The King and I

Well, tonight I am back in Thimphu, a little sad as it means my visit to Bhutan is nearing an end...
Today we visited the Phunakha (?) Dzong which was one of the more picturesque of the Dzongs that we have seen. A Dzong is a building that houses both Monastic and Secular regional leaders, ie government offices and a Monastery. Anyway, we reached the Dzong quite early and something seemed different to all the other Dzongs, there was a greater police and military presence and everyone was rushing around looking very stressed. It turns out the 4th King (ie. the Father of the current King) was coming to visit. He was on his way back from visiting the Bumthang fires and was calling in to the Dzong as today is a very holy day on the Bhutanese calender. We were luckily still allowed in the Dzong and we were able to visit 4 different temples within the Dzong area, and we were also able to see the 4th King, so that was quite exciting although we were not allowed to take any photos of the King. From Phunakha we then headed further down the road to another temple, this one was the Temple of Fertility and it was on the top of a hill, it was a very interesting temple and if you wanted you could be blessed with a large wooden phallus that is rumored to have once been owned by the divine madman himself!!
From there it was on to lunch and the drive back to Thimphu.
Tonight we had a lecture from a guest lecturer, Kunzing Chorden, one of the leading women in Bhutan and an expert on Bhutanese Textiles. She is a most interesting and very engaging woman and the lecture was fantastic.
Just thought I should mention what we did yesterday. So we were in Trongsa for the evening, maybe I shall go back to the day before that...
We left Bumthang as the King was expected to arrive to meet the people affected by the fire, the plan was to get to Trongsa for lunch and then visit the Museum and Dzong in the afternoon.
The Museum was fantastic, it was situated in the old watchtower for the Dzong and showed the Bhutanese history, both in the monarchy and the Buddhist traditions, it was such a well set out museum and easy to follow, except there were SOOO many steps, which I must admit I am getting a bit sick of at altitude...
So from the Museum (which the King was set to visit the following day also) we had to then walk all the way back down the stairs to the Dzong. The Dzong was another interesting building, again containing both secular and monastic components. There was some beautiful artwork in this one which Karma, our Bhutanese lecturer explained to us. Then we moved on to the Monastic area of the Dzong to find the Monks all practicing for Mask Dance celebrations. It was beautiful to see the grace of the teacher and very funny to see the VERY enthusiastic monks who didn't have much of an idea, and then there were others who were just lost. I really could have watched them all day, but alas we had to go.
So, yesterday, the only thing on our schedule for the day was to drive from Trongsa to Kichu resort, with a visit to a school on the way. All I have to say is I think I should be a grade 2 english teacher in Bhutan. I had such a great time, and I think I may have been there about 1/2 an hour longer than I should have been, but at least every child in that class had a paper crane b the time I left.
Anyway I had better go now, it is late and the hotel staff are hovering around, I think they want to turn the computers off and go to bed.