Dochu La

At the summit of Dochu La the main pass between Thimpu and Punakha, there is a memorial of 108 (the magic Buddhist number) chortens, erected in 2005 "as an atonement for the loss of life in the Assamese Insurgency". So that's all right then. Collaborating with their Indian neighbours to wipe out the Assamese dissidents who had fled across the border to escape persecution there, in the misguided belief that a peace loving Buddhist nation might offer sanctuary rather than death. Maybe not quite ethnic cleansing, but anyway all made up for by the construction of a few tacky statues...the less well known and politically expedient side of independent, sovereign Bhutan. But then Bhutan itself hardly has a shining record on civil rights and does not even recognise the existence of thousands of migrant workers on whom they depend to keep their roads going and to perform various other dirty, heavy or otherwise unpleasant jobs. Despite their ethnic garb which gives the impression that not only the country, but its entire population are living in a medieval time warp, it is chastening to remember that they are underneath it all, just people like the rest of us. And like us they take photographs, use mobile phones...exterminate their enemies...