First full day in Bhutan

Today has been a very good day, and I'm really enjoying Bhutan so far. After breakfast, I learned that the rest of the travel group had cancelled, so I had my own private tour of Bhutan. This kind of sucked because the reason I opted for a tour was for some company over the Christmas / NY period, but on the upside, I can pretty much direct how the tour goes from here... If I'm tired I can cut out a walk, or add a night at a destination. This doesn't mean much considering I have no idea which places are worth seeing, so it's not like I can change things I don't know about...

We drove from Paro to the capital, Thimphu... the only capital city in the world without traffic lights. The city itself seems fairly new, and all the buildings look fairly similar... it kind of seems a touristy version of itself. We stopped off at one monastery in the south of the city, before settling into the hotel and heading off for the first steep walk of the trip... to Tango Gompa, where there was very little tangoing and a great deal of meditation. It is a meditation centre in a fort-like structure up the hill. The hike was steep but not terrible, and the view up the top was great. As it is just the guide and me, we were able to talk about a fair bit, and we spoke about a great deal of things, such as politics, religion and daily life in Bhutan. He is very informative and seemed interested in some of the Australian ways (although I suspect a lot of that is politeness as he obviously works closely with travellers all the time and knows a fair bit about what is going on.)

A couple of interesting things... Bhutan has only been a constitutional monarchy for a few years, starting democratic national elections in 2008. It was an absolute monarchy for the rest of the 1900s and has a history of turmoil in regards to leadership and government before that. I also learned that Bhutan is matriarchal in nature, with property moving from mother to daughter, husbands moving to live with the wife's family, and the women having most of the wealth. Often you see the very flash cars driven by women, and Petey my guide was telling me how wealthy his sister is because she inherited everything. He also told me it is not uncommon for wives to have strict curfews for their husbands... he has to be home by 5:30pm!

This part of Bhutanese society is particularly interesting, considering the monarchy is patriarchal in nature, and that the vast majority of new parliamentarians are men, and men - particularly in rural areas - have higher levels of education than women. Considering Bhutan has only had TV since 1999, it will be interesting to see how society changes. You can already see it Thimphu with a number of younger people dressing in very western ways, and acting in very stereotypical teenage ways (except for rebellious smoking because the sale of tobacco is banned.)

As a result of the changes, there is been a bit more freedom for the people (the guide reckons they have about 10% freedom now). However, the government still tells people what there jobs are. Petey wanted to be a teacher but was told to be a tour guide, which bugged him earlier on because teachers are one of the most respected professions in Bhutan (are you listening, Australia?) along with health care and monks. In Bhutan, your parents will sign you up at the monastery when you're about six years of old and you're stuck for life. It often happens when a family has many sons but no daughters, because the monk son can still provide once the sons have moved in with their mothers-in-law.

Have uploaded some Delhi photos onto Facebook.... add me if you want to see them: facebook.com/steveh4750. Will add some of Bhutan this far when I get to a computer that will allow me to plug in an SD card.