Today we hiked with Thinley to Cheri Monastery, all dressed in kira and gho. Jacob made it very clear that the success of his hike was dependent on seeing a monkey. The trail was quite steep, threading through a deep green forest made mythical by the sound of the rushing river far below, and was covered in slick black leaves and at parts carved its way along the edge of a steep slope. Jacob walked with his eyes glued to the tree cover sure that at any point a monkey would come into view. In fact I heard him singing, "Monkey, monkey... here monkey."
Cheri Goemba is a monastery built in 1620 by Shabdrung, the ruler who is credited with unifying Bhutan. It is reached from Thimphu by a single lane road that passes the palace of the Queen mother and the Royal Bhutan Guards training ground and a small village with buildings made from wood and bark set very close to the road with much social and commercial activity in progress. Women carrying eggs (here purchased in corrugated trays tied with string)... groups standing in knots outside the shops... traffic is slowed by wandering cows... Along the way, outside of the town as the road climbs through hills with high dirt and rock walls, we came up behind a taxi so loaded with parcels (inside, tied on top, you name it) that it couldn't make it up a hill and the passengers (of which there were many) got out to push. At the same time, a gigantic, double-wide dark green Army transport truck came around the corner from the opposite direction and after much negotiation and a little engineering the vehicles were able to pass with a few milimeters of clearance and only one lost headlamp (from the truck).
At the trailhead, we are dropped off riverside. The Thimphu Chu here is full of monster-sized boulders and looks like pure snowmelt. Cheri clings to the top of a steep emerald hill, looking like small white rocks that have been glued to its side. From this vantage point there is no obvious approach by foot. We cross a small wooden covered bridge draped with prayer flags and begin to wind up the trail. We enter a dense forest with trees covered with moss and ferns growing from the branches. We see pack horses with bells on their bridles being led downhill by their owner and strange birds but no monkeys. We hear birds that sound like monkeys, but they prove to be white-throated somethings that look like decorated mockingbirds. One of our hikers is very disappointed as we approach the top. He has heard about a hike I took in this very spot several years ago when I found myself surrounded by monkeys on every side and displaying some aggressive behavior if I moved in any direction. But today it appears they have vanished.
Above a resting spot with a small Tibetan chorten (which Halle insists on circumambulating around 7 times), the trail suddenly emerges from the woods onto the green slope so steep that climbing the last bit is like climbing a ladder. We are rewarded by close-up views of gentle, small brown mountain deer with their two horns laid back like a second pair of ears: adults, and tiny little baby ones, all grazing in the grass with no apparent regard for the steepness of the slope. We end the trail at a gate, appropriately enough, adorned with two stylized deer that announces we have reached Cheri. A frisky blonde puppy greets us enthusiastically.
Being in Bhutan is filled with magical moments (even in the rain)... you can spend an hour on a trail and emerge in front of an ancient monastery that seemed to have no access, that turns out to be filled with red-robed monks and dogs and butter lamps and tea and mountain deer and prayer wheels in a long row so that they can be spun as you go clockwise around the porches... and an 8-year old boy can see the monkeys he has imagined finding there...for looming over us is the monastery, built on several vertical levels, and looming over that is the last bit of mountain with a rock cave in it, and sitting in the cave are monkeys. We catch glimpses of long gray tails in the shadows far above us. Jacob wants to go closer. Apparently the monkeys are as excited to see him as he is to see them, and some of them begin to move from the cave into a nearby tree. It is soon full of monkeys of all ages, including two tiny ones pushing each other around on the top branches. Jacob and I walk to the base of a giant straight pine with hanging moss, and some adult monkeys leap into the tree - now that we are closer we can see that they are very large, as big as baboons with tails. Jacob exults. All the rest of the monastery is anticlimax for him.
Thinley likes Cheri Monastery very much and seems at home on the upper trails as the mountain goats. She takes charge of the children and of any situation... displacing Thompson to his chagrin much of the time... she laughs when I tell the taxi driver that I have brought along my TWO daughters and three sons to visit Cheri. On the trail she is full of conversation and questions. She wants to know if we have a love marriage or an arranged one. I treated a farmer the other day who had been married at 14. It is impossible to imagine Thompson marrying at 14. Thinley says she will never marry. Halle says that when she grows up and lives in Bhutan, that she and Thinley will "hang out together" after work. I ask Halle what she will work at here, and she says, "building houses." We ask Thinley what her job will be, and she does not hesitate to say "teacher." She is a good one for us, always ready with an answer to our many questions, and serving as interpreter and negotiator-of-prices when needed. Her enthusiasm never wanes, even in the long taxi ride back home.
