The Hike to Cheri

In order, from top to bottom: (1) The palace of the royal bodyguards (2) The palace, again (3) The mountains (4) This was outside a traditional art school (5) Dechencholing (6) Zeb looks pensively into the distance, one of a series of such photos (7) The entranceway to an abandoned building, again one of a series (8) Tsa-tsas, traditional clay things made from the ashes of a cremated person (9) I heartbreak you (10) Just read the thing. (11) An elephant (12) A fish

(13) a Bhutanese scarecrow-like device (14) Cheri (15) A chhorten

Picture credits

Jon: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Zeb: 7, 9

Melon Tree

It's a melon tree.

So That's Why We Constantly Get Marriage Proposals

"Foreigners in Bhutan are like gods because some Bhutanese think that they all look like Brad Pitt."

- from one of my students' assignments

Death

Mark attended a funeral recently. Says they break the bones of the shoulders and the legs to force you into the cremation pit. Says that as the body is incinerated, the flesh of the face burns away, revealing the skull while the smell of carbonizing flesh fills the air. Says they sometimes have to carry away fathers and mothers who collapse in front. We do not believe the things we say - such pretty, ugly lies.

A tiny bush growing like a bonsai tree, a single string of street lights, ending at a river - these things are like haikus you encounter in the world; you can take them or leave them. A taxi that sounds like it's farting because it's driving on flat rear tires is also a haiku, but of a different sort.

Life Fail

"It's not their fault; it's the system's fault."
This was used in a conversation I was in today.
I am a SWPL. My face is hiding in shame beneath my striped hoodie.
Jesus Christ.

It appeared on Jon's bed

We named it Smeagol.