We visited the National Memorial Stupa (or Choeten) in Thimphu. It was only built in 1974, by the mother of the third King of Bhutan. A stupa is a sacred or spiritual monument. It’s a Buddhist symbol of enlightenment. Stupas are supposed to emanate blessings and peace. We saw quite a few stupas in Bhutan, so I probably won’t show too many others. You can see the memorial stupa in the first photo. People go there to pray. They walk around the stupa on the circular path, praying as they walk. You can see some Bhutanese people doing this in the second and third photos. I took three laps around myself and prayed for all of you at this stupa. We can always all use a few extra prayers.

They also had ‘prayer wheels’ near the front gate of this stupa. Prayer wheels are evidently each dedicated to a certain prayer, such as long life or peace or health. People hold them and walk around them, spinning them with them as they go to send that prayer out into the universe. You can see Vicky and another person at the prayer wheels in the next photo and a closer photo of a prayer wheel after that. These were particularly large prayer wheels. Most of the prayer wheels were much smaller.

I show these pictures and give my explanation because this is a common event in Bhutan and seems to be a real part of the fabric of life in Bhutan which is a Buddhist country.