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

by Bunty Avieson

  For Phuntsho Tobgey and Jo Juhanson, the hubbub around them provides a welcome lull. The past week has been gruelling for them.

  An entire scene, shot at a remote hut during the first weeks of filming, is out of focus. The editors discovered it well after the crew had moved to the next location so rather than endure the expense and hardships of carting everybody and their equipment back into the forest, Phuntsho and Jo dismantled the hut and have reassembled it in an empty hall in Thimphu. The crew will reshoot the hut interiors in the hall and, as long as the continuity department get everything exactly right, the audience should never know. Phuntsho and Jo have been hard at it for the past week, rebuilding the hut, placing every wooden plank exactly where it had been in the forest.

  Oblivious to the level of noise in the office, the American location secretary, Noa, is in a quiet world of her own, sitting at one end of the three-seater sofa, laboriously collating photographs and the names of all the cast and crew into her computer to create a souvenir directory of contact details for them all to keep in touch. Many lasting friendships have been made during filming. It’s a killer of a job and not least because the names are so confusing to a westerner. The film employs eight Karmas, seven Ugyens, three Sonam Dorjis, three Phuntshos (one male, two female) and countless Tashis, Jigmes and Pemas.

  The art director and deputy art director are both called Ugyen Wangchuk. To distinguish them on the set they are referred to as ‘Ugyen Wangchuk the monk’ and ‘Ugyen Wangchuk the elder’. The Bhutanese are bemused that the westerners find this so strange.

  Today in the office one of the Sonam Dorjis, the one who is the location accountant, is going through receipts with Mal, who is sitting alongside Phuntsho Wangmo and sharing her already-crowded desk space. At the same time as Mal types rows of numbers into his laptop, he is trying to organise a famous musician to record some of his haunting music for backing tracks.

  Jigme Drukpa, a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Performing Arts in Thimphu, is considered the country’s pre-eminent traditional musician. He is very learned and his music is extraordinary but it is his enthusiasm that has endeared him to everyone on the film. He became well-known in Bhutan in the 1980s when he released an album of his own and others’ folk songs. Undaunted by the lack of recording facilities in the country, he made 300 audio tapes by buying 300 cassettes and performing each song 300 times into a tape recorder. I kid you not.

  Another singer (another Sonam Dorji) is recording a catchy little number called ‘The Traditional Yak Song’. It tells the story of life through a yak’s eyes. Kind of home on the range, but without the buffalo. The final verse, which deals with him going to the abattoir, has been sensitively left off. Once Sonam Dorji has recorded the traditional version, Australian musician Ben Fink, formerly of The Whitlams, will give it his special spin, producing a modern techno version – known as ‘Yak Doof ’.

  Jigme is proficient on a host of weird-looking instruments, including the distinctive dramyin, a kind of traditional guitar made with animal hide and a long wooden neck that curves up into a dragon’s head. A Bhute lute, you could say.

  After the film finishes the affable Jigme will go back on the road collecting the oral musical history of the different regions.

  In the midst of all this industry and organised chaos, Karma Yangki and Phuntsho Wangmo manage a bit of a chat about something vitally important. Their frocks for The Party. The wrap party is the talk of Thimphu and invitations are much prized. All 108 cast and crew members are invited, along with their partners, or one invited guest. The five principal cast members can invite two.

  I discover that Karma Yangki has had her personal weaver working on a special kira for the past three months. That’s how much of a big deal it is.

  It’s only as Karma Yangki says this that a small mystery is solved that has been niggling at the back of my brain since I moved into the house in Taba all those weeks ago. When I’m alone in the top of the house, working away at my laptop, I often hear a strange ka-thump, swoosh, ka-thump, swoosh sound. It is rhythmic and almost comforting, providing a background beat to typing. I’ve been meaning to ask what it is but only ever notice it when I’m alone and then forget when the sisters appear.

  It turns out that the noise is made by Karma Yangki’s personal weaver. I’ve never laid eyes on this woman but I find out that each day I’ve been here, she has been working away in a little shed at the front corner of the property. She sits at the foot of her traditional backstrap loom creating the centuries-old style of cloth that Bhutan is renowned for.

  Weaving is a huge part of Bhutanese cultural heritage and it is not uncommon for a family’s wealth to be held in the fine fabrics it has tucked away in trunks. It is common practice to give as gifts lengths of woven cloth that the recipient would then have made into a kira or gho.

  Karma Yangki scoffs at my awe over the three months it is taking to weave the three panels for her party kira. Three months is nothing, she says. The truly elaborate ones can take up to a year (and cost around US$1000).

  All Bhutanese girls learn the art of weaving but the wealthier families often have their own full-time weaver who works under the direction of the lady of the house, creating cloth for all their needs – kiras for the ladies, ghos for the men, cushion covers, bags, and cloth for gifts.

  Fashions change and it is important to keep up. At festivals the women wear their very best kiras and check each other out, noting the various new designs. The weavers draw on a lengthy repertoire of traditional patterns. How they combine and reinterpret them reflects their personal sense of style and creativity. The patterns can look from a distance like embroidery but actually they are woven into the fabric using the finger or a slender pick made from something fine but sturdy, like a porcupine quill. Karma Yangki wants her kira to be vivid red with gold decorative warps and wefts incorporated into the ‘ground’ of the fabric.

  Discovering the splendour of what Karma Yangki is planning sends me into a tailspin. All I packed is thermals, thermals and more thermals. Not an evening frock among them. She and Phuntsho Wangmo tell me not to worry. They will take care of everything.

  Mal is also focused on the wrap party but in a different way. He needs to find the right venue. There needs to be good food, good wine and lots of music and dancing, but because Rinpoche will be there, it also needs to have some formality. It isn’t that Rinpoche doesn’t ‘do’ informal, it’s because the Bhutanese feel such reverence and devotion for him that they’d feel uncomfortable. Foreigners may be relaxed and irreverent about such things but the Bhutanese are not going to let their hair down and shake their booty in the presence of such a highly revered reincarnate lama.

  After visiting various venues around Thimphu, Mal books the ballroom at the elegant and upmarket Druk Hotel for a buffet dinner and speeches, and the nightclub next door for the party afterwards. The women will look elegant and traditional for the formal part of the evening, and can then change out of their kiras into their dancing clothes, to hit the nightclub. By all accounts, dancing in a kira is hard work.

  The busyness of the office spills over into Taba. Phuntsho Wangmo and Mal often don’t return until after 9 pm, with more work still to do. The pressure is relentless.

  Mal works away on his laptop till the early hours every morning, doing paperwork, sending emails, organising accounts. He is back on the laptop and taking telephone calls by 9 am.

  His face is grey and the combination of the bitterly cold nights on location, little sleep and high stress has brought on a bout of sinusitis. That toothache turned out to be a little more serious. He has suffered from sinusitis before and travels with antibiotics but his supply is exhausted. The symptoms have been getting steadily worse and every morning he complains that his face is on fire.

  A week before the final scenes are shot, I’m woken in the middle of the night by whimpering. Half-dazed with sleep I feel around in the bed for Kathryn. I can hear her but can’t find her. I push at Mal, fearing she’s
under him, and start to panic.

  It is only when I come fully awake that I realise the whimpering isn’t coming from under Mal – it is Mal. All sixfoot-two of him is curled into a foetal position making the most gut-wrenching whimpering sounds. He is in agony.

  Having woken me, he is concerned he’ll wake Kathryn, so he struggles to his feet and stumbles into the lounge room to lie on a couch. Dawn is a few hours away and he spends the time thrashing around on the couch, white-faced with pain.

  With morning comes some respite from the cold and his pain eases, but overnight more urgent film things have sprung up and before we finish breakfast the phone calls start. First up it’s the location secretary with a new problem. Mal starts the day.

  I go to see Karma Yangki. She is, as always, calm, concerned and ready to help in any way she can. She gets the phone off Mal and calls the doctor. Dr Pema Dorji, the doctor of traditional medicine who is part of the Dzongkha Committee, says he will be over as soon as he can (which is a bit like getting the surgeon-general to pop by for a house call).

  He greets me like a long-lost friend and I take him into the bedroom where Mal, having dealt with the most pressing of his film matters, has passed out again. Dr Dorji spends a lot of time taking Mal’s pulse, pressing three fingers into his wrist and gently moving them about. He doesn’t check his watch as it isn’t specifically speed or strength that he is listening for. It is everything about the pulse – the quality, cadence, flow, any sharp peaks, and its whole general feel. Then the two men talk about the pain, where it is, what it feels like, and so on.

  Dr Dorji’s bedside manner is gentle and jolly, and for the first time in days Mal manages a smile. He gives Mal three bags of different-coloured pills to take at specific times of the day.

  Bhutanese traditional medicine is similar to Tibetan medicine and involves the integration of mind and body. Their theory incorporates knowledge culled from Chinese, Indian and Arabic–Greek practices that were shared in cross-cultural medical forums held as far back as the third century. Treatments include pulse diagnosis, acupuncture, specially prepared herbs and spices, diet, specific timings of medications throughout the day, plus mantra, meditation, sounds and other more esoteric methods.

  Urine analysis also is important. It is best to provide samples first thing in the day, which is why clinics can be full of people in the morning and empty by afternoon. The doctors look at viscosity, odour, colour and content.

  As word of Mal’s condition spreads through the family, it sparks discussion about everybody else’s ailments. Wesel Wangmo is on a course of tablets that she is meant to take before dawn. She is finding it tough to follow because she keeps waking too late to take that first pill.

  Sometimes the medicines can be light-sensitive so need to be taken in the dark. The patient crushes them before bed, wakes before first light and takes them with warm water, getting straight back into bed and covering the body to stay warm. Phuntsho Wangmo suffers a skin rash on her hand and is on a course of tablets that prohibits her from having meat or alcohol.

  Treatments are intended to work with the body and, contrary to western expectations (where we want to feel better immediately), can be slow to take effect. It may be at least a week or two before any improvement.

  Before he leaves, Dr Dorji has a chat with Karma Yangki and she adjusts Mal’s diet accordingly. Yak, aged cheese (ghastly, rancid, hard lumps, which they bury in the ground to age) and chilli are off the menu. Mal looks genuinely disappointed.

  The morning of the party approaches and Mal is still in pain. He’s a really unhealthy grey but can’t slow down. He has dozens of things demanding his attention and they can’t be put off or passed on to someone else. Film-making just doesn’t work that way, particularly at this point in the schedule.

  There is a deadline and a budget, and any deviation throws everything out.

  Karma Yangki calls for me after lunch. We are to get dressed at Phuntsho Wangmo’s place in town and we’ll see Mal there. I have my doubts he is going to make it but wave goodbye to him anyway.

  I crowd into the four-wheel drive with everybody else, only this time I beat Karma Yangki outside and score a seat in the back, leaving the front seat for her. It’s where she would normally sit, but with me around, she always gives me the front seat. Today it’s hers. There are five women across the back and two children. Throughout the trip Kathryn is passed along the back seat, then over to Karma Yangki and back again.

  We head into the office and upstairs to Phuntsho Wangmo’s apartment.

  The afternoon is enormous fun – half-a-dozen of us dressing for the party and a few others there to help. The last time I got dressed with so many women was for my best friend’s wedding fifteen years ago, and the excitement level is about as high.

  Out come all the brightly coloured kiras, laid across the bed, all glorious and dramatic. Lined up beside each one is a silk blouse to be worn underneath, called a wonju. Each of these is made from single-colour silk, either a pale pastel or bold jewel colour. Then there is the bolero-style patterned silk jacket called a toego that is worn over the top. The possible combinations of these three garments provides an endless kaleidoscope of colour.

  Karma Yangki pulls out a magnificent blue kira, which she intends to wear. I am confused.

  ‘What happened to the beautiful red kira your weaver has been working on for the past three months?’

  She smiles shyly and shakes her head. Phuntsho Wangmo explains that when Karma Yangki saw it finished she decided it was over the top. Too bold and dramatic.

  Karma Yangki pulls it out of a bag to show me. She brought it with her just in case at the last minute she did feel bold enough to carry it off. I see what she means. It is stunning. Vivid red with delicate gold detail. It is not a kira for the fainthearted. Karma Yangki doesn’t want to stand out and no amount of arguing will change her mind. It doesn’t matter – she’d look good in a curtain and is absolutely gorgeous wearing the sky blue.

  Once Karma Yangki is sorted, it is my turn. There are a few kiras, wonjus and toegos laid out on the bed for me to choose from. After much consultation and everyone voicing an opinion, it is decided what I should wear. It takes three of them to dress me, firstly in a vivid orange silk wonju, which is like a shirt but without buttons. They sort of tuck it into place. Then two of them drape me in an orange and green kira, pinning it at the shoulders with a pair of elaborate round gold brooches called komas. Finally they wrap a long multicoloured cloth belt around my waist, very tightly, circling it many times and tying it at the back. Over the top of it all goes a shiny pale green toego, which also doesn’t have buttons but is somehow tucked into place.

  We’re ready. Piling back into the four-wheel drive, we then speed off to go to the Druk Hotel in the centre of town.

  As it turns out, every western woman on the crew is loaned a kira and shown how to wear it by her new Bhutanese friends. We make a self-conscious, gawky bunch. The Bhutanese women are petite and elegant, and make lovely swishing noises as they glide effortlessly across the floor. Some of the western women manage to carry it off but the rest (including me) look clumsy, even when standing perfectly still. I feel marooned inside all this fabric. I can barely breathe, let alone move.

  All the men arrive wearing ghos. The western members of the crew have spent days being fitted and learning how to tie the belt just right to make the chest pouch. They wear them with varying degrees of grace. Some sit modestly with their knees together while others are legs akimbo, leaving us in no doubt about their preference for boxers or Y-fronts. That’s at the start of the night. After a few wines it’s as if they’ve metaphorically loosened their ties. Every single one of them. Except Mal. He’s the only man not wearing a gho. He didn’t have time to organise for one to be made, and being so tall and broad, was unlikely to find one his size in a shop. He arrives looking very dapper in a grey three-piece suit, a rosy glow and a beaming grin. He looks like a different man from the one I waved goodbye to a few
hours earlier.

  ‘Feeling better?’ I ask.

  ‘Yeah, I feel great,’ he says, sweeping me up in the middle of the lobby to plant a big kiss. ‘You look gorgeous.’

  I’m immediately suspicious. Either that is a well-meaning lie or his judgment is seriously impaired. I saw a mirror and I know I look like a round wooden keg. Kira fabric is so stiff and heavy that I have doubled in size.

  ‘Have you taken something?’I ask.

  ‘Yeah, the last of the painkiller pills.’

  And then he’s gone, lost in a bear hug with a burly Bhutanese.

  The unofficial guest of honour, at least among we residents of Taba, is the apple farmer who plays an apple farmer in the film. He has struck a chord with everyone. Rinpoche found him selling his fruit in Thimphu market. Ap Dochu is aged eighty-one (or thereabouts), small, wiry, with half-adozen teeth. Despite the best efforts of the director and crew, he never understood that he was playing a part in a movie and believed everything that was happening was real.

  When the plot called for the truck to break down, he became agitated that it happened again and again, lamenting that it should occur just when Rinpoche needed it. When asked to sleep for a campfire scene, he did just that, snoring happily through take after take. After three weeks he was completely confused at the dithering and silliness that seemed to be surrounding him. Finally he boarded a bus heading for Thimphu, believing at last he was going home. Seconds later it stopped around the corner and backed up so that the crew could film it again, from another angle. He stamped his foot in frustration and complained that it took just four hours to get there but was taking days to get home.

  When he arrives at the party there is a ripple of excitement and Karma Yangki brings him over to say hello. He has a lined face, twinkling eyes and wears an air of calm bemusement – which could be either his usual manner or how he has decided to approach another evening of silliness with these strange people. I ask Karma Yangki if he is enjoying the party and she shrugs. She has no more of an idea of what is going on in his head than I do. He doesn’t speak Sharchop, English or Nepalese, her three languages. But like me, she is utterly captivated. So we stand and grin together, the three of us.