This is just going to be an odds and ends email. Bhutan does not have any traffic lights in their country. We were in Thimphu, the capital, and saw the busiest intersection in the country. You can see it in the first photo. It’s so busy that they installed a stand for a traffic policeman to direct traffic. In truth, the intersection wasn’t busy at all, at least not by our standards. Right after I took this photo, a guy came up to me and asked me if I wouldn’t mind putting my camera away as the King of Bhutan was just about to come out of the store behind me. I obliged him and we chatted for about ten minutes. The King did come out right by us but then he walked right into a shoe store in front of us. We saw the King two days in a row and also saw the Queen. Bhutan is a small country.

I didn’t take very many food photos in Bhutan. You can see a plate of my food in the second photo. This happened to be our dinner at a restaurant on Halloween. They even made us a jack-o-lantern from the end of a banana squash and set it on our table. It was a very typical plate of food. I’ll go around the plate, starting with the naan (unleavened bread, always fresh cooked and delicious) in the upper left of the plate. We had naan with every meal. Sometimes, we were served more than one kind of naan, such as regular naan and garlic naan. Going clockwise, next we have some mixed vegetables such as peas, corn, cabbage, zucchini, carrots, onions, radishes, etc. We had fresh vegetable dishes with every meal. Next we had pork chops which were excellent. We didn’t get much meat in Bhutan, so this was a treat. Next was red rice. We also had some white rice, but most of the rice we ate in Bhutan was red rice. Next was buckwheat dumplings with spinach. Right next to the dumplings was some chutney, which packed a huge flavorful punch. It wasn’t very hot, just super flavorful. Next to that was chicken and we ate a lot of chicken in Bhutan. I’ll also add a photo of the banana squash jack-o-lantern.

Not on my plate but served with dinner was soup, chilies and cheese (every meal), a minced beef dish, and pumpkin curry plus dessert and tea.

The next photo is X rated (so be forewarned). We found an interesting cultural disconnect in Bhutan. We saw phalluses everywhere we went in Bhutan. The clowns had them in their hands in the festivals. We saw huge ones painted on houses and buildings. Some people had carved a phallus on the end of every single outside ceiling joist on their home. Bhutan has rivers and creeks running everywhere in their country. Most of the creeks had water pipes sticking out at drop points on the creeks to make it easy for people to gather water. You can see one such water pipe in the next photo. It’s a bamboo pipe with a bit of carving on the end. Phalluses are even a key part of the Buddhist religion in Bhutan, with a historical figure called the Divine Madman having become a reincarnated Buddha. Now for the real disconnect. Our guide said that most Bhutanese would never consider letting anyone else see their body. He said that when his wife was giving birth, she had a medical problem. Our guide took her to the hospital to get help from a doctor. His wife would not consent to letting a doctor or OB-GYN see her body. He said that he explained to his wife that she needed to have a doctor look at her or else she might die. His wife told him that she was prepared to die but she was not prepared to let a doctor see her body.