The More Things Change, the More they Stay The Same

Our friend Martha gave me an old book by the essayist and travel writer Pico Iyer, which included a chapter about his travels in Bhutan. Born to Indian parents in England, he often tells stories of his travels to far-flung places around the globe. Though this book, Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World, was written over 30 years ago, I was fascinated that many of his experiences and observations of Bhutan in 1989 were not very different from much of what we went through more than three decades later.

I learned some interesting things that added to what I already knew and had observed about Bhutan:

• He comments that, "in Bhutan, trips are decidedly more a matter of traveling than arriving.” Still so true! That was  one of the most challenging aspects of living there. Every time I got into a vehicle I knew that the journey could take any form. If nothing else, I would steel myself for likely motion sickness - but also felt vindicated when I learned that many of the students also had the same trouble with traveling on the country's nauseatingly windy roads.

• The tourist entry price in 1989 was $250/day – that’s about $630 now. Per day! He was traveling on his Indian passport and so didn't have to pay a tourist fee and was free to stay as long as he wanted, which seemed to be quite a while.

• He tells the story of winding up on the first commercial jet flight into Bhutan, when the Paro airport was just a single room. One of the other passengers, a Bhutanese, told him, “They’re only charging fifty percent for this flight. That’s because there’s only a fifty percent chance of surviving.”

• He points out that “Yuri Gagarin had circumnavigated the globe before Bhutan had installed its first road.”

• He describes visiting a dzong and watching a group of boys chasing dogs, collecting them up to load them into a waiting government truck: “A few mischievous characters were sheltering puppies in their cloaks; others were carrying them along by their ears”. They were catching the 100 or so dogs who lived at the dzong to take them 7 hours away to the Indian border and turn them into India’s problem.

• Life expectancy was 44 years. He describes the anti-smoking propaganda that was everywhere, including one sign that said, “Blessed are those who stopped smoking. More blessed are those who never started it.” However, he comments that, “In a country whose king’s most famous passion (after basketball) was Havana cigars, the anti-smoking campaign did not, I thought, have a promising future.” It didn't. Thirty-four years later smoking is not at all uncommon, even if disdained.

 

But it was many of his observations from years ago about the nature of the place and the people that felt so familiar, so unchanged:

 

“Things went wrong every day in Bhutan. Keys fell off chains, doors locked one in, taps refused to turn. Twice in twenty minutes one night, the lights went off, and then again as I was busy flooding my bathroom…. One night I awoke with a start at 4:15 am to see the puny heater that was the only thing standing between me and frostbite spitting out white sparks, hissing like a snake, and then, with a magician’s flamboyant puff, exploding into oblivion.”

 

“The Bhutanese I met were unfailingly punctual and unreasonably honest. Their voices were soft and measured, in the dignified Himalayan way, resonant with a sense of energy contained…. At the same time, however, I suspected that this flawless politeness was also a way of keeping foreigners at a distance… a wariness, a watchfulness in the people, as strong as their impenetrable dzongs.” 

 

“This sense of self-enclosure, the sense that people and buildings were always keeping an eye on one – Bhutan had little of the instant friendliness of much of Asia, just as it had none of its importunacy or intrusiveness – clearly matched the institutionalized suspiciousness of the government itself. Even in hotels, Bhutanese doors were guarded as tightly as those of any Manhattan apartment, with padlocks under double bolts.” 

 

“The government is more than ready to make all the people’s decisions for them. [A high-ranking official said], 'We are officially a constitutional monarchy, but really we are a democratic monarchy – a democracy with a king'.”

 

“The government provides its people with free education and health care; in return it feels free to make certain demands of them. All buildings must be constructed in the traditional style. No school trips may be taken out of the country. No Bhutanese may hold foreign currency. Christian churches are banned in Bhutan. No Bhutanese may study abroad, unless he is sponsored by the government. If he is sponsored, he must sign a pact promising to return to serve the country. And when he returns, he must go through a reeducation program to remind him of his heritage…  The Bhutanese love their country – and just in case they don’t, the government reminds them that they must.”

“The most disturbing thing [according to a government official of unusual eloquence] was not that the government made the people’s minds up for them but rather that the people seemed to want it so. Released from serfdom only 30 years before, the masses still seem happy to have their civil servants do their living for them.”

 

“With great civility and customary efficiency, the Bhutanese had foreigners exactly where they wanted them: the foreign advisors were accommodated in the twenty-dollar-a-night hotels downtown, while tourists ‘in the package form’ were sequestered in remote hilltop hotels, an hour’s walk from the locals, paying $250 a night… Bhutan’s cachet lies primarily in its remoteness: people want to visit it precisely because most people cannot visit it. Bhutan is a beautiful and peaceful and magical land, but so too are many of the areas around the Himalayas, and those who want to explore the mountains can do so with more convenience and comfort, at literally one-tenth the price.”

 

One of the most interesting aspects of his essay is that he was there just after the Lotshampa protests and the ejection of nearly ten percent of the country's population who were newly considered to be non-citizens, even some whose families had been there for several generations. This is one of the most uncomfortable moments in Bhutan's history, and few people are willing to talk about it; there is little information inside the country about what happened, and who was affected. To hear from someone who was there soon after this happened was fascinating, even if not particularly illuminating.

 

He explains how, “recently, when the Dragon Ruler issued his latest edict ordering all Bhutanese citizens to wear traditional dress while in public – and, in the same breath, expelling every immigrant who had arrived since 1958 – the Nepalis who represent almost a quarter of the population, rose up in protest, stripping Bhutanese civilians of their clothes and calling out for democracy, until they were violently put down.”

As recently as January of this year, Human Rights Watch reported that there are at least 3 dozen people who were arrested during these protests still being held in Bhutanese prisons under unhealthy and inhumane conditions, and called on the new government to grant them amnesty. 

Nor does anyone talk about this at the law school, which is supposed to be not only the premier educational institution in the country, but also the engine for developing democratic processes and rule of law in Bhutan.

I had known just a little about this era from an oral history interview I did some years ago with a Bhutanese refugee in Seattle, who was 5 when his family was expelled from Bhutan because his mother was Nepali and his father had been involved in organizing protests agains these laws. I had never heard anything about this before we talked, and was surprised to hear that this place with its carefully crafted image of "happiness" was capable of such raw political cruelty. 

Another brief reference in the essay describes the Dalai Lama explaining that “twenty-eight Tibetans living in Bhutan were suddenly arrested, tortured, and thrown without trial into jail.” I know nothing more about what he is referring to, I just know that there are events in Bhutan's past that people do not talk about.  

I would love to know his sources for the little that he wrote about; he seemed able to get people in government to talk to him by spending time and becoming a bit of a fixture there. I can imagine he probably experienced something similar to what we did - after first being welcomed warily by people who assumed we were tourists, many locals got used to seeing us around town and we were sometimes able to have conversations that went beyond superficial formalities. 

 

I read this whole essay with a bit of relief, an affirmation that our response to this country and culture were not just those of, as our friend David put it, "a finicky traveler", but rather a continuation of foreigners' experiences since the country first opened itself up to the outside in the 1970s.  This is not to say that the country has not improved since this essay was written - life expectancy has risen dramatically, many more roads have been built, infrastructure has improved with much of the country having access to electricity and internet. But this static response to foreigners and outsiders is a troubling issue, and a hurdle for Bhutan to confront as it looks to increase its connection with the rest of the world economically, politically, and socially.  

(paintings are from "Bhutan, A Sketchbook" by Doug Patterson, published by The Tarayana Foundation in Bhutan)

Human Rights Watch report: 

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/01/29/bhutan-new-government-should-release-political-prisoners