JOURNEYS (PART TWO)

The other great journeys were always in the hot weather - to get away from the stifling humidity of the plains- and they were always to the mountains. I was very blessed in that i went to all three independent mountain kingdoms while they were still free. Nepal and Bhutan exist still by playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse between India and China. Beautiful, gentle Sikkim fared less well and lost its ruler and its independence to the machinations of Indira Gandhi. Anyone who saw the Chogyal in his last days would have wept for the mean spirited way that he was treated. A man of peace and love,a former monk who gave up the monastery to lead his country; he deserved better and so did his Sikkimese.

To understands the politics you must realise that during the sixties and seventies India face faces war on three fronts: the Pakistanis, the East Pakistanis, and , following two attempted invasions a very real threat from the Chinese looking for an Indian Ocean port that would allow them access to the oil-rich gulf. Ironically a port they will soon have with Rangoon.

All this said my journeys were taken in innocent wonder. All of the doctors in Calcutta were invited to the Sikkim Coronation. The young Chogyal had remarried an American heiress Hope Cook and this was to be the event of the decade.

My mother had come home to look after my grandmother, with me along as usual. She screeched when she opened the letter. My father and sister were going! But they would send us many photos. It took her years to forgive them. Yet these pictures taken by my father tell us of another time, another place another world.

That he was close enough to take this is a small miracle. There they sat at the moment of assuming absolute power with their people. Few could know the sadness that was to come their way.

You can't see it clearly here but Hopela wore a woven coronet of pearls and those heady days of the sixties an Amercian girl becoming not just a princess but a queen was the archetypal hippy fantasy - go backpacking, meet a good looking man, marry him and there you are Gyalmo of Sikkim.

Of course there was more to it than that. She was very kind to me - once when my mother and I finally made it to Gangtok there was a film playing in the bazaar, Danny Kaye in the Black Fox. We were summoned to dinner at the palace and Hopela asked me if I was enjoying my stay. "Very much," I said, " but my favourite film was on tonight at the cinema and it finishes tomorrow and I should have liked to see it." That was a Cinderella moment. ADCs were summoned, the cinema phoned and the next day I was part of the royal party that took over the cinema simply because a child had expressed a desire.
Yes, it was power but it was kind power - she did not need to do it. I had no political clout: I was ten! But I never forgot.

Bhutan was always a hidden and secretive kingdom. For many years the Dorje family had rules as kings in all but name. Raja Dorge had married his children carefully, his daughter Kesang to the young king, his son Jigme to Yutok's daughter Tessla. And so it was that Jigme became Prime Minister and the young and oh so beautiful Dorje men began to arrive in Calcutta. Lenny, a glorious, quickwitted, funny man married a very beautiful girl Glenda and my father delivered their first child Kesang. Not long after this tragedy struck and Jigme was assassinated as he sat eating his meal in Punsoling on his was up to Thimphu, the capital.

Lhendup Dorge now became Prime Minister in his brother's place. The king fled to Switzerland: he had a bad heart. And at this time we were invited to go and stay in Paro with Lenny. And of course we went - assassination of no this was a chance of a lifetime; previously the only way in was to trek for many days (as Desmond had done when he accompanied Indira Gandhi acting on behalf of her father in a diplomatic mission). Lenny assured us that the road would be built and it would no time to reach Paro from the border. to accompany us he sent his secretary, Mary MacDonald, yes a relation, and two friends Martin Sarkies and Willy Tam.

This photograph was taken during the eight hour drive across the terai. This followed an early morning arrival at Dum Dum where we were counted and then the necessary seats bolted into place. The rest of the cargo was mangoes and to this day I am sick at the smell. The reason they all looked so happy was because we had stopped.

Finally our first night in Bhutan was at the guest bungalow in Punsoling. Where Jigme some few weeks earlier had been shot and where in one of the rooms the bloodstained sheets still lay on the bed. Mary had been there when it happened and relived the horror of it again. We were glad to leave in the morning.

And thrilled beyond belief to see the road opening up before us! It quite literally was being blasted from the rock face as we climbed. We would have to stop, wait for the debris to be cleared enough for the jeeps to stagger over and then move forward cautiously until the next boom told us more road lay ahead.
It sounds impossible and awful. But the views, the mountains and valleys and rivers. And the people, laughing at us, with us but such merriment and joy. No wonder the gross national product is happiness.

After a while the torture stopped and we reached a metalled road that wound its way alongside the mountain and across to reveal a valley.

Paro valley, the dzong looming over this exquisite, enchanted place and here, at last, we were.

A lovely set of guest cottages surrounded by pine trees and with an intoxicating aroma of their resin. The green grass was actually pine needles spread across the ground and the elegant guest quarters has all mod cons - except as they rushed to tell us - not yet plumbed in!

At night we would meet in a central room with a huge fire pit dug into  the floor. Alcohol would flow and there would be dancing and laughter. Lenny very much the centre of attention all in red with a pistol at his belt.

The days were spent fishing for the men, exploring the dzong and the most glorious of all pilgrimages the trek to see Taksung, the Tiger's Nest. Paro valley is roughly 7500ft above sea level: Taksung is 900 metres above that. Sorry, can't work it out but it is high!

The story has two parts: Guru Rimpoche, also know as Padmasambhava, was flying on his white tiger across Bhutan when he saw this place and stayed in cave there for three months. Guru Rimpoche in renowned for bringing Buddhism to Bhutan and to Tibet so this cave is a very holy place. On the climb up to the monastery there are some carvings in the rock that look like a very complicated keyhole. It is believed when the world ends Guru Rimpoche will come and take the key (which is also carved) unlock the rock and release all the joys of the world and all will be saved.

Many, many hundreds of years later a statue of Guru Rimpoche rising his tiger was being carried from Paro to Thimphu. As they passed Taksang the statue moved its head towards the mountain. The men were terrified and thought they would be blamed for its misfortune. They ran to find a lama. When they returned the head was straight but as soon as they tried to move it it turned again. Word of the miracle spread to the King in Thimphu and he came to see for himself. He ordered the building of a monastery on the side of the mountain next to Guru Rimpoche's cave  and ordered that the statue should be at the high alter. When I was there it still was with an odd crooked head surrounded by butter lamps.

Auntie Annie used to say to my mother,"Don't look so long at the mountains Joyla, they will take you and keep you." How could they not? I leave you with one last image. The Nathu La: the pass that brings you from Tibet to Sikkim and Kalimpong and from this side promises clouds of glory beyond its mists and mountains.