The drive to Bangkok from Mae Sot was over 5oo kilometers long. The dark clouds above never made good on their threats though, and the Dream was running strong. Mac and I covered the distance in a day (albeit with a brief run in with some of Thailand’s finest).
The reason we were on a time constraint was that we had a plane to catch. Druk Air is the only airline that flies to Bhutan and, with only two planes in its fleet, it only flies out of Bangkok once a day. In December, before leaving for Thailand, I had written an email to a friend of mine who I went to high school with ten years ago. Actually, I wrote the email to one of his secretaries. My friend is Jigme Wangchuck. When we went to school together he was the Crown Prince of Bhutan. Last year he became the King.
When I wrote the email I wasn’t sure if Jigme would even remember me. Sure we used to go on runs together and cut into the woods to spend our afternoons talking and smoking cigarettes. But we had lost touch soon after he graduated. Since he had gone on to get his undergraduate and master’s at Oxford, studied at the Institute for Defense in New Delhi, not to mention become the world’s youngest head of state. The only crowning achievements I had in the past decade were that I quit smoking and kept myself out of prison. Still, when we were in school together he told me that someday I should visit his home. Given that I would be in Southeast Asia, I figured it was worth a shot.
After many back and forth emails with different workers in the Royal Secretariat over the past months I had all but given up. I was too broke to afford a trip to Bhutan anyways, I firmly told myself. But the day Mac and I left for Mae Sot we received word that we were both invited to the reclusive country as guests of the government. Our flight left Bangkok at 6 the next morning.
Flying towards Bhutan I was a little worried about personal hygiene. Given the day on the motorbike and the early departure Mac and I barely had time to shower, let alone wash our dirty jeans and t-shirts or buy attire worthy of meeting with the leader of a country. As we made our decent into Paro International Airport though I was distracted from my vanity issues by a much more present danger. Landing in an airplane amongst the Himalayas is like flying down a narrow high-school hallway in an old shopping cart. Except instead of being surrounded by metal lockers you’re surrounded by mountainy death.
In spite of my fears we landed safely. We were greeted at the airport by Sonam, a childhood friend of Jigme’s who was apparently on white people duty for the next four days. He took an immediate strong dislike to my beard, but after a discussion on the merits of Meat Loaf and the international acceptance of Led Zeppelin’s greatness we quickly got started on what would become a quickly formed friendship. Or, if you want Mac’s side of the story, a “barely concealed man love.”
Over the next four days we saw all the sites of Thimpu, sang karaoke with the editor of one of the free press newspapers, were taught about Bhutanese history (which involves deities and a drunken Buddhist Saint named Drupka Kunley), were fashioned in a gho and a kira respectively, celebrated the New Year (which Mac was sure to tell everyone was also my birthday), and met many times with my old high school friend.
We were lucky to be visiting during the New Year. With the first elections in Bhutan’s history the month before, and the elections for the rest of the Parliament being held the next month, Jigme was (and is) extremely busy. Yet even when transitioning a country to democracy one gets the first two days of the New Year off. His Majesty was able to take the time to meet with Mac and I to discuss the changes taking place in Bhutan, Jigme’s commitment to his father’s idea of Gross National Happiness, and the challenges of modernization.
Mac and I are working on an article about our visit and all that we learned. Safe to say though, my worries were misplaced. On the evening after our arrival Jigme greeted me with a hug and quickly befriended Mac. Upon our departure he made it clear that we both had a second home in Bhutan. More importantly, as a birthday gift, Jigme gave me a sword. Just yesterday I used it to open a water bottle.