Day 7

Thursday 4 Oct 218

After another early start, we climbed up to Lingshi Dzong. The dzong is currently abandoned due to damages suffered from earthquakes and the monks have taken refuge in the nearby village.

From the dzong, the path contoured the hillside, passing numerous farms. The clouds concealed the potential distant views but this was our first day without sunshine and the abundance of flowers and interesting villages more than compensated. After a couple of hours the path turned a corner before descending to Gang Yul (meaning 'village at the pass').

Set beneath enormous limestone cliffs and dwarfed by the enormous east face of Jitchu Drake, Gang Yul's situation is one of the most impressive in Bhutan. Home to about 150 people, living in a dozen or so beautifully designed houses. This is a windy valley so we were able to take shelter in a house to have lunch.



Leaving the village, the path continued along the hillside for another hour to Chebisa, only a few hours from Tibet.
We descended to the village archery field next to a picturesque village (3850m) and noticed the familiar piled earth wall at each end of our field (used to place a target for archery tournaments). The usual abundance of yaks around our tents were the least of our worries as it appeared that we were in the flight path of high velocity arrows shot from carbon-fibre bows.
Archery targets are set 145m apart in Bhutan, with teams at each end and there is often a bar half way between targets where players get a drink on their way to the opposite end! Allegedly, accuracy improves after a few drinks but then declines rapidly! When the target is hit other players perform a traditional song and dance.

The incredible accuracy at such great distances would surely make Bhutanese competitive on the world stage but unfortunately Olympic distances are too short plus there is no bar or singing when you hit the target!
The frequent use of a phallic symbol can be seen on many houses and monasteries is all thanks to the Divine Mad Monk (Lama Drukpa Kunley- 1455-1529) who travelled throughout Bhutan and Tibet using humour and outrageous behaviour in his Buddhist teaching.

This style of preaching was an antidote to the stuffiness of the clergy before him, he felt the social conventions were keeping people from learning the teachings of Buddha. His trademark can be rather disconcerting, we saw a hollowed log waterspout carefully carved at the end and a hand rail on some steps to a monastery topped with a carved penis!

Distance 11km 6hrs

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