Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [40]
In the slow pace of morning, Manhattan is almost quaint. Bleary-eyed dog owners, some wearing pajamas, sleepwalk as their charges take care of business. The stillness punctuated by the whine and whir of a steady, slow parade of garbage trucks or the squeal of kneeling buses. Washington, D.C., even at its busiest, is slow by comparison. But its scrubbed-clean, stately charm takes on a special sort of majesty in the early morning light, as if the buildings were preening for admiration. Downtown Los Angeles is more alive at 6:00 a.m. on a weekday than at most other times; cars streaming into parking garages, suited throngs marching to their high-powered jobs in international finance and law. But on weekends, when it’s early, the streets are so empty it feels as if there’s been an evacuation. At dawn any day of the week, eighteen miles away in Santa Monica, the beach is desolate, too, but for determined joggers and the homeless men still sleeping beside the trees.
As the sun rises in Paris, the scent of freshly baked baguettes fills the streets, although no store is yet open so you can enjoy one. The canals of Amsterdam are still and shimmering in the early hours, and the houseboats rarely look so inviting. Once, as I wandered aimlessly, wired by jet lag, a crazed man chased me through the streets of the Jordaan district, shouting at me in Dutch, the only sign of life I’ve ever seen in that neighborhood so early. In Greece to attend a very special anniversary party, my mother and I meandered through Athens in search of an early breakfast, the smells from the fishmongers assaulting us as gulls hovered overhead. Bangkok never seems to slow. Even at the airport at 4:00 a.m., the twenty-four-hour massage joint is as busy as a nail salon in New York on Saturday at noon.
And then there is Thimphu, the capital city of Bhutan. A city in a country so remote, so undeveloped, that it isn’t quite sure what to make of cities. A city whose population has quadrupled in the past ten years. Even as it grows exponentially, and especially in the early light of morning, Thimphu feels a bit like a gangly village, rather than the bustling hub it becomes once the day is under way.
It is six thirty in the morning, in the dead of winter. It’s chilly, but not as cold as this season could be, high in the Himalayas. Six scraggly stray dogs wander aimlessly in a pack, crisscrossing the street, oblivious to what little traffic there is. A lone luxury SUV rumbles past, probably a dignitary being driven to the airport or his office. As part of their compensation, ministers are given these fancy vehicles, which only a handful of private citizens can afford.
A truck barrels by. Twenty Indian men stand close together on the flatbed, being driven to a construction site for the day’s labor. A few Nepalese ladies stoop to sweep the street with short-handled brooms made of straw. Their eyes are heavy, as if they’ve already logged eight hard hours, even though they’ve just begun the day. A baby strapped to one woman’s back somehow manages to doze through the action.
The sidewalks are pockmarked with infinite cracks and holes and splats of bright red spit, remnants of the ubiquitous doma. It’s a risk to walk almost anywhere in Thimphu and not fix your gaze downward to watch your step. But if you do, you are robbed of the vista of the most lovely Himalayan sky. Clouds hang low like tufts of cotton candy, hugging the mountains and giving the valley the air of a fairy tale.
There are no traffic lights in this city. The starched cop who directs the cars with his tai chi–like moves is not yet on duty. There’s no need. This early in the morning, you could walk in the center of this street fearlessly. The snooker parlor, jammed with agitated players well into the evening, is shuttered now, as are the fabric stores, bars-cum-restaurants, beauty “saloons,” and the shoe shops all selling the exact same merchandise. In an hour, crossing any of the streets