kadrin che la – Thank-you
kuzu zangpo la – welcome / hello
We are going to the festival today. It’s raining hard when I get up and Jamyang calls and we discuss my wearing traditional dress. I decide not to. Even though the rain lets up I do find it more comfortable, especially sitting on the ground.
There are lot of people at the festival and it is outside. There are covered areas set up, and one for tourists. A chair! This actually allows me to really enjoy the festival: masked dancers, women dancers, and another troupe of masked dancers. There is a whole story of course for each dance. Toward lunch time a large statue of the God of Death is brought in by the monks. The God of Death is linked with judgement – whether when you die, and are judged for your good deeds and bad, which prevails in your judgement and therefore reincarnation? But it is also auspicious to be blessed by the God of Death, and hundreds of people line up. The story from the morning dances will continue after a lunch break – the character playing ‘evil / bad deeds’ has escaped once more and the dancers are off to recapture him, so that he may face his judgement.
We are off to town. We stop in a very modern Chinese store – a chain – to buy a yoga mat. I’ll likely have to leave it here in Bhutan, though it turns out to be a great yoga mat.
We stop for lunch in town – it is quite good. There is a sweet little cat begging, which I shoo away. She finally curls up beside me, and I give her a pet – a mistake I will soon discover!
Jamyang tries to help me buy a bottle of wine. I turn down the Wolf Blass chardonnay as it is not my favourite, and at $22 USD I won’t bother. Another store – no luck.
As we drive to see, and perhaps walk across, the long suspension bridge I am sneezing and my eye is itchy. The cat!! So, I use hand sanitizer – but then mistake I rub my eyes more. By the time we get to the bridge (say 20 minutes) my right eye, and socket around it, is sore, so I rinse my hands in water and flush out my eye several times. This helps, but it continues to really bother me, and Jamyang says it is swollen. I don’t like the way this feels – and figure it’s a combination of the cat and the sanitizer.
I only walk about 20′ out on the bridge. It’s way too high up for me, and with my eye I’m put off. Back to the hotel, and I set up to see Jamyang later in the evening, but in the end set tomorrow’s day before I head up to my room. I plan a quiet evening.
In my room I take one look at my eye and freak out! It’s red, swollen, puffy all down to my cheek – but worst of all there seem to be small blisters in the lower, outer corner – thankfully only on the white. Also a thick, clear liquid. I head back downstairs to find Jamyang as I want to go to the hospital. I find Kinzang then Jamyang, and off we go. About 20 minutes later we are at the hospital – it is a rural one – but I figure any good nurse can flush my eye out. We are directed to the Emergency Department, and wait only 10 minutes – or less, for a nurse. We fill her in. She takes a picture to send to the doctor. In the meantime she takes my blood pressure – 171/90! I’m sure the high altitude combined with the stress of my eye, and being at the hospital have sent it so high. But I’ll be careful. (I decline high blood pressure medication.) The nurse comes back a few times, but within 15 minutes has a diagnosis from the doctor (don’t know where the doctor is) – conjunctivitis – an eye infection. I am so glad I came immediately – though it’s surprising it could flair up so quickly. The nurse gives me some antibiotic eye drops – every four hours, for 2 days, and then I am to re-evaluated. She gives me the drops, and I ask her to put in the first one. Good thing as the bottle seems stuck. She writes up everything so that I can take this with me. We are done and on our way back to the hotel. I’m going to stay in for the evening, and order some lentil soup with bread and butter for dinner in my room.
My eye still feels very odd, and I am concerned about leaving Punakha tomorrow to go to a remote village without a hospital. I will see how things come along.
I rest, have dinner at 7:30, and find CNN to watch. Jamyang calls at 8:30 – just to be sure I have set an alarm for my drops and to see how I am feeling. No worse and perhaps a bit better. The little blisters are gone.
I wanted to email Sangay, and also check this weird email from CIBC where I can only see the subject line, but the internet is down from the rain earlier. I set the stop watch feature on my tablet for 4 hours, and I am off to sleep. (I use the stop watch as I am not convinced my devices are on local time to set an alarm.) I sleep well through the night, the alarm waking me for the drops, and then I reset it.
What a crazy day!
A comment regarding the festival. In being comfortable I was not only able to enjoy the dancers, but the music. Continuous symbols and percussion was meditative.