As I sit here at this wicker table in a cottage overlapping Nauset Marsh on Cape Cod, it is difficult to believe that this time last year I was taking care of children at the Jigme Wangchuk Dorje National Referral Hospital in Bhutan. Yet I think about it all the time.
We love coming here. The sounds and smells and feel of the ocean are calming and healing. I can't resist jumping in the waves, any time of year. I always sleep better here than anywhere else. We feel blessed to be living in a part of the country within a few hours drive of this beautiful national seashore. We came to relax - to read, to meditate, practice our songs for the jazz choir we've joined, do yoga, do some writing. My wife brought her water colors to paint.. Yet there is so much to do: kayak in the salt marsh, walk our dogs Jazz and Blue on the ocean or the bay, explore the fresh water ponds, cycle around Coast Guard Beach and up the Cape Cod Rail Trail, that we found little time to just sit around the cottage.
Bhutan, of course is a land locked kingdom. It is so far away from the ocean that the fish brought in from the Indian Ocean tastes decidedly old, even though it is salted and preserved. The kingdom has lots of fresh water but even that is mostly off limits to people. The high mountain lakes are preserved as sacred ---- stocked with fish, but just to have more fish around, not for fishing. And though the the Pho (male) Chhu (river) and Mo (female) Chhu in that frame the Punakha Dzong have become river rafting destinations, most rivers, like the one that flows through the capital, Thimphu, are off limits to people.
No boats. Few places to swim - even indoors. A few exceptions like the overheated hotel pool I found, cleaner than the outdoor pool at the big teen center run by the "white monk" with its spittoons along the gutters, but still too cloudy to see more than a few feet. The manager was going to "get to it" the entire time I lived in the city. I enjoyed it mostly for its warmth and the reliable heat and water pressure of the shower in the locker room, on those chilly afternoons at 3000 meters elevation. Bhutan, except for its five star hotels, has no central heating.
Yet the nation is totally dependent on water. Hydroelectric power, derived from melting glaciers from the high Himalayas, is its number one industry, it's chief export to India -- the large nation on which it is so dependent. Trekking in the Himalayas, water was are ever present companion. Mostly it was in the form of rain. It was the end of the monsoon season.
(As I sit writing now, sudden thunderstorms have engulfed us. Blue is barking at the thunder.
I'm headed to check out Willy's Gym and their indoor pool in Eastham --- hoping that their rules about closing it down during thunderstorms aren't as strict as at our Y back home.)
"Wow Dave, look at it now,"Shelly says. Blue is barking constantly now. The trees are ben double across the marsh. The thunder is almost constant. Lightning fills the sky.)
But there were also the many many bridge crossing, fordings in thigh high water (I still remember the guide Topgay carrying 6 foot two inch 240 lb Dan the photographer on one of them). The trails were muddy, stony and slick. I still remember when I sprung my back out at the Jolomarhi base camp, on day 2 of the 14 day trek, hopping from stone to stone over stream beds, my pinched nerves screaming with each jump.
I've learned to ignore pain -- that especially in the case of my back - things will get better. Sitting around makes it worse. My experience, and the literature backs this up (no pun intended).
We head up a steep trail, looking at gullies on each side. It begins to rain, lightly. We see yaks in the distance. My guide Tshering says "Look out!" as a big Himalayan mastiff guarding a hamlet, begins to bark. We arrive at a mountain pond, hidden in the mist. Of course, no one can swim here nor fish. There are stories told about children who snuck into the water, and who were never seen nor heard of again.
Three children approach us. One is in traditional dress, and two have trousers and oversize yellow galoshes. One has an umbrella. They are unsurprisingly, shy, as who wouldn't be as a chillip approaches their isolated outpost. We smile at each other. I study the ripples in the pond created by the rain drops as Tshering goes to find a "friendly bush". (I later learn that he is going for a smoke, a habit that is banned in Bhutan). I dip my finger in the water, reverently enough so that I hope to have not upset the mountain gods.
When we turn back down towards our camp, I begin to sing a song, "Hang on Little Tomato", by the group Pink Martini, that my wife sang in our local jazz choir:
"The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark; I cannot see.
Why does the rain pour down, I'm gonna drown----
In a sea
Of deep delusion
Somebody told me; I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feeling sorta down and left behing
You just take a look inside you and you'll find
You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hold on; things will be alright
Just when it's getting dark, and not a single spark
Of sing song sunshine from above
Sending rays of sunny love
Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Hang on; things will be divine.
If you start to cry; look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead
And so I hold on to this advice
When things are hard and
not so nice!
You just listen to your heart to hold
night through
Your sunny sunshine will come one day
soon - for - you.
Halfway into the song, the rain tapered off. I stopped singing.
The rain began again. I began to sing the song again. The rain stopped.
Tshering, who had been laughing at me now looked in amazement. I was amazed as he was
Maybe there are mountain spirits here, who listen to a chillip singing an American pop tune!
We enjoyed our walk back down to camp. My back pain was gone.
(This post was begun three years ago, and finished today, on a porch overlooking norther Lake George, NY , after a hiatus from my blog)
We love coming here. The sounds and smells and feel of the ocean are calming and healing. I can't resist jumping in the waves, any time of year. I always sleep better here than anywhere else. We feel blessed to be living in a part of the country within a few hours drive of this beautiful national seashore. We came to relax - to read, to meditate, practice our songs for the jazz choir we've joined, do yoga, do some writing. My wife brought her water colors to paint.. Yet there is so much to do: kayak in the salt marsh, walk our dogs Jazz and Blue on the ocean or the bay, explore the fresh water ponds, cycle around Coast Guard Beach and up the Cape Cod Rail Trail, that we found little time to just sit around the cottage.
Bhutan, of course is a land locked kingdom. It is so far away from the ocean that the fish brought in from the Indian Ocean tastes decidedly old, even though it is salted and preserved. The kingdom has lots of fresh water but even that is mostly off limits to people. The high mountain lakes are preserved as sacred ---- stocked with fish, but just to have more fish around, not for fishing. And though the the Pho (male) Chhu (river) and Mo (female) Chhu in that frame the Punakha Dzong have become river rafting destinations, most rivers, like the one that flows through the capital, Thimphu, are off limits to people.
No boats. Few places to swim - even indoors. A few exceptions like the overheated hotel pool I found, cleaner than the outdoor pool at the big teen center run by the "white monk" with its spittoons along the gutters, but still too cloudy to see more than a few feet. The manager was going to "get to it" the entire time I lived in the city. I enjoyed it mostly for its warmth and the reliable heat and water pressure of the shower in the locker room, on those chilly afternoons at 3000 meters elevation. Bhutan, except for its five star hotels, has no central heating.
Yet the nation is totally dependent on water. Hydroelectric power, derived from melting glaciers from the high Himalayas, is its number one industry, it's chief export to India -- the large nation on which it is so dependent. Trekking in the Himalayas, water was are ever present companion. Mostly it was in the form of rain. It was the end of the monsoon season.
(As I sit writing now, sudden thunderstorms have engulfed us. Blue is barking at the thunder.
I'm headed to check out Willy's Gym and their indoor pool in Eastham --- hoping that their rules about closing it down during thunderstorms aren't as strict as at our Y back home.)
"Wow Dave, look at it now,"Shelly says. Blue is barking constantly now. The trees are ben double across the marsh. The thunder is almost constant. Lightning fills the sky.)
But there were also the many many bridge crossing, fordings in thigh high water (I still remember the guide Topgay carrying 6 foot two inch 240 lb Dan the photographer on one of them). The trails were muddy, stony and slick. I still remember when I sprung my back out at the Jolomarhi base camp, on day 2 of the 14 day trek, hopping from stone to stone over stream beds, my pinched nerves screaming with each jump.
I've learned to ignore pain -- that especially in the case of my back - things will get better. Sitting around makes it worse. My experience, and the literature backs this up (no pun intended).
We head up a steep trail, looking at gullies on each side. It begins to rain, lightly. We see yaks in the distance. My guide Tshering says "Look out!" as a big Himalayan mastiff guarding a hamlet, begins to bark. We arrive at a mountain pond, hidden in the mist. Of course, no one can swim here nor fish. There are stories told about children who snuck into the water, and who were never seen nor heard of again.
Three children approach us. One is in traditional dress, and two have trousers and oversize yellow galoshes. One has an umbrella. They are unsurprisingly, shy, as who wouldn't be as a chillip approaches their isolated outpost. We smile at each other. I study the ripples in the pond created by the rain drops as Tshering goes to find a "friendly bush". (I later learn that he is going for a smoke, a habit that is banned in Bhutan). I dip my finger in the water, reverently enough so that I hope to have not upset the mountain gods.
When we turn back down towards our camp, I begin to sing a song, "Hang on Little Tomato", by the group Pink Martini, that my wife sang in our local jazz choir:
"The sun has left and forgotten me
It's dark; I cannot see.
Why does the rain pour down, I'm gonna drown----
In a sea
Of deep delusion
Somebody told me; I don't know who
Whenever you are sad and blue
And you're feeling sorta down and left behing
You just take a look inside you and you'll find
You gotta hold on, hold on through the night
Hold on; things will be alright
Just when it's getting dark, and not a single spark
Of sing song sunshine from above
Sending rays of sunny love
Just hang on, hang on to the vine
Hang on; things will be divine.
If you start to cry; look up to the sky
Something's coming up ahead
To turn your tears to dew instead
And so I hold on to this advice
When things are hard and
not so nice!
You just listen to your heart to hold
night through
Your sunny sunshine will come one day
soon - for - you.
Halfway into the song, the rain tapered off. I stopped singing.
The rain began again. I began to sing the song again. The rain stopped.
Tshering, who had been laughing at me now looked in amazement. I was amazed as he was
Maybe there are mountain spirits here, who listen to a chillip singing an American pop tune!
We enjoyed our walk back down to camp. My back pain was gone.
(This post was begun three years ago, and finished today, on a porch overlooking norther Lake George, NY , after a hiatus from my blog)
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