A Baby in a Backpack to Bhutan: An Australian Family in the Land of the Thunder Dragon

by Bunty Avieson

  It was a condition of the Americans on the crew that the production have a doctor of western medicine on set at all times. Enter Dr Thinley Norbu, who trained in India and spends most of the film handing out pills to the foreigners for upset stomachs. From the moment he was hired, he was destined to meet Karma Chokyi. Her family has been involved in every aspect of the film since it was nothing more than a first draft. Karma Yangki and husband Mani Dorji have small on-screen roles. Their cousin Karma Loday is a purchasing officer. Phuntsho Wangmo works with Mal. And an aunt, Phuntsho Dolma, works in the make-up department.

  At a Thimphu party during filming, Phuntsho Dolma notices the nice film doctor is single and good-looking – perfect for her niece. When the good doctor announces his intention to leave the party, the aunt declares he must drop Karma Chokyi home. Taba is not exactly on his way and everyone knows immediately what she has in mind. Karma Chokyi is consumed with embarrassment but wouldn’t dream of disobeying a family elder; Dr Thinley is way too polite and well mannered to refuse such a request. And so the scene for romance is set. He drives Karma Chokyi home.

  The next day I ask her whether the doctor is handsome. She tells me she doesn’t know what he looks like because she sat in the back seat of his little Maruti and didn’t dare look at him.

  It doesn’t matter. Dr Thinley obviously did get a peek at his coy charge in the back seat and is smitten. He telephones three times the next day, just to say hello. He is an ardent suitor and Karma Chokyi has never experienced anything like it. She is completely atwitter, blushing whenever the telephone rings. It is so lovely. I don’t think I could enjoy this romance any more if I was having it myself.

  After a few days of telephone calls, Dr Thinley invites her on their first date – a walk in the park. Karma Chokyi seeks permission from her elder sister and then accepts.

  The date is very Bhutanese. When Dr Thinley turns up, all polished and scrubbed and combed, wearing a neatly pressed gho and a grin from ear to ear, he is greeted by Karma Chokyi and two giggling cousins. They are coming along too.

  He seems not the least bit fussed. The four pile into the little car while Wesel Wangmo, the two maids, Kathryn and I stand on the verandah, waving. The cousins are giggling so much I fear they will self-combust, while Karma Chokyi is the colour of the chillies drying on the roof, but clearly enjoying every minute.

  I remember when boys would come to pick up my older sister, I was banished to my bedroom for fear I might embarrass her in front of a boy. That wouldn’t occur to Karma Chokyi. The dating ritual here is much more formal and yet, in some ways, more relaxed. Her family couldn’t embarrass her. The onus is entirely on him. If they don’t like him, he wouldn’t get inside the door.

  They drop the cousins at their home and on the way back to Taba, finally alone, stop at the park. It’s too cold to walk so they sit in the car and talk.

  Dr Thinley is clearly very keen and mentions the word ‘marriage’. Karma Chokyi is both delighted and terrified. She’s only just looked this man in the face and already he is talking this way. It is not a proposal, rather he wants to know if she thinks she could see him in that light. She demurs.

  ‘Too soon,’ she tells him.

  ‘Think about it,’ he says.

  Over the next two weeks Dr Thinley becomes a regular appendage to life at Taba. While Karma Chokyi asks him to leave her alone so she can study for her final exams, he agrees then disregards her request. When he isn’t dropping in, apparently on the way somewhere (Taba is on the outskirts of Thimphu, making that unlikely), he is ringing on the telephone.

  Karma Chokyi can’t decide if she is romantically attracted to him or not but certainly is enjoying the attention. While she thinks about this, the relationship moves into the next crucial stage – which has nothing to do with Karma Chokyi and everything to do with the family. Before it can go any further they must give their approval. Suddenly Dr Thinley is everywhere, joining in everything, while Karma Chokyi is nowhere to be seen. It is like he is dating the older sisters. He drives Karma Yangki to the market, has tea with us upstairs in the formal lounge room, and takes Karma Yangki, Wesel Wangmo, Kathryn and myself on a photographic tour of Thimphu.

  Over dinner one night Karma Chokyi tells me she wouldn’t dream of having a relationship with a man that her family didn’t like. She owes them everything, she says. Elder sister Karma Yangki provides the roof over her head, her food and many other kindnesses. So she is content to wait, let the family get to know him, and see what they say.

  I can’t imagine beautiful, generous-hearted Karma Yangki not liking anyone. I ask her, expecting an enthusiastic response. But she demurs.

  ‘Too soon,’ she says.

  Their mother is alive and a frequent visitor to the home, but Karma Yangki has assumed the unofficial role of guardian to her little sister and she takes it very seriously. She doesn’t know Dr Thinley nearly well enough to give her blessing. While she makes up her mind, Dr Thinley is absorbed into family life, albeit on his best behaviour.

  7

  The Beast and the Oracle

  The sisters seek advice on the budding romance from an unusual source – an oracle, or shaman. And not just any shaman, but one whose powers of clairvoyance are legendary throughout Bhutan. The royal family seek out this woman as do high lamas.

  Karma Yangki invites me along. Would I like to come for avisit with a shaman? Hello? I can’t believe my luck. I didn’t work in women’s magazines for all those years not to have developed an overactive interest in such things. I’m purple with excitement.

  It takes a while to organise as the shaman is in eastern Bhutan on business. Each day for three weeks I wonder if this will be the day. I’ve almost given up when finally one morning Karma Yangki’s head bobs up above the stairway bannister while I’m eating breakfast.

  It’s today. The shaman is home. We’re on. She flashes a grin and disappears.

  After breakfast, five of us pile into the little green Maruti – Karma Yangki, Phuntsho Wangmo, Karma Chokyi, Kathryn and me. It’s hard to tell who is the most excited. We’re a merry lot, laughing and chatting as we go.

  Phuntsho Wangmo explains how the shaman works. She reads faces and can tell things just from looking at you, but if you have something specific then she is happy to answer questions. I say I would like to know about my books and Kathryn. Nothing specific. Anything really. I’m just along for the ride.

  Our hour-long trip takes us away from Thimphu, past Karma Chokyi’s high school, across beautiful Wang Chhu River on a small suspension bridge draped in prayer flags, alongside the high walls of the Queen Mother’s palace, past a military training headquarters and through a couple of towns where the soldiers’ families live. Then it’s up a steep hill. Up and up we climb. It’s so sheer that Phuntsho Wangmo stalls a few times and we breathe in. I don’t know why, but we all do it, our shared instinctive reaction to trying to restart a stalled car.

  I ask what time we are expected. I think I know the answer but ask anyway. Karma Yangki doesn’t disappoint me. She shrugs. The Bhutanese seldom work to a timetable.

  After about half an hour of driving almost straight up the side of the mountain, Phuntsho Wangmo stops the car. From here we must go by foot. It is a pleasant but rocky walk with mud and steep inclines. We pass Kathryn around among us, sharing the load.

  We walk along the face of the mountain, glimpsing, through the dappled leaves of the forest, the valley laid out below us. It is a spectacular sight. There are a few houses dotted along the way then suddenly there is a group of them, a dozen clinging to the mountain side. Mostly they are made from stone with slate roofs, uneven wooden fences and loads of rustic charm. We follow a dirt path that meanders between them and finally stop at a rickety wooden gate, about 2.5 metres high, held closed by a piece of wire looped over a nail. Behind it, standing with its four feet aggressively splayed, is a huge black dog with yellow eyes and a fierce bark. This is it. The home of the shaman.

  We all hesitate
at the sight of the dog. From her handbag Phuntsho Wangmo pulls out her ‘remote’ phone, one of the handsets Mal has hired for the film, and dials the shaman’s number. It seems delightfully incongruous – both that her remote phone works in this wildly inaccessible spot and that this isolated little patch of houses perched on the side of a hill is connected by telephone at all. But there you go. Another day, another misconception.

  Although it has taken us so much time and effort to get here, it is only a few kilometres as the crow flies from Thimphu.

  The phone is engaged and while we wait, the dog gets bored. He stops his aggressive posturing and pads over to a warm patch of sun to lie down, but facing us so we know he is still interested.

  After a few minutes, with the telephone still engaged, Karma Yangki unhooks the nail and nudges open the gate. The dog watches but makes no move to get up. ‘He’s fine,’ she whispers. We follow her in, stepping very carefully. Slow and silent. No sudden movements. I clutch Kathryn tightly to me, expecting her to be scared. Lord knows, I am. But she seems blissfully unperturbed.

  Karma Yangki sees the look on my face and reassures me: ‘It’s okay. Just don’t show fear.’ Uh-huh. That helps enormously.

  Karma Yangki avoids the path to the front door (which would take us past the dog) and heads straight up the side of the house. She disappears through a curtain covering the open back door while the rest of us stand around looking as non-threatening as we can, smiling at the dog, who has followed us around to the side of the house but is keeping his distance.

  Karma Yangki pops her head out through the curtain and beckons us inside. The room we enter has wooden walls and floors and is completely bare except for three low benches. We sit on these, facing each other.

  ‘She’s on the telephone to a member of the royal family,’ Karma Yangki tells us.

  So we wait. A nasty smell pervades the little room and we lay Kathryn on the bench to change her nappy. Then we wait some more. Finally a woman appears in the doorway. She is not at all what I expect. While the three sisters are all in kiras, she is wearing trousers and a baggy red windcheater, with her hair cut in a short sculptured bob. She could be any mum from the suburbs.

  The shaman leads us through another sparsely furnished room and into her bedroom, where she takes up her position cross-legged on the bed, pulling a blanket over her lap and tucking it around her bare feet. We sit opposite her – Phuntsho Wangmo, Kathryn and I on a carpet-covered bench running beneath the window, while Karma Yangki and Karma Chokyi are on the floor.

  There is much friendly chat and smiles between the shaman and Karma Yangki, and I don’t need to speak the language to have an idea what they are saying. How have you been? I’m fine thanks, except for the cold. Oh yes, wasn’t last night a killer . . . How’s Mani Dorji? He’s well, working hard. How’s your mother/sister/family? Or something like it.

  The two women are obviously well acquainted and the other two sisters remain quiet, listening politely, as the conversation moves backwards and forwards.

  The chat lasts a few minutes and then the mood in the room subtly changes. Karma Yangki gestures to me and the shaman turns her attention my way. She smiles at Kathryn then fixes her huge black eyes on me. Any semblance to a suburban mum disappears. She seems shiny, like a sleek well-fed cat. A lynx. Her black eyes bore right into me as Karma Yangki talks. Every now and then the shaman nods or raises her eyebrows or asks something. I would love to know what they are saying but don’t want to interrupt the flow. The language they are speaking is worlds away from English so it isn’t like I can catch odd words and figure it out.

  The shaman’s mouth and gums are tinged with red spittle from the betel nut she constantly chews and she dabs at her mouth with a colourful scarf. She obviously spends a lot of time right here, sitting on the bed. From where she is, she can reach over to a small cassette player and a pile of tapes. The plastic covers show men in Bhutanese dress with exotic-looking instruments I don’t recognise. A plastic soap container and toothbrush are next to one knee. Scattered around her are a couple of books, a silver goblet and oddly, three handbags.

  She opens one of these and withdraws a small ornate pillbox, shiny black, like onyx, with a golden dragon carved on the surface. As she and Karma Yangki continue to talk, the shaman takes out a single die, which she holds in her hand, as if weighing it, and peers at the shiny surface inside the pillbox lid.

  Karma Yangki asks me in English for the name of the book I am currently writing. I tell her. The Wrong Door. She repeats it, in English, and the shaman nods, still rolling the die around in her hand and peering into the lid of the pillbox.

  She and Karma Yangki talk together. (How long does it take to say ‘It will be a raging bestseller’? I wonder.)

  Finally Karma Yangki turns to me and nods. ‘It’s okay,’ she says.

  I wait for more. Five minutes of chatting and nodding must have produced more than two words, but the shaman is talking again.

  Phuntsho Wangmo leans close to me and explains some of what was said. ‘There is a well-respected man who thinks highly of you. He will champion your books. You will always have enough money,’ she whispers. ‘It’s all good.’

  Karma Yangki and the shaman continue to talk backwards and forwards. I recognise the word ‘Kathryn’. The way Karma Yangki pronounces it is lovely, like Cut-Trin. The shaman responds and suddenly all three sisters smile – at each other and at Kathryn. There is lots of nodding and sounds of agreement. Even Kathryn is smiling. She seems to be in on whatever it is that’s going on.

  Phuntsho Wangmo starts translating again: ‘She says Kathryn has a strong connection with Bhutan. She will come back here again and again. And she will always be safe here. She has a protector.’

  The women are all smiling. This is wonderful news.

  Phuntsho Wangmo asks if I have any questions. Boy, do I. But we’ve been talking about me for more than half an hour already, so it must be Karma Chokyi’s turn. I bite my tongue and shake my head.

  I expect Karma Chokyi to speak up but Karma Yangki takes the lead. As she and the shaman discuss the blossoming love affair, Karma Chokyi is on tenterhooks, wide-eyed and alert. I recognise Dr Thinley’s name. Whatever the shaman is saying causes Karma Chokyi to blush and lower her head. That has to be a good sign. But as the shaman continues, her smile starts to fade – not so promising. The shaman has plenty to say, and Phuntsho Wangmo and Karma Yangki ask many questions. At each one the shaman rolls the die in her hand and looks back into the pillbox. Sometimes she tosses the die into the box, then gently rolls it around in there. All the time she is talking.

  Finally she stops. The room is silent while the sisters consider what she has said. I’m bursting to know what has gone on.

  ‘Is it okay?’ I whisper to Karma Chokyi. She nods but looks away.

  Phuntsho Wangmo asks about the film. It will be a big success, says the shaman.

  We say our farewells and her parting words are that Mal and I must bring Kathryn back to Bhutan. She will be happy here, she says, looking at Kathryn. The shaman walks with us out the back door, to the gate. The dog follows obediently behind her, not making any unfriendly noises.

  As we make our way down the track, Phuntsho Wangmo talks about different things the shaman has told her over the years about love affairs and business. She has complete confidence in everything she says.

  It isn’t until we get back into the car that I find out what was said about Karma Chokyi. The shaman said she and Dr Thinley could prosper together but it would not be good for the family. Now I understand the change of mood in the room. So it’s the family or the boyfriend. An awful choice. But if this is bad news it doesn’t show. The sisters chat cheerfully all the way home.

  Mal tries to ring every few days but communication from the new camp is fraught with difficulty. The system is solar-powered and the signal bounces off various hills from a duplex radio transmitter about an hour up the road, finally reaching camp through an aerial tied to a tree
that tips out of alignment when the wind blows, which is often. On days with fog or clouds, it just doesn’t work.

  Desperate to receive emails from the editors in Australia, Mal visited a local family forty-five minutes’ drive away, who kindly poked their telephone, with its primitive wiring, through a window in their kitchen for him to use.

  Unfortunately the line was so bad that after many minutes of juggling his laptop on his knee while curious children gathered around, he had to admit defeat. He tells me all this over an echoing phoneline that makes it sound like he is in a wind tunnel, while I sit warm and comfortable in the Taba home, nodding to the maids that yes, I would love more tea.

  Along with two little dogs, the family has two ginger kittens. They are only a few months old and completely skittish. They chase each other everywhere – up and down the stairs, along curtain rails and all over the furniture. Often when I’m sitting up in bed working they will race in the open door and onto the bed, tumbling off onto the rug as they grapple with each other. Kathryn is completely captivated by them and squeals with delight when they stand still long enough for her to pat their fur.

  The family bought them to help with the rat problem. There are lots of rats in the roof and I can hear them at night rustling and crying out. I grew up with possums in the roof so the sound doesn’t worry me or keep me awake. They aren’t particularly interested in coming into our room, so I’m not concerned for Kathryn. It is the shrine room next door that is the big drawcard.

  Early each morning Karma Chokyi says prayers and makes offerings for the family. The bowls of rice and butter lamps, constantly kept fresh, are like a smorgasbord for the rats. Karma Chokyi believes that a big fat one lives in the room, hiding until she leaves. She has glimpsed him scurrying off when she opens the door.

  One night one of the kittens earns her keep, cornering a huge rat in the bathroom. It is twice the kitten’s size but she is fearless, turning it into her own bedtime snack. From that moment on, the kittens are divided. The cat who ate the rat is intensely proud of her victory and stalks around upstairs looking to repeat her moment of glory. The other kitten, not nearly so brave, refuses to go anywhere near the bathroom and isn’t too fond of coming up the stairs. There are brief moments of mutual play but mostly they become the upstairs and downstairs cats.