visitors an hour before closing time on a Tuesday. It costs us about a dollar, and our children the equivalent of a penny, plus leaving our bag with the ticket taker, to go inside and wander clockwise around the round floors. The exhibits are very old tankhas (religious paintings set in silk frames, which hang like small tapestries) depicting the important religious/cultural characters of medieval Bhutan; a floor of stuffed birds and animals indigenous to the region (looking a little bit scruffy after all this time in glass cases); a floor of gigantic shallow round brass urns, one entirely of brass and copper teakettles, one of baskets, one of clothing and jewelry, etc. Our kids favorite is the philatelic exhibit on the top floor, showing the first issue of some of the country's distinctive postage stamps. Bhutan has made something of an industry out of making unusual stamps for collectors. We saw 3D and holographic stamps, stamps with gold coins set into them, beautiful stamps honoring world events, and our kids thought that the most inventive were a series from the 1970s that were tiny phonographic records about 2 or 3 inches in diameter made of flexible bright-colored vinyl, so they could actually be played on a record player.We are summoned - reluctantly - from the armor exhibit by the caretaker telling us the museum is closing, and he turns off the lights and locks the door after us. On our stroll back to the taxi we see three schoolgirls - 9th grade, it turns out, cramming Shakespeare for their English exam the following day. They are charmed with Halle, and ask her many questions, and teach her to ask what someone's name is in Dzongka (don't ask me to spell it, but it sounds like Chimi Gochimo?). They take our address and promise to write. We take a picture and promise to send. This will be the first of many such encounters with kindly teenage girls who are enchanted by Halle's looks and her friendliness. She takes it all in stride. The ticket taker has gone home, leaving our bag in the office, but it is unlocked, so we open the door and retrieve it and taxi back down, waving to the girls on their way home. "Goodbye, babee!" they call to Halle as our taxi grinds past, laboring down the steep curving road towards Paro.
