct flight to Paro, a city situated around 50 kilometers from Thimphu, and having Bhutan’s sole international airport. From there, they had gone on to the capital city where I was supposed to meet them. My love for bus journeys meant I opted for the considerably longer alternative and found myself at the Bagdogra airport, which is the airbase of this military camp situated near Siliguri in northern West Bengal, around noon on a Tuesday.

There are three entry points by road from India into Bhutan – Phuentsholing, Gelephu and Samdrup Jongkhar. Phuentsholing is the western-most entry point and is around 160 kilometers from Siliguri. I had planned to take a bus to Phuentsholing, hoped to reach there before 5 to complete the immigration formalities, cross the border and take another bus to Thimphu which is an additional 170 kilometers from there. Back in Delhi, I had given free reins to my optimism and somehow convinced myself that it was possible to cover those 330 kilometers from Bagdogra and reach Thimphu that same night, however late. My estimate, I later realised, was off by nearly fifteen hours.

On my bus ride from Bagdogra airport to the bus stand of Siliguri, from where I could take a bus on to Phuentsholing, I met a kind soul by the name of Abhishek. An architect based in Gurgaon but hailing from Jaigaon, the town on the Indian side of the border at Phuentsholing, Abhishek had come to drop off a visitor at the airport. After listening to the questions I was posing to the other passengers regarding the easiest way to reach Phuentsholing, he graciously offered to help.

The railway station of Siliguri is right next to its inter-city bus stand. As we got off the bus and moved towards the station, my rucksack caught the attention of a few taxi drivers and bus conductors who offered to take me to my destination. I declined all the offers with a smile as I and Abhishek snaked through the throng of people and reached the ticket counter.

We bought two tickets to Hasimara, the closest railway station to Jaigaon and situated around 15 kilometers from it. If you ever travel to this part of the globe, take a train. It will save you time, and also afford you the luxury of spectacular natural beauty, considerable parts of which have, thankfully, not yet been invaded by the road network. The three hour train journey was really beautiful as we crossed thick jungles, small villages and railway stations in areas with barely a dozen homes.

As I looked out the window at the pristine hilly forests, untouched and unhindered by human interference, I realized how remarkably different they looked from the ones I had observed in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh – two states in the far western reaches of the Himalayas – where unplanned construction and deforestation has led to the loosening up of mountain soil, leading to frequent landslides and naked rock faces stretching for miles – how tragically different from these free virgin forests that flourished with abandon!

By this time it was clear I would not be able to complete the immigration formalities on the same day. Abhishek, helpfully, arranged a room in the best hotel in that small town of Jaigaon for me.

Jaigaon shares three gates with Phuentsholing. These include two pedestrian gates, one each for entry and exit which are open from 7 am to 10 pm, and one gate for vehicles.

After having my dinner, I still had about an hour to explore the area so I crossed the gate and found myself in the marketplace of Phuentsholing.

You do not need any permit (in case of SAARC citizens) or a VISA to roam around in Phuentsholing – the gate is open for people of both sides to cross over. The first check point actually comes a few kilometers down the (only) road that connects this border town with the inner reaches of Bhutan. Consequently, had I wanted to, I could have spent my first night in Bhutan even without a permit!

For the next three quarters of an hour, I roamed in and around the market area, glancing at shops and observing the people. The roads were deserted at this time of the night, but only of vehicles – I could still see some people out and about. After wandering for some time, I found myself at an intersection from where one road sloped upwards and then veered off to the left about three hundred meters ahead, disappearing from my sight in its quest to reach Thimphu.

As I turned around to look at the center of that intersection, I saw two young females walking on the footpath on the left. Such a sight in New Delhi, at this time of the night and in a relatively deserted area, would have caused me utmost alarm. But, not here.

They walked as if they had nothing to worry about, or fear. The road was deserted, yet they looked safe, as if they were merely exploring a different part of their home. There was no sign of uneasiness, no quickened steps, and not a wrinkle of watchful alertness crowded their jolly faces.

They walked,
In that deserted street at ten in the night,
Hand in hand, word for word,
Gently pushing the pavement with abandon
And revelling in the force with which it pushed them back
For they used it to fly, to soar, in that lonely night
As angels,
Who have lost their way, but don’t want to return
To the confines of their homes,
For this street, empty and abandoned,
Is as warm as their home,
And they are free… to discover it
And gift this beautiful, solemn night,
The bliss of their company…

A solitary policeman was stationed at the intersection even at this time of the night. He was standing at the edge of the road, and as the two ladies approached him, they started to talk. I could not gather who started the conversation, but it continued long enough to convince me that they weren’t simply asking for directions. I nonchalantly glanced around and occasionally looked towards them. Their body language and occasional laughter exuded a sense of mutual trust and respect.

I wouldn’t have expected such a sight in my native city during the day, let alone in the dead of the night. As I walked towards my hotel with the image of the three of them imprinted within my mind, I noticed a few groups of females who were out for a walk on that cool and mildly humid night in the second week of July.

These first impressions were not aberrations. Far from it, they mirrored the Bhutanese society in all its simplicity, bringing out the familial bonding that pervades it, and the importance and respect it gives to its female members. I was to witness these strands again the following day on my way to Thimphu.

I reached the immigration office around eight thirty in the morning, completed the formalities and proceeded towards the taxi stand – a brisk five minute walk.

There are plenty of shared taxis available at this time of the morning, and owing to the distance they only leave once there are four passengers. Consequently I had to wait for nearly an hour and around ten, the car exited the parking lot, took a right and proceeded towards Thimphu.

A couple of kilometers into our journey, the driver of the cab asked for three bottles of water from a roadside stand. As the woman at the stall came and handed the girl sitting to his left the three bottles, he asked for two more as an afterthought. Instinctively, I linked the number of bottles with the number of people in the car, and silently appreciated him for keeping the duration of the upcoming journey in mind. It did not occur to me, at this point, why he had asked for just three in the beginning.

Just a few minutes before the driver had stopped, I had taken out a bulging packet from my bag – my mother had packed matris – kachauris stuffed with gram flour. As I opened the pack, I saw there were eight of them – far too many for me to eat. As the car started moving towards our destination, I offered them to the other passengers and to the driver, all of whom gratefully refused, and then proceeded to eat.

Typically of Indian mothers, there was more food than I could have had in two meals and as I pondered over what to do with the rest of the food, we approached a point where the road was filled with mud – a landslide from the hills on the right had overwhelmed the road. It was enough to require work from a JCB, but not enough to completely block it. As we approached the JCB machine, and the two police officers who were overseeing the work, the driver whipped out one of the bottles of water and handed it to one of them, specifically requesting him to also “share this with the operator” of the vehicle.

I was amazed – such voluntary charity towards strangers is unheard of in India, at least in the national capital region where I live.

A couple of kilometers later, he gave away one more bottle to a female labourer who was repairing the road along with one other woman.

I felt a strong inclination to partake in these moments of social bonding – where complete strangers valued the work someone else was doing for them. Having had my fill, I saw that four matris were still left. I wrapped the food in the aluminium foil I had, and waited.

When the car stopped for the third time, I handed out one matri to the woman labourer who was working on the road, and who accepted my offering with a wide smile on her face. A few minutes later, when we stopped for the fourth time, I handed another piece to a youngster who was walking on the road.

Now, two were left. A couple of kilometres later we approached a point where a group of eight to ten labourers were sitting on the right side of the road. They had probably just completed its re-pavement, which was clear from the difference in colour of a 40-50 meter stretch of road before and after them. As the car slowed down and the driver gave them the last bottle of water he had, I took out my remaining food and handed it to one of them.

It is very likely that I would have never come to know what happened next, but I think I was meant to know so I happened to turn my head and look at the women as our car lurched forward.

The woman opened up the packet excitedly, as two others surrounded her. As soon as she saw what was in the packet, a smile of relief appeared on her face and she moved towards a child standing a few feet away from her. The last thing I saw was the joy on her face as she handed some food to her three year old child, who had stretched his feeble hands toward her.

We have a proverb in Hindi – “daane daane pe likha hai khaane wale ka naam”, meaning on every grain of food is written the name of the person who is destined to eat it. That three year old child of a labourer in Bhutan was meant to eat those grains that were grown in the Gangetic plains of India, and made into matris by my mother, living in the capital of India, and I became the medium of fulfillment of this destiny.

This was one of the most beautiful moments of my trip to Bhutan.

Since out of the four travellers (apart from the driver) three were men, the only woman in the group had occupied the seat in the front, to the left of the driver. She was accompanied by a friend, who had occupied the window seat behind the driver. I had the window seat behind the woman.

Throughout the almost six hour long journey the lady and the driver were engaged in a lively conversation. I could not gather what they were saying as they were speaking in Bhutanese, but they seemed pretty comfortable in each other’s company.

This made me suspect they knew each other, or even that they were somehow related, to such an extent that when the car stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch around one, I actually asked the lady if she knew the driver from before. She seemed surprised and, with a smile, told me that that wasn’t the case.

As we moved on, I reflected on my observations since the day before.

These voluntary initiatives to help strangers in whatever way one can, valuing each person as an individual, understanding one’s own and the roles of others in society and respecting these roles just the same – were these the reasons the Bhutanese people seemed so happy? These acts of kindness and generosity could act as seeds which could make those strangers then help someone else at a later point. A stranger bought five bottles of water solely to distribute it to people on the road. The society then essentially becomes a huge family, where everyone is looking after each other in whatever way he or she can. Each citizen finds fewer reasons to cheat others, and appreciation, trust and honesty naturally rise in the mutual bonds of the citizens.

These thoughts bubbled in my head, and a sense of peaceful serenity pervaded me. I had had plenty to brood over since my entry into this beautiful country, and that is what I did till our car finally entered Thimphu, around three hours later.