From Himalayan Roads: Chapter Five - Thimphu to Phuentsholing

Now the beginning of the real trip. This time I’d be venturing into uncharted territory. I didn’t know these roads, and I wouldn’t know anyone along the way until Phuentsholing. I had sent all my excess possessions back to the US (souvenirs, my ghos, gifts for my family) and had all that was left for the next six months on the road.

I lashed my forty-liter backpack to Solivagant, secured my computer satchel to the side, and mounted up, ready to start the adventure. But Solivagant reminded me that it wouldn’t be that easy. I tried to start the bike, and he gave me a weak groan in return. On a prayer and a dozen attempts at a kick start, he finally grumbled to life, a curmudgeon barely willing to get moving.

The first stop was an easy decision. I needed a new battery. I found a garage and a young kid who called me Bro with every interaction swapped out the battery, oiled the chain, and sent me on my way.

“Have a good trip, Bro.”

“A’ight, homie,” I rejoined. “Keep it real.”

Though I was heading toward the Indian plains and descending the emerald mountains punctuated with wild poinsettias, I thought of what a transition it must have been for those coming here from the opposite trajectory, rising into the foothills of the Himalayas. With very few exceptions, as soon as you hit flat land, you’re in India. To rise from those plains, steeply, quickly and into the cool and unpolluted air of the temperate jungles is like coming to a different planet. Water falls vertically; you can touch the clouds; there is snow on the higher peaks.

Bhutan has changed significantly in the last century. The road is paved now – yes, this section too, paved – but not too long ago a traveler here would have to follow single-track trails through the forests, climb up relentlessly high ridgelines and stumble down dangerously steep descents in order to get into the heart of the country. It is easy to understand why Bhutan was so isolated. Who would endeavor such pains in order to find the tiny villages and occasional fiefdoms hidden among the hundreds of peaks? Part of me wished that I could have visited Bhutan when it was still so shrouded in mystery, before electricity, television, and internet came. But I was also satisfied with my little adventure, and I knew that for me, heading toward India and out of Bhutan was the right direction, though the pain of leaving such a place was beginning to take hold.

I arrived to Phuentsholing by early afternoon. It was much hotter, the altitude lower than I had been all year. The long underwear and extra layers I had worn to protect me from the alpine breezes became clammy and oppressive.

I had skipped lunch and was in a desperate search for food. I found some women who were selling puri and momos sitting at a large prayer wheel. I ordered two plates of each and they invited me to sit with them and their rambunctious children, who all watched me, fascinated by the foreigner in winter clothes who was wolfing down a meal that could have satisfied their whole family.

The food was a blessing and a curse in that it sated my appetite but also brought to the fore that reality that had started to build on the road. It was a reality that I had conveniently been able to put aside for the more pressing need to be hungry. But with basic homeostasis established, the feeling in my chest became unavoidable. It told me with cold certainty that this was it: I had less than twenty-four hours left in Bhutan.

I had said many goodbyes already. Too many. Over the course of the last month I attended separate farewell events for both my class eleven and class twelve students. Then I said goodbye to each individual class again, giving them pictures of us together. They, in return, said goodbye yet again and gave me gifts. That was just the students. The staff held a “Gents Farewell” where the male staff gathered in the school mess where the giant cook stoves heated the room. We got drunk and gave speeches and they bid me a safe journey and said their goodbyes to the other teachers leaving to teach at other schools. Finally, the whole staff gathered one more time, men and women, on another day to have an official farewell ceremony.

This approach to saying goodbye was a cultural phenomenon that I didn’t adapt well to. Despite the whole intent behind such ceremony, the overall effect lacked closure. With almost every goodbye I didn’t have to feel any finality because I knew that there were more goodbyes coming. I could say, “Goodbye … but I’ll see you next week in class.” Or, “Goodbye, but we’ll meet up again in Phuentsholing.” The goodbyes were never anything permanent.

All that was changing now. I would head into India and would not be able to return to Bhutan for the foreseeable future. The goodbyes that I would say in the next few hours were the real ones, the kind that sit with you a long time, the kind that make you feel hollow.

I met up with seven teachers from my school that night who were in Phuentsholing to correct the National Board Exam. They treated me to a final Bhutanese meal and I ordered the pork prepared the Bhutanese way: more fat than meat. I remembered when I arrived to Kanglung on Losar and first had the dish. I was appalled by how gluttonous it was and choked it down. Little did I know I would start enjoying it, craving it even, and when I had it then each piece melted when it settled on my tongue and I felt complete satisfaction.

We went to karaoke late in the night. K.D. and I sang either Billy Jean or Smooth Criminal, I can’t remember now. It was a poor performance, of that I’m sure. We stumbled home and I slept poorly, thinking of leaving Bhutan and of what the Indian roads would be like. I had glimpsed them from the border and I was terrified.

In the morning I packed up and said my final goodbye to my friends. This time, yes, final. But the men were hesitant to let me go.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just stay in Bhutan? What you are doing is very dangerous, you know. Indian roads are nothing like Bhutanese roads.”

“I’d love to stay in Bhutan. But as of tomorrow, I’ll be a tourist here. I’d need a guide and would have to pay 250 dollars a day.”

“But you can just sell your bike and take a bus or a train through India. I don’t think you understand how dangerous India is.”

“I’ve traveled through many dangerous countries. In fact, I’m from a dangerous country. It’ll be fine,” I told them.

They finally abated, not because I had convinced them, but because we all realized that leaving was inevitable.

“I’ll miss you all,” I told them. “This has been an amazing year.”

“We’ll see each other again, Josh.”

“Yeah. Within ten years.”

“You come back with a wife and a family, okay?”

“Okay. I’ll try my best.”

“And be safe.”

“Yes. I will.”

“Enjoy the adventure.”

I hugged all of them. We stood there for a moment, looking down at the gravel. What to do? We had to part ways, though I don’t think any of us felt like it should be so. This is the life I have chosen, I reminded myself. I’ve said a lot of goodbyes. That hollow feeling set in, now to stay for a long time. I’ve given up finding a remedy for it. I just move into a new future feeling like a shell and hoping that the next experiences would fill me with as much goodness as Bhutan had.

I rode away, my friends watching until I turned a corner and disappeared. Then I do not know what they did nor where they went. And I may never know.

But, perhaps with an unconscious awareness that facing the pain of this new loneliness would be too much, I set my focus on the next challenge, the biggest challenge yet: the Indian roads.