Paper Factory

This was two days ago now. I thought I was going to be able to write a lot yesterday on the bus ride over to Punakha since it was a two hour ride. Well, I got to sit in the co-pilot chair, no seatbelt, and an incredible road. Incredible because there was one. It was about 1 and 1/2 car width with two way traffic, bumps rocks, twists so sharp I was hanging onto whatever I could and wishing for handles. And, the scenery was incredible. So it was like a 5 and 1/2 hour adventure ride, really hard to write.

So two days ago, went to a paper factory making paper in the traditional Bhutanese way, but expedited so they make 1600 sheets of paper a day. My pictures are better than words, but probably not worth putting all of them in, but they show the whole progression. We then went to a textile museum, the fabrics are incredible, all different patterns from different regions. We then went to a weaving factory? So not the right term, but a large place with two floors, the bottom of which was filled with maybe 20 women working on large looms with all sorts of colors and graduated complexity until the last row of women were working on patterns we had a hard time even seeing, much less understanding how they were able to count the threads. Gorgeous.

Then - another formal dinner, this one hosted by MInister of Culture, a gregarious guy with a great sense of humor. However, I wasn't sitting near him so not quite as boisterous. Still interesting though because I was sitting next to this beautiful young woman who's finishing her post-doctoral work focusing on conservation and archeology - in London. Then she's coming back here and targeted to start the government's archeological department. We've talked now at three dinners so this time I got to ask her all the questions I actually had been wondering about. Like why did the 4th king marry four sisters at the same time? That sort of thing. Then the woman on the other side of me runs a montessori preschool with 86 kids. She is the Minister's wife and I had a hard time understanding her, plus had a hard time engaging her the first three times I tried. It wasn't until the dinner was almost over that I found out about the preschool and then we were off and running, talking about autism in Bhutan, parents' shifting roles with work and home, couldn't believe it, after 2+ hours of not being able to engage. She was great and wanted me to come by, but days aren't allowing time yet.

Paper Factory

Paper factory; women sorting bamboo

Tangha (sp?) workshop

Weaving workshop