One of the greatest things about this day in Thimpu was truly immersing into the local culture and life, and getting a small sensation of what this country truly "feels" like. The gentle but ambitious spirit. We had an awesome visit to the Heritage Museum, a local arts college, as well as the National *LIBRARY*. Oh how I LOVE books!
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| Local scaffolding |
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| National Library, an beautiful building. I would not mind this being my house-front! |
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| National Library: Loving the architectural details |
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| Flower begetting flowers |
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| Library "books", scroll form |
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| Bhutan Love |
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| The tools |
Oddly, I was so caught up in watching the craftsman that I captured his tools and his craft, but I did not capture the artist himself! Ugh! But the tools above created the mask below, all by free-hand, which I find absolutely incredible and impressive.
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| The craft |
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| Heritage Museum: A Traditional Bhutanese Home |
The culture of Bhutan is one of community, productivity, and introspection. They expect all members of their society, to matter their capacity, to contribute to somehow (no matter how little). As you may have noticed by the artistic nature of everything here: public buildings, private homes, temples, monuments, statues, everywhere is artistically beautiful. It is not without effort, and it was interesting to visit one of the schools to develop the artisans to continue to support and build their culture.
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| Meticulous attention to detail! IN AWE! See below! |
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| Every.single.one of these was individually made and place. I cannot imagine having this much patience with anything! |
I honestly thought that our visit to this place was a "tourist stop" for the local art, to support the local economy, as tour-led groups tend to do this, but it was not the case. Yes, there was a small shop where you could (and we did) buy art, but most of these efforts are for local use in homes, and especially temples.
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| All by hand. See below for close-up |
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| More Bhutan Love |
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| Adam's favorite part: The dumplings! |
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| National Memorial Chorten |
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| National Memorial Chorten |
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| National Memorial Chorten |
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| National Memorial Chorten: Doing our laps. They are a "petite" people |
And a beautiful drive back to Paro:
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| The signs were every few miles/kilometer continuously, different quotes, main AND secondary road |
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| Drying the chili pepper |
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| The local grocery store |
