Sacred place on Earth!

After early breakfast, we drove to Punakha. Along the way, we stopped to take some pictures of a Dzong, and met some cute Bhutanese children. 

We took some cool pictures with them! I made the wrong choice of bringing my small jacket along with me, because as we pass by Dochula Pass, we stop by to see the 108 Bhutanses Stupas. It was high up in the mountains, and thus was very cold! There, with the help of our guide and driver, we hang up our long life prayer flags that we had originally gotten for our parents from one of the Bhutanese temples. 

We are unable to see the Himalayan ranges since it was very cloudy that day. Instead we walk round the stupas. The stupas were built by a noble family during the time when Indian terrorists were invading some parts of Bhutan a long time ago, according to the story as told by our guide. Next we continued our journey to Punakha, and from Thimphu to there, it took us about 2 hours to reach. 

We had lunch at one of the local restaurant before taking a short trek up to a temple called the Chimi Lhakhang. Chimi means dog. 

There is this story about the dog and the divine madman. Once upon a time the divine madman met a cowboy with his cow while traveling from Tibet to Bhutan. The cowboy looked very sad and depressed, and the divine madman asked him what was happening. The cowboy told him he was very afraid and fearful that he would not be able to make it back home in time. 

The divine madman told him not to worry and with his miraculous powers, he made the cowboy go to sleep, and the next moment the cowboy woke up, he found himself safely back at home. The cow was with the divine madman as he promised the cowboy he would bring the cow back to his home himself. During that night, the divine madman tied the cow under a tree while he himself climbed up to the peak of the tree.

Some demons smelled the smell of fresh meat and came to the tree. The divine madman subdued the demons with his magical instruments and transformed the demon into a dog. Then he pulled the dog to where the location of the Chimi Lhakhang (Chimi temple) was and buried the dog under a stupa that he built himself. 

Later, the divine madman’s brother built a temple next to the stupa, and this was how the Chimi Lhakhang (Chimi meaming dog) came into existence. During the trek we walk through humble nice farmhouses, vast plains of rice fields, saw many dogs running around and cows resting on the rice fields. Inside Chimi temple, we received blessings from the magical instruments belonging to the divine madman, and the interesting thing is the ‘magical instrument’s are shaped like men penis!

These are the exact magical tools used by the divine madman himself to subdue the demons, and in many Bhutanese houses of today, you could still see these pictures of ‘penis’, originated from the divine madman. We also get a chance to see the bow and arrow belonging to the divine madman and which he brought from Tibet when he came over to Bhutan.

Next, we drove about 20 minutes to our hotel  (Hotel Meripusnsum) and checked in. The hotel is like a resort built high up in a mountain. After check in, we visited the Punakha Dzong. The Dzong is situated between the two rivers – the male river and the female river and are one of the biggest river in Bhutan. 

We walked through the suspension bridge to reach the Dzong. The whole building was rebuilt in 2003 as the original building has almost half of its walls destroyed by a terrible flood many years before 2003. The Dzong was said to be built in 1637 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (a saint said to unite Bhutan and chosen the first king of Bhutan) and is situated between the Pho Chu (male river) and the Mo Chu (female river). 

For many years until the time of the second king it served as the seat of government. 

Nowadays, the present king’s palace is in Thimpu, and the Dzong is occupied by monks and certain parts used as administrative buildings. Inside the temple of the Dzong we could see a huge statue of Shakyamuni Bhudda at the center with his two important diciples, Guru Rinpoche on the right and Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal on the right. Certain parts of the Dzong are not accessible by foreigners like ourselves.