Travel to Remote Eastern Bhutan Where the Yeti Lives – Part Two

(Continued from Part One)

The village of Buli was a combination of stone-age looking houses made of rock and mud, and new wooden shops decorated with Britney Spears and Janet Jackson posters. We headed straight into the old village to visit Buli Gonpa, a temple established in 1478 by the great treasure hunter, Pema Lingpa.

Just then, the mayor of Buli approached with a smile and slyly asked “Would you like to see a great treasure?” We eagerly followed him to his house where he opened a polished wooden box and pulled out an old frying pan. He explained that this plain pan belonged to Lingpa and we could still see his thumbprint pressed into the metal.

The mayor asked a man to show us Menmo Lake, a spiritual site nearby. We walked out of Buli past rows of flowing prayer flags and through a green valley of terraced rice fields. At the edge of each field sat a small tower. “What are the towers for?” I asked. The man replied “During the winter we use them to dry grass, but during the harvest someone sits in them to watch for tigers coming out of the forest.” Our group suddenly walked much closer together as we entered the thick forest and found the quiet, still sacred lake in a ring of trees.

Our Bhutanese friends lit bundles of incense and the smoke drifted over the lake. We wrapped stones and money in white prayer scarves, murmured our mantras and hurled the offerings far out in the water where they sank below the surface. I imagined the lake floor swirling with silken scarves like arms, the prayers swimming out through the holy water.

As we walked back to Buli, I realized the holy lake perfectly reflected the mix of religions in Bhutan. Buddhism is the official religion, but in many areas it’s mixed freely with remnants of older beliefs, like shamanism, which says that natural objects are gods themselves.

Everywhere one travels in Bhutan, it’s clear that religion plays a vital role in the daily lives of people. Nearly every ridge hosts a temple. Along every path sit mani walls carved with stone prayers. Every mountain pass shimmers with thousands of colorful prayer flags and glowing chortens.

Young Bhutanese Monks in a Secret Monastery

The typical tourist season in Bhutan is September to November when the weather is warm and the fields green. It’s also the most crowded time. By traveling in January, the low season, we not only enjoyed cloudless blue skies, but we had every monastery and festival virtually to ourselves. Somehow, even Bhutan seems more mythical and indigenous

when there are no other tourists to share it.