Unofficial Travels

The view from Bhutan, complete with Buddhist prayer flags

If you have forgotten, having not seen me in a long time, I have blue eyes, dirty-dishwater brown hair (which is currently red, thanks to henna), and light beige skin (so says the make-up I use). I am hardly one of those people who could be from anywhere, and yet many times in several different Asian countries, I have been told that I could pass for a local—Egypt, Syria, India, China (OK, just kidding about the last one, although I was mistaken for a Chinese person on the phone a few times, which was very flattering. Chinese people were more impressed by the differences in my appearance—my protruding nose, the three folds in my eyelids. Apparently, that’s a sign of beauty, but to me it means that I’m probably going to end up like my grandfather who had surgery a few years ago to remove excess eye-skin that was impeding his vision.).  In the Middle East, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for me to be a local. As Joanna used to point out, there’s a lot of Crusader blood mixed in there…but when I was told I could pass as a light-skinned Indian, I admit that I was a bit skeptical. 

My hand is in Bhutan

It started a few weeks ago when I was planning a trip to the Bhutan border area for work. I knew the partners I was going to visit are well-connected in the area, and I thought, “Why not ask if they could get me in to Bhutan for a day?” Those of you unfamiliar with the Bhutanese immigration policies may not know why that is a big deal. Last time I was in the area, a mean-looking lady refused to let me even set one foot across the border into her homeland, since foreign tourists (i.e. not Indians) must have very expensive permission to enter. In protest, I stuck my hand through the fence and took a picture. Why did I not just get the permission to enter? Because I am not that rich. To go to Bhutan, an American tourist (and I believe it is the same for other Western nationalities as well) must pay $220 per day and stay at least 7 days. That equals $1540 (I think) and I don’t have that kind of money or 7 free days, for that matter.  But I had heard rumors that there was a way to get one-day permission to enter. So I asked the partners, and they, being SOOO happy that I was finally coming to visit again, agreed to arrange the permission for me. I brought along my passport and extra passport photos in order to be prepared for whatever information they might need from me. OK, fine, I always bring my passport with me whenever I travel, and I always keep extra passport photos in my wallet. Yes, some of them were taken almost 10 years ago, but that’s the benefit of never growing up—I still look mostly the same.

After completing my work in the area (and that was awesome, too bad I don’t have time to tell you about that here), we drove to the border town of Jaigaon. Jaigaon is technically a part of Bhutan, but the Indian government is renting it from them. I’m not sure why they want to do that, but maybe that is easier than building another entry gate into the country, since the British already messed up the boundary there a while ago. Still, I don’t count it as being in Bhutan because I didn’t officially go through the gate. I did buy oleh-olehs for the niece and nephews though, and I will count those as being from Bhutan, especially since I got back some Bhutanese money as change.

With my bodyguards

We stayed in Jaigaon overnight, waiting for the government official friend of the partners to arrive. We met the next morning at breakfast. He asked me about my passport and visa, we hopped in the car and headed to the Indian immigration office where I handed over my passport. At this point I still thought that my passport would be involved in getting me in the country, but I was wrong. My passport would not be going with me to Bhutan. When I found out, I felt a bit disloyal leaving it behind—my passport and I are great friends, and we go everywhere together. I also kind of wanted a Bhutanese stamp, but not enough to pay more than one thousand dollars for it.

As we drove up to the gate, the Indian immigration official riding in the front seat of the fancy government SUV we were in, turned around and said to me, “Don’t tell anyone you are from America.”

I said, “OK, but won’t they figure that out when they see my passport?”

He said, “Your passport is back at the immigration office. They won’t see it. Also, speak only in Hindi.”

That’s when I realized that the success of our plan was based on tinted car windows and my Hindi ability. Also powerful Indian government officials who assured me that Bhutan can’t really get mad at them because everything in Bhutan comes from India, including their religion (which originated in Bihar, fyi).

I did it! Walking on Bhutanese soil!

So we casually drove through the border, not even bothering to stop for the Bhutanese soldiers, and it was completely no big deal at all. We drove through the little town of Phuentsholing where there were actually quite a few foreign tourists wandering around. The partner with me mentioned that they didn’t look too happy, and I’m pretty sure they were thinking about their rapidly dwindling bank accounts back in their home countries. Meanwhile, I hopped in for free, escorted by an immigration official, an Indian government representative, and his two bodyguards. We drove up the mountains to a famous Buddhist temple next door to one of the queen’s palaces.

We wandered around a bit, and I had just posted a ‘success’ photo on Facebook when the immigration guy turned to me and said, “Oh yeah, don’t tell anyone about this for two days.” I’m not sure why, but I deleted it, in case any of my Facebook friends are Bhutanese officials in disguise. And then I waited two days to write this…also I may have waited two days because I’ve been traveling and I’m tired and I didn’t feel like writing…

While Bhutan and India share a border, these two notices found in Bhutan in the language of the people they were directed at, speak to vast cultural differences between the two neighbors:

In Dzongkha (Bhutanese language), people are warned about releasing pigeons...compare to the sign below written in Hindi:

Here people are warned not to "urine or toilet" around the monastery...and my Hindi is particularly good in the area of toilets, so I know that the Bhutanese writers spelt "urine" wrong in  Hindi.

Bhutanese man spins the prayer wheel 

Going up the mountain 

All too soon it was time to go. We piled back into our fancy SUV, which is so fancy it talks to you and gives advice like “the car is starting now. For your safety, it is recommended that you fasten your seatbelt.” But of course, much like we ignored Bhutanese immigration law, we all ignored the car’s advice as well.   Then the Indian government official ignored us when we told him that we could only take a quick side trip to a project site he wanted to show me, and he took us on a journey that involved a 30 minute drive to and from, plus a 45 minute hike up and down a mountain and three 30 minute meetings with a large number of people we didn’t know at all and several tea breaks. It was OK, though, because I got to hike up a mountain on the Bhutanese border with some heavily armed Indian soldiers.

So the moral of the story could be “Never give up on your dreams” or maybe ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way” or “Don’t Be Afraid to Use Your Wasta (an Arabic word meaning something like ‘having good high-up connections in government/business/relationships/etc that can get you want you want with minimal trouble to yourself).” Those are all great mottos for all of you, but for me it’s probably “Go to as many countries as you can, as cheaply as possible.” Also, Bhutan has a really cool flag with a dragon on it, and I've always wanted to go there.

Bhutanese schoolgirl, in uniform, admiring the view while waiting for her bus