I have been to many places in my life. In fact, I’ve been to more than 100 countries on all seven continents!
When I was appointed medical director of a hospital in Ontario, I knew in that moment that God was rewarding me with the possibility of travel. And I knew that I wanted to take advantage of that opportunity.
There are many beautiful countries in the world, especially the South Asian countries along the Himalayas. I had already visited extensively in India and Nepal, but I really wanted to visit Bhutan.
Without a doubt, Bhutan was something special and I will never forget my time there. It’s a very difficult country to visit. Unlike Thailand, which is very commercial and open to many visitors from around the world, Bhutan has taken steps to preserve its culture. One of those steps has been to restrict international visitors to just 3,000 people each year.
In 1998, I managed to get my visa, and I began preparations for this special trip. Bhutan, also known as “The Last Shangri-La,” is a small country only about 40,000 square kilometers in size. It’s similar in size to Switzerland and also very mountainous. It’s a Buddhist country with a population of about 650,000 people.
Because of the heavy forests, rivers and mountains, there are several hydro plants. The economy is based on the export of power/electricity to India, mostly to West Bengal.
In 1998, Denmark built a brand new hospital, which I visited. Unfortunately, it was very basic. After a chat with their chief of staff, I was offered a job.
I was only there for about eight days, but there were memorable days. At that time, my understanding was that there was only one aircraft in the country, “Druk Air,” which traveled only to Thailand, Nepal and India.
Also, there were no hotels in Bhutan, only guest houses. Because so few people manage to visit Bhutan, upon my return to Canada I was contacted by several Travel Agencies interested in learning about Bhutan and details about my travel and accommodations.
I began in the town of Paro, and befriended about a dozen Scots on the flight into the country. We became friends. Later, in a surprise encounter, I met them again, but they didn’t recognize me! I was dressed like a local, and I guess it was an effective disguise because it took them a little time to realize it was me!
My first major experience was hiking to Taktsang, or Tiger’s Nest, a spectacular Buddhist monastery perched on the side of a mountain in Paro. The hike was very difficult. It took me four hours, and I know that many people don’t make it. There was no cable car or any other means of getting to the monastery short of trekking. Actually, Prince Charles had tried the previous year, and ended up falling off a horse and getting injured!
But the hike was worth it. The view from the monastery is breathtaking. On the way down, it started raining and hailing, so my guide and I took refuge in the house of a woman in her 80s.
What was incredible was that the old lady still had natural black hair without a single gray strand.
After Paro, I visited the capital Thimphu, which only had about 30,000 people at that time. As a doctor, the most interesting thing to me was visiting the pharmacy and the traditional medical school, which had only very basic services.
The national sport in Bhutan is archery and they have many competitions. At the time of my visit there was no TV because the government was concerned that violent movies could turn the younger generations into violent people. However, they had TV sets and could watch VHS cassettes brought in from India. They were actually so up-to-date that when I wanted to buy a T-shirt (like a typical Bhutan souvenir shirt), they offered me a T-shirt with a very famous scene from the movie “Titanic,” which had been released just a few weeks earlier.
Their traditional attire (which they have to wear at all times) is very interesting, like a fairly heavy robe with white sleeves up to the elbows. It’s easily removable because they needed to be washed quite frequently.
Smoking in Bhutan is a no-no. They do not sell cigarettes. Visitors can bring in up to 150 cigarettes and can only smoke outdoors in very discreet places such as behind a building.
I brought back several items from that trip, but my favourite are the stamps. That might not sound interesting, but actually Bhutan was the only country in the world making 3-D stamps at that time. They were soon discontinued by the Bhutan government because postmasters in other countries would remove the colorful stamps and keep them.
I still have my booklet of those unique stamps. Like my memories from the trip, I always will.
