From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Three - Crossing Bhutan - Bumthang to Thimphu

The Bumthang morning was just above freezing but there was no waiting until it warmed. I had to get to Thimphu in one push and it could take anywhere from eight to twelve hours, depending on the road.

“How’s the highway from here to Thimphu?”

Of the people questioned, none had actually been on the road recently. Yet no one was reticent in sharing his opinion.

Opinion one: “Oh, very bad. Worst it’s ever been.”

Opinion two: “Icy. Be careful.”

Opinion three: “Not bad at all. His Majesty came through last week, so they had to make it better.”

Opinion four: “On a bike? Six hours. No problem.”

My friend Vishal met me in Bumthang and though he was traveling by bus, he verified whether I was ready for a ride through mountain weather.

“You’ve got rain pants?”

“No. I never brought any to Bhutan.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Stupid, I guess.”

“But you’ve got a good raincoat?”

“Kind of. I mean, it’ll do.”

He gave me a look of pity. Once upon a time, on our other adventures in the Andes, I was the expert, recounting how I had been camping and backpacking in the mountains since I could walk. But now I was clearly the dilettante and he was the disappointed tutor.

“Don’t freeze to death.”

“Good advice.”

Solivagant was slow to get going. The starter barely buzzed in the morning dark and cold and I had to abuse the kick-starter until I could get the engine to idle. I let it warm for nearly ten minutes, the whole time questioning the bike’s overall integrity. On all the other short trips I’d taken, something had gone wrong. I was in a state or readiness, expecting the same now. If Solivagant broke down on the way, I planned to wait for Vishal’s bus to pass and hitch a ride. But I’d have to sort out how to get back to the bike and get it working. There was too much to process, and the cold was already numbing my extremities.

I patted Solivagant. “Just make it to Thimphu, buddy. Just make it to Thimphu.”

I tolerated the cold as best as I could. I had been betting on the sun though, thinking it would only be an hour before it rose above the peaks. I suffered through that first hour of twilight, desperately watching the horizon for the sun to come out and send rays of warmth into the valley. But the sun never came. Instead, a blanket of clouds covered the sky in a grey overcast. Once I started descending into the verdant cliffs near Trongsa, I entered a thick fog that washed me in beads of dew. My hands became clammy and began to seize up.

I pulled Solivagant over in a muddy, empty forested area outside of Trongsa and I crouched next to the warm engine, pressing my gloved hands to it. The heat helped, but wasn’t immediate enough. The muffler churned and caterwauled and gave me an idea that proved essential to make it through the cold passes. I removed my glove and put the open end to the muffler, filling the glove with the hot exhaust. Instantly, the moisture in the glove began to evaporate and the glove became hot and dry. When I slipped it back onto my hand, it was like I had found a hidden sauna there in the Bhutanese forests, the heat radiated and extended from my hands into my chest. I did the same to my second glove and within minutes I was ready to go again. I repeated this process three times before finally reaching the warmer, low areas on the route.

A bit of Bumthang during the day.

Opinion one was the closest to being correct. The road was not good. But, relative to the whole eastern end of the national highway, it was not that much worse. Again I rattled down to river gorges and up minor passes, averaging thirty kilometers per hour, my ass taking the brunt of the battering.

There were more Indian cargo trucks on that section of road, a sign that I was getting close to the capital. Getting caught behind the behemoths always meant a face full of black exhaust. After several encounters I better understood the nature of Indian emissions, explained to me once from a mountaintop by a southern Bhutanese friend.

“You see those glaciated peaks to the north? That’s Tibet.”

“Oh, yes. Beautiful.”

“And you see that blanket of pollution to the south? That’s India.”

Passing the barreling cargo trucks was always a dance with destruction. I’d try to move into sight of their side mirror, bleating my minuscule horn like a timid lamb, and rev on by. Most times they would see me and move as far to the side of the single lane as they could. Sometimes they wouldn’t see me and I’d have to gun past before being closed in, either against the cliff, or worse, off the road. 

Occasionally they’d see me and would still close me in, a game to them perhaps, or a demonstration of their power. Truck drivers and kings aren’t so different. Both have to choose between benevolence or malevolence. Kings rule kingdoms. Truck drivers rule the roads. On the grand scale of things, my plebeian self, puttering along on 220ccs of Solivagant, was insignificant.

Passing the belching beasts was made that much riskier since I also had to avoid the potholes, errant stones, and insidious ruts. My whole history on a bike had been on those terrible eastern roads and I began to believe that such an experience was just a fact of riding a motorcycle in the Himalayas, something I would have to get used to. In the last six months, the rickety plastic siding on Solivagant had wiggled loose, screws and bolts had been shaken, thrown to the dust and lost, the center stand was bent and gnarled, and the shocks had become a very faint suggestion of absorption. But in Punakha an extraordinary thing happened. After crossing the bridge over the gaping and blue Puna Tsang, an angel of mercy descended from the overcast skies and commanded: “He has suffered enough; the road shall be paved.”

Testament both to the horrid condition of the roads prior and to a year of bachelorhood, transitioning to that freshly finished asphalt, double-lane road, was almost sexually satisfying. Thirty kilometers per hour turned to forty, then fifty, sixty! And it was as smooth as the curves on Venus de Milo. For the first time, riding was enjoyable. Not just enjoyable. It was a slip into another state of being, a transcendental experience. Later that night in Thimphu I would eat a succulent mutton curry with butter naan, I would indulge in a full-bodied Red Panda hefeiweizen, and I would sleep on a sumptuous hotel mattress with sheets that smelled like sunshine. But nothing felt so decadent and satisfying as that rise up to Dochu La pass on the newly-paved Punakha road.  

The booming metropolis of Thimphu as seen from the Druk Path trek.

I made it to Thimphu in ten hours. My fatigue was such that the shock of suddenly having to navigate traffic and choose from more than one road is only a dull memory. I sought the Khamsum Inn, found it, turned Solivagant off and prepared for the aforementioned treats once Vishal arrived. It wasn’t until much later that night that I realized I had already traversed one whole country, a small country, but a country nonetheless. Five hundred kilometers isn’t much – not even a full tank of gas – but the dream was happening. I just had to get from point A to point B. Something so intimidating was now simpler.

Perhaps the ultimate point B, Leh, some four thousand kilometers and six months away, could be reached by that simple of a process too. The realization was a little disappointing really. It didn’t take any real courage or skill to make it happen. You just had to move forward, one section of road at a time. Sometimes the road was rough, sometimes it was smooth. All I had to do was turn the throttle back and move forward.