Bhutan: Whatchoo takin about?

Moving along in Bhutan, I learned the national animal is the takin.

Yeah, you heard that night, and, chances are, unless you were a zoology major (like two of my fellow travelers, who were both vets), you’ve never heard of it. So here’s a description, courtesy of Wiki: “The takin, also called cattle chamois or gnu goat, is a goat-antelope found in the eastern Himalayas.”

I have no idea what a chamois or gnu is in this instance, but it is one weirdo critter. They are only found in the high mountain areas and it’s illegal for Bhutanese folks to eat them.

They’re rare in the wild, but what do you know, you can view some in this kind of sanctuary that we visited. This is the same one, which we were excited to see, especially since it was one uphill climb to get to the big free-range pen that housed the takin.

In other photos, here’s a shot from the site of the Big Buddha. If you've seen one Big Buddha, you've seen them all, so this is another shot of the scenery around it. If you look closely (and you can click to enlarge to see better), you can see in the top right, mountains that look like "snow on the mountain" cookies. These are the Himalaya!

Archery is the national sport. People come out and watch this every day. Kids learn how to shoot at a young age. And you know what? It’s awfully boring to watch. You couldn’t even see the arrows once they left the bow.

Note the clothing. That’s the national outfit for the guys. It’s pronounced “go,” although I forget how it’s spelled in English. The kind decreed that everyone has to wear the national clothes to work and to school, so basically if you see someone jeans, it either means they’re Indian migrant workers or are breaking the law.

And yes, I am trying on the men’s national clothes. The main reasons here were because I was curious as to how they made these two little folds in the back and because I was bored to death. We stopped at this rug/fabric-making place the second day and watched women weave (hence the yarn) and then went to their store. We were told it would be “a short visit” but my God, we were in there for two hours. After about an hour, I got bored and asked about the men’s clothing and how it worked, so I got to model it.

 

The answer to how to create the folds is that you put it on like a big bathrobe, except as you wrap the one flap under, you then grab it with the outer flap before bringing the outer flap around and then grabbing it with the other inside fabric.You then taken both sets of fabrics and hitch them up and fold them under, adding a belt to keep it all together, but you can’t really see the belt because the top part of the fabric flops over it.

The men top the outfit off with what look like really high trouser socks. Most wore shiny shoes.

The women’s dress, called a kira (I can spell that one) is basically a really short jacket that folds over and a very long, slim wraparound skirt.

So that’s the Bhutan lesson for today. More photos later. I'm playing in Hong Kong this weekend.