Temple Mania

Memorial Chorten in Thimphu

The first temple, or rather in this case stupa, that we visited was in Thimpu. This memorial was built in the 70s to the third king. What I found interesting about this place was that upon entering the gate we saw about 20 elderly people just sitting and spinning prayer wheels, some of them occasionally getting up to walk around the stupa, then coming back. Our guides had told us that younger people drop off their parents there in the morning, then pick them up at the end of the day, sort of like a day care for them. The main hospital is also across the street! 

Chimi Lhakhang Fertility temple

 The first temple we visited, outside of Thimphu, was the fertility temple. Penises were everywhere in Bhutan, painted on this, jetting out from doorways, for sale as roadside stalls. Long story short, a long time ago there was a buddhist master who lived in the area. Apparently he was quite the ladies' man and loved to drink and visit the wives of the valley. Well, there was this she demon who... something something.... and then this master smote the demon with his... manhood. On this spot the fertility temple was built. We visited the temple and when we were entering our guide told us that there was a fertility ritual we could participate in, would we like him to ask the monk? Ok, we said. Well, one catch, he said. The ritual consisted of the woman carrying a wooden penis around the temple grounds while the husband stayed in the temple to pray. We initially agreed to this as the wooden penises we had seen were of a "reasonable" size, handheld you could say. However, after talking to the monk, he pointed to the penis in the corner of the temple. This was definitely a two handed penis. In fact, you'd need a shoulder as well, indeed you'd have to carry it like a baby. So, Aya declined. I was cool with it, but she wasn't having any of it. Go figure.

Punahkha Dzhong

This temple was quite cool looking. It is at the connection of the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu, the father and mother river. A day after we arrived we rafted down the mother river, but that is another story I can't rapidly tell (get it? rapids?). Crossing from the main road over a beautiful covered bridge you arrive a very steep stair, going up to the main part of the temple. Here there are courtyards and, what I assume are, the winter dwellings of monks as they come here in winter months for the temperate weather. The temple itself is about 400 years old, but that is kind of misleading as apparently the rivers flood every now and again and wash the temple away (amazing to think they keep rebuilding it). Far in the interior is a great hall where the Buddha resides. Here was toured around the interior, said our prayers, and then made our way out.  

Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten

The following day we hiked up to the Tiger temple, about an hour up and hour down. The hike itself wasn't so bad, but we could feel the altitude as we huffed and puffed up the hill. Our guide, of course, had no problems and was nimbly hiking with us, dashing off in the bush here and there to grab gooseberries. They tasted awful and it became a nice inside joke for us later in the trip as he would keep asking us if we wanted gooseberries (no!). We had started our hike early and were the first to arrive at the temple (hooray!). So early in fact the monk had to be called down to open it for us. We made our way 4 stories up to the top where there was a viewing deck with great views of the valley below. On the way down we ran into a lot of other tourists and upon returning to the parking lot we ran into lots of buses and cars when just a few hours before we were the only ones. 

There were other temples along the way, but these four struck out the most, besides the Tiger's Nest, a temple worthy of it's own post. In many places we have visited before we have gotten "templed out" just like you might get "churched out" in Europe, but our guides did a good job of only going to one or two temples a day and keeping the explanations for things rather short. However, I do have to say by the end we had heard the same story so many times that we were actually learning about the history of the place!