Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [15]
We are tired of discussing the roads, the snow, the passes, our possible date of departure, our postings and what is available there, our nearest Canadian neighbors. I will be able to visit them if I can get on a truck carrying gypsum from the mine at the bottom of the Pema Gatshel valley and then a ride from the Pema Gatshel junction up the road five hours to Tashigang. Sasha will have electricity, Lorna and I will not. Sasha will be on the main road, I on a feeder road, Lorna will be off-the-road and will have to walk three hours up a mountain to get to her new home. Rita, who is posted off-the-road in Mongar District, has to walk six hours. Next year, she says, she wants to go to an even more remote place, three days off the road, deep into central Bhutan. I privately think that Rita is displaying alarming symptoms of dementia.
We order supper—thukpa, a noodle soup for me and Sasha, rice and chicken curry for Lorna, and for Rita, ema datsi, the national dish, a blistering stew of chilies and cheese. Wayne is drawing a map on the back of an envelope. The Eagles are singing “Hotel California.” We order more beer. And I think, sometimes it all makes sense: you are sitting in a restaurant with your companions. It could be a restaurant anywhere, it could be Sault Ste. Marie. Other times it makes no sense whatsoever. I don’t know how this relates to the rest of my life. There is no link between my life on the other side of the planet, all those dark miles and starry oceans away, and me sitting at this table, tearing my beer label off in strips, no connection at all. Except for myself: I myself must bridge the gap, I am the bridge—although I feel more like the gap. All the experiences and achievements that defined me at home are irrelevant and insignificant here. There is just me, here, now. Wherever you go, there you are.
We are told to buy supplies in Thimphu, because “things” are not available outside the capital. I walk through the tiny shops. Things are not so available in the capital, either. We buy kerosene stoves, jerry cans, pressure cookers and hot-water flasks, noodles, cocoa powder, peanut butter. The shopkeepers wrap our purchases neatly in newspaper, and we carry them in our new jholas, handwoven cloth shoulder-bags. Sasha, an artist and a vegetarian, goes off in search of sketch paper and dried beans. We both buy large square tins with lids against the rats. I spend the last day in Thimphu packing and repacking my luggage, transferring my most precious supplies from home—chocolate bars, raisins, and a sample bottle of Cointreau—into the square tin. But in the morning, we are told the passes are blocked again (or still) with snow and we will be not be leaving “for some time.” We will have more orientation in Thimphu, we will visit the temples, the National Library.
I do not want to have more orientation. I want to go home. I tell Sasha I am coming down with something, and lie in bed and wish for things: a Cosmopolitan magazine, a bagel and cream cheese, a grocery store, the Eaton Centre two days before Christmas.
The Lateral Road—Bash on Regardless
The passes are open and we are driving across the lateral road in a hi-lux, Lorna, Sasha, Rita, me, and Dorji, a driver from the Department of Education. After a three-week delay because of snow-blocked passes, we are finally on our way to our postings. “So what do you think so far?” Rita asks when we stop at Dochu La, a pass forty-five minutes out of Thimphu, from where we have an unobstructed view of the northern border: a row of impossible snow-peaks rising up from blue mountains. “Look, that tiny white speck is Gasa Dzong,” she says. “It’s a two- or three-day walk from here.” She knows the names