A Bhutanese Road Trip
Monday, November 24th, 2008 by Holly Jean Buck | 1 Comment »This time of year in Bhutan is chili-drying season: nearly every house we pass has bright red chili peppers drying on their tin roofs, or hanging from their windows. I am traveling by road out of Bhutan towards India. The gravel road hugs steep mountains, and is just big enough for two cars to inch past each other at a slow crawl. No guardrail. This is the main avenue for goods from India and beyond to flow in — the tiny plastic cars and cartons of Appy fruit juice available for sale in the capital come up this difficult track.
We stop for granite boulders to be cleared from the road. This road is being widened with the help of the Indian government and legions of Indian workers, who seem to be widening the road largely by hand, pounding the stones into smaller stones. Young women work chipping away the mountain, with babies tied to their backs, sarees covered in white dust. I watch faces: an old man’s weathered face gazes back from the edge of the “Strong and High Bridge.” Children drag bamboo poles several meters long to who-knows-where, their faces turned towards the ground. The young Bhutanese guy I am traveling with slides his mix CD into the car’s player. It’s the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Californication.” Another old man drags a yoke for his oxen along behind him through his harvested rice field, the wood of the yoke curved and weathered by perhaps centuries of use. Tidal wave won’t save the world from Californication. (more…)