Radio Shangri-La_ What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth - Lisa Napoli [86]
Ngawang planted the welcome balloon in the bamboo vase that sat where the television I’d given away used to be. Then she slumped onto the sofa, conceding defeat to exhaustion. She had arrived, and soon she would conquer America. After a sip of tea and a glass of water and oohs and aahs at the UFO-like building and the magic of the blow-up mattress unfolding into a comfy bed at the press of a button, she fell off to sleep—exhausted by the jet lag and travel and the overstimulation of the sights and sounds of the country she had longed to see. And she hadn’t even seen it yet in the cold light of day.
BEFORE HEADING WEST on the freeway the next morning to go to the beach, I detoured to a nearby Jack in the Box. Every young Bhutanese was intrigued by the idea of take-out food. They thought Americans ate McDonald’s three times a day, the way they ate three plates of rice and chilies and cheese.
“Ngawang, what looks good on this menu?”
The number of options on the enormous board at the drive-through was too much for her.
“Egg kind of thing, or sweet kind of thing?” The only food I’d seen Ngawang eat besides emadatse and mounds of rice was the occasional slice from a pie I’d picked up at Druk Pizza. And sweets.
“Umm, sweet?”
Her brow furrowed, and I could see she was studying the prices, deploying her internal currency converter to calculate dollar to ngultrum.
“This is my treat,” I said. “Everything is my treat, okay? You are my guest, and it’s my pleasure.” I pulled up to the ordering station, and a voice squawked through the display.
“Thank you for choosing Jack in the Box. May I take your order, please?”
Ngawang burst out laughing. “Who is that? Where is he?” She craned her neck out my window. This had to be a practical joke.
“You’ll see in just a minute. Two coffees, please, large, cream and sugar, and an order of French toast sticks.”
The box talked back. “Thank you. Please drive around.”
The young guy at the window took my cash, and I explained that my friend here had never been to a drive-through before.
“She’s from Bhutan,” I said, forgetting that that wouldn’t really mean a thing, since most people I encountered seemed not to have a clue what Bhutan was, much less where it was.
Ngawang snapped a photo with my digital camera with the aplomb of a budding paparazzo.
“Bhutan, wow. Where’s that?” The guy’s lip was pierced, and both his arms were covered with sleeves of angry-looking tattoos. His friendly demeanor offset the menacing body art.
Ngawang was too shy to respond to this illustrated man.
“It’s a tiny kingdom between China and India,” I said, playing spokeswoman. “My friend is a famous DJ on the radio there.”
The guy smiled. “Wow, that’s so cool! No drive-throughs there?”
“No fast food there.” Surely an even more preposterous concept for this guy.
As was this entire transaction for Ngawang. The taste in the tiny container of syrup and the breeze in her hair on the open road soon replaced the oddity of it with sweeter sensations.
THE CLOSEST STRETCH of beach accessible to downtown Los Angeles is just north of the famous Santa Monica Pier. The misty, cool early morning didn’t deter Ngawang. The second I stopped the car she jumped out onto the sand, dug in her toes, then, without a word, rushed over to the ocean to wet her hands. This citizen of a landlocked country could now say she’d touched the Pacific.
“Ahh, the beach!” she shouted, and I’d never heard her sound so happy.
“Does it look like you imagined?” Although she hadn’t had to imagine it. She’d seen it a thousand times, just not in person. That made her completely different from her father, who was exactly my age. Growing up in an electricity- and television-free Bhutan, not long after formal education in the country had begun, he probably had no idea what a beach looked like when he was