Archive - December 20, 2013

on the road past Thrumsing La Bhutan’s wild mountain spirits by Don Messerschmidt “many, many foggies” says my driver, grinning as we enter soup-thick cloud along the bluff below the pass called Thrumsing La Dochen has that way of speaking English, laughingly so jovially therapeutic he sets the tone for what’s an otherwise long rough mountain ride across Bhutan up-down-around the twisting road sometimes dull and foggy but in clear sun the view is bold with naked cliffs streaked white by mountain freshets tumbling sheer from secret groves above where jade green moss, grey lichen and long strands of mist lay still, whispering if you listen with startling clarity from nature’s pure primeval soul surely kindly ghosts inhabit this ancient sacred land and sometimes, while traversing east across the royal road, each turn, each vista is ablaze with rhododendron scarlet, pink, yellow, mauve, and ivory magnolia, and birds on iridescent . . .