Bhutan's national animal - I've never seen one before - its so unique

The TAKIN is Bhutan's national animal. Declared by the Govt in November 1985. 
The Thimpu zoo is outside the town. You don't realise it but it is actually part of a natural forest type area. The entry is on the road side and only after you have crossed a few metres that you realise the zoo has a path which goes up and down the hilly area.  In Bhutan, most things are up and down!! Its a mountainous country. 



The Takin is a part of the goat antelope family. Its larger and stockier. Its plump and bovine body is covered with dense long yellow to brownish hair. It has short stocky legs with large two toe hooves with strong dew claws which helps it in this environment. 


They are generally found in the 1,000 to 4,000 ft altitude. 

It has a large head and a large Romanesque nose. Male and female of the species have large horns which are about a foot long, curving backwards and upwards. 

 
 The Takin is found in the Himalayan and western China region.  Its a protected species. Data shows that its main predators are bears, snow leopards and wolves.

The Takin eats in the early morning or late afternoon - the leaves from the deciduous trees as well as bamboo, shrubs and herbs.   

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Bhutan's technical education schooling system

 Bhutan's Government has an excellent education system aimed especially at children who are disadvantaged and who have no future unless they are given some form of training. 

They are taught painting, carpentry, metalwork, sculpture, embroidery and tailoring, traditional shoe making  etc. 

Duration of courses vary but minium is for four years.  The first two years are elementary and in the third year of the course it becomes more serious. 

Here we have boys learning how to use carpentry tools by carving into wooden panels various local designs.   

Below is a Carpentry classroom 
This is the classroom where boys and girls learn stitching and tailoring as well as embroidery. Tailoring is a year's course after the basics are learnt. 

This is the traditional Bhutanese shoe. The design has a meaning. Look carefully. 

The boot has a long vertical strip which represents a snake. 
The tip of the boot has a nose and resembles the pig's.
The eyes painted on are those of a bird representing desire. 

In life there are three poisons - anger, hatred, desire.

By having these on the boot, you are stamping these out underfoot !!

Wonderful imagery , beautiful shoes and realistic logic.  

A young girl patiently learns embroidery. They are very proficient by the time they leave school. A sample of their work can be seen on the banner as well as below.  

Here the young man is doing metal work. 

The drawing and painting course is a six year program. The students appear to do repetitive drawing in the initial years, then progress to sketches and finally make grids to undertake larger drawings. They use acrylic paints. From what little I saw in our hour long stay in the school, the facilities and tools could definitely be improved.  The material used are not that good, they dont have easels and I believe that the basics are not really taught as they should be - teachers come and sit doing their own work and supervising. Maybe its different. I hope so.  

This is the tailoring classroom with dummies etc for fittings. 


Hordes of tourists come to see the school and students so I dont know how they can concentrate when we are all walking around them, taking photos and disturbing their studies. Its a wonderful idea to teach these subjects to the deprived youngsters but they need motivation too. One hopes that the Governing Body will create better avenues for the kids. 















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Thimpu - a photo essay on the city sights

I am not going to write about the city as you will find lots of info elsewhere. This is my blog on the places we saw and my impressions.

The first place that tourists can visit is the well known Memorial Chorten built by the Queen Mother in memory of her 44 year old son who died young.  

The place is crowded with Bhutanese who are generally very religious and extremely proud of and loyal to their Royal family. 

Hence, here we saw many people praying and circumnambulating around the Chorten.  It is not a unique place but it shows a side of Bhutanese culture and one reflects on the vagaries of life which can be unknown. 

Bhutan is a small country but it has some excellent museums. Each museum will have superb displays with well written panels detailing out the display. 

To add to the tourist’s education, Bhutanese museums also have a video being shown of the museum’s artefacts – here at the textile museum, there was superb documentary on the history of textiles in Bhutan and the different types of textiles made. 

Later in this blog, you will see some photos of textiles we saw at a weaver’s cooperative. Eastern Bhutan is well known for its many different weaving techniques using different materials.

Bhutan is renowned for its colourful postage stamps. At the postal museum, one sees the development of the use of stamps through recent history and every stamp is shown, some can be purchased. There was a postman renowned for his process in walking phenomenally long distances each day to fulfil his tasks. Coins are also shown here.  The guide in the museum was excellent and totally motivated in her job. 

About 5 kms from the city centre, amidst fields and nature, you come to see the High Court and the Parliament – I am told that the Parliament building houses various ministries too.    

The small building on right of flagpost is the Royal Palace

 The Simtokha dzong or fort is 5 kms away from town. We reached just in time as prayer ceremonies were going on – they would last for three days. The dzong was built by the Founder of Bhutan as there was a resident demon in this area, which is the main route between Central Bhutan and Paro. The dzong’s name – SIM = Demon; TO = Stone and KHA = on top; so the answer is To stand on top of demon. Built in 1629. In 1637 the Tibetan invaders came but were defeated. The central Tower is unique as it has 12 sides. The main building has 4 sides.
During the prayer ceremony, I saw three rows of monks facing each other, each row had around 11 monks.  A disciplinary monk walked between the rows checking what each novice monk was doing – singing properly and stopping the youngsters from fooling around. The head monk faced them in the central aisle. 300 monks live in this monastery. Prayers are unique as basically consist of reciting verses in deep guttural tones emanating from deep within the throat - very monotonous and reminds one of the Mongolian throat singing technique. All guides have to wear white scarves else they are not permitted. Permits had to be obtained for us as we found these are required at all dzongs. Register are filled by the guide detailing our personal info.  Around the main building of the dzong, are many carved statues in a line behind a glass case. Outside, one can see the huge Buddha statue in the distance.   

The vegetable market is amazing. Spotlessly clean. Huge area. Downstairs are local vegetables and upstairs the imported items. Lots of vegetables and fruits everywhere and no muck anywhere. I was shocked to see the cleanliness. 

We visited a weaver’s cooperative. Here we saw the famous KISHITHARA weaving technique. They have various items on sale – stoles, shawls, table runners, scarves, various small woven knick knacks etc. All expensive but really beautiful and worth buying. This was one of the few places where credit cards were accepted

This shows a shop window featuring the Penis - symbol of fertility in bhutan. More later. 

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