Preparing to go to Bhutan

Just rec'd an email - "I hope you are . . . preparing for the journey to Himalaya." "Himalayas!" Hard to put into words what that word evoked. As we flew into India 3 years ago we kept reminding how unbelievable our visit to India was - now it is Bhutan and the Himalayas. Parts of the world that seemed exotic during our childhood are now embedded in our memories.

We will be the guest of Rattu who has done the heavy lifting and will accompany us. Traveling with a friend makes a memorable trip even more memorable. We ate the best local food and visited unexpected places with friends in Kuching, Bogor, and Racine.

Bhutan is a small country (pop. 700,000) and to preserve its culture it has strict visa requirements and limits the number of tourists. Most people enter as part of a tour group; a few come as official guest or as a personal guest of a Bhutanese. Making an instant friendship with a Bhutanese won't work. Rattu was a student in my class during my Fulbright in Penang. We took advantage of being unaccompanied foreigners to explore the island, to see a medium become a god (see Sept 14, 2008 entry) , and to be treated to another student's personalized eating/sight tour of the Georgetown area.

 So on to the visa. We complete the visa and the personal guest applications, which specified our arrival and departure dates, and mailed them. When our applications had not arrived within two weeks we went to DHL. Both the DHL and Pos Malaysia copies arrived in Bhutan on the same day! Later I wrote a personal letter to the Director of Immigration stating the purpose of my visit. I was thrown off by the next request - a letter verifying that I was a lecturer in Malaysia. I interpret this as documenting that I am currently a lecturer, but the best I could do (which was what I actually needed to do was) was to document that I had been a lecturer at USM. The current acting dean at USM did not have immediate access to the 2008 file. She wrote a letter stating that I had been employed by USM in 2008. It did the trick. There always seemed to be one more thing. Doug had to produce the pages from his passport to verify that he had been in Malaysia in 2008 and thus had met Rattu. Rattu handled every step; he would tell me what was needed and then transmit the information to the Immigration Department. Our visa was issued in his name - so if we behave badly they know who to blame.

Let me mention only two other steps. Only one airline flies to Bhutan, Druk Airlines, and it has two planes. One can't just call a travel agent and get tickets - single travelers (non-tour guests) to Bhutan are not that common. A travel agent friend of Rattu bought the tickets. We will reimburse him when we arrive. As for money we brought USD back from the US and obtained more here. A process the involved getting USD through a bank transfer, withdrawing RM from an ATM, and then getting USD from a money changer. Now I understand what money changers in Malaysia do.

Yesterday we went to National Handicraft Centre to buy some souvenirs. We had already gotten dry fruit, as recommended by a former Malaysian diplomat. The center was having its bridal show. So if you want to see what is being promoted to modern Malaysian brides here are some of the gowns on display. (BTW Hindu brides wear saris and the one Malay wedding I went to the bride wore a white gown.)

A bevy of brides

And the color of the year is?

Purple?
  

A special hobby is noting signs that simply leave us puzzled. The map believe is of East Asia (I cropped out SE Asia). Note in the upper right hand corner

Still not sure about the Kansas reference