Buying fruit

I'm in the US for a fellowship interview at the moment -- and hoping Chicago doesn't get the blizzard of the decade that's predicted to hit starting tomorrow. My interview is the day after, and my flight is three days after that. I built in a few days after my interview in case of a bad-weather event, but I'm still crossing my fingers it doesn't come to that. I traveled for 43 hours to get back here, quite exhausted by the time I arrived.

I won't have new pictures to share this week, so here's one I took in Phuntsholing when we were buying fruit.

South to the border - the temple

This beautiful temple in Phuentsholing is representative of the home of a very important monk in Bhutan's history.

South to the border -- the landscape

At the south of Bhutan, the Himalayas fall abruptly to the plains of India. This river is still in Bhutan for just a bit further before it continues south to the border.

To the north, you can see how the mountains drop to the flood plain -- it's mostly dry now, but this whole area looks completely different during the monsoon season.

South to the border -- the animals

We took our first trip this weekend and decided south was the way to go in the hopes of T-shirt weather. Phuntsholing is a Bhutanese town that borders India -- in fact, there is a gate and a metal fence that mark the border. The drive took about five hours and included a descent of about 2,000 meters (about 6,500ft) through the different climatic zones. Here are the highlights in a few blog posts.

This is a Gharial crocodile, a critically endangered species that is now extinct in the wild in Bhutan. We saw him (males have the big noses like you see here) at the crocodile zoo/breeding center in town.

This bird was hanging out around the crocodile pond, maybe in hopes of some fish. It is an Indian Pond Heron.

On the drive back to Thimphu, we saw one monkey dash into the forest from the road, and then closer to town, we saw a whole bunch of them. They ran right up to our car.

And this is probably my favorite picture I've taken so far. This little guy was hoping for handouts from a truck that had stopped on the side of the road.

Attempted trip in the snow

Today I set out with a group from the nonprofit where I'm doing my internship to look at a site for a conservation project. We planned to drive to a site about 2.5 hours from Thimphu, but the trip was very slow going from the combination of snow, ice and slush on the highway. After about three hours on the road, we decided to turn around since the roads got even more dicey, and we wouldn't be able to make it to our site and back that afternoon. Even though we didn't make our destination, I was thrilled to appreciate beautiful views and meet more fascinating people.

This site at the top of the highest pass on our journey today was built in 2004 as a memorial after the Bhutanese army drove terrorists out of the country. The pass is at about 10,200ft.

We got out of the van and walked a bit when the road got really icy.

This was a pretty path where we stopped for a break on our way back to Thimphu.

The clouds were much thicker over the pass on our way back into town.

Buddha statue

We visited the Buddha statue yesterday, which is up on a mountainside above Thimphu. As you can see, it's still under construction -- I think someone told me that the area under the statue will be a museum. The statue is somewhere between 50 and 60m tall (164 to 196ft), and offers beautiful views of the surrounding valleys.

This picture shows the valley where we live -- you can just see some white buildings in the center of the photo -- we are up maybe 500 meters or more from there. We'd really like to hike to the top of the highest ridge you can see here -- apparently it's only about a 6-7 hour hike from where our apartment is, and the views are incredible.

What is this fruit?

No, this is not a rhetorical question or a fruit lesson; I actually have no idea what this fruit is. In fact, it might be a vegetable, but the little spines all over it make me think fruit. I decided each week I'll get some fruit or veggie I'm not familiar with from the weekend market and learn how to eat or cook it. The miscalculation this week was that I do not yet know the words for "fruit" or "vegetable" in dzongkha, so the only thing I was able to find out from the woman I bought it from was its price.

So, if you know what this fruit (?) is, send me an email or leave a comment letting me know, and I'll send you a postcard. And yes, I tried searching online for a while, but no luck. Maybe I'll take it to the office staff tomorrow and ask...