Try the Best Thali in town at Karma's Dhaba

Karma's Dhaba is located between Zangthopelri Complex and Namseling Boutique, Thimphu

If you are looking for a place where taste and quality is served for a simple price, walk into one of the newest restaurant in Thimphu, Bhutan that treats with you with authentic Indian Thali. 

Thali at Karma's Dhaba is one of the best in the town.

The restaurant is located between Zangthopelri Complex and Namseling Boutique, just a few distance from the main city road, which is convenient for most office goers in town.

If you are looking for a restaurant where dishes are served almost immediately without compromising on taste and quality, then look no further than Karma’s Dhaba.

Karma’s Dhaba is home to the best Thali in town. An entrepreneurial Mr. Karma, who is a Master Chef by profession, has dedicated himself to learn all the excellent ingredients that go into making the best Thali.

Compared to similar restaurants in town, the prices are very reasonable and. Sate your appetite and treat your taste buds for just Nu.190 (approx. $2.9) for a plate of Mutton Thali.

The mutton curry comes with an assortment of alu bhaji, fried dal, curd, papad, salad, home made eazey, pickle, mixed vegetables. The variety of dishes comes with its own unique ingredients that Karma has been perfecting for the last 10 years. 

Employees with HH Rinpochhe

Besides Mutton Thali, Karma’s Dhaba also serve chicken, beef and pork Thali with the same assortments all at only Nu.150 (appox. $2.4).

Karma’s Dhaba serves lunch and dinner on all weekdays and remains closed on Sunday.

*This post is sponsored by Karma’s Dhaba

Exploring Eastern Bhutan, A Travelogue

It was still raining when I reached Trashigang. It was a two-day long arduous journey starting from the capital city, Thimphu, through hairpin bends and narrow, dangerous bumpy roads. We made it, for now.

Chorten Kora, Trashiyangtse

As we approached the town, the rain had stopped. There was a piercing silence, punctuated only by the sound of our car squelching on the wet tarmac. Night fell in an instant, but it rained again. 

I was given to the care of a local administrator for the night, whose wife took great efforts to make sure I was comfortable. She talked non-stop, except when she was eating, which she did from time to time.

I couldn’t wait for the morning when I would be travelling places in eastern Bhutan. It was the august of 2014. I would be covering at least four districts; Trashigang, Trashi Yangtse, Mongar and Lhuentshe for the next few days.

I was up and ready when the morning broke with a glorious sunshine after last night’s heavy downpour. I felt good. I hired an old pickup truck and headed towards a remote village in Trashigang.

As a journalist, I was up for task; I was ready to listen to people, to their stories, their sufferings, their delight, their history, their aspirations. But the journey through the quaint villages of eastern Bhutan had more things in stock than I was prepared for.

Enter any home in eastern Bhutan and they persistent offer Ara, a local beverage mixed in a delicacy of egg and butter. But no drinking on the job.

Our Bolero truck screamed and struggled through the mud, after a while, it got stuck in the slush and we had to abort and find an alternative way. We cancelled our ride to the remote villages and headed towards Rangjung from whence we would move on to Lhuentshe.

I had read about Lhuentshe a decade ago or so, in one of the local newspaper which described it as a town where a newcomer on reaching Lhuentshe would look for the town, only to realize he has been in the heart of it all the while.

It hasn’t changed much today, Lhuentshe is still a small settlement of just over fifty shops, but the countryside is steeped in a rich legacy of history.

We drove a few distances towards a place called Takila, where a giant statue of the Buddhist master, The Indian Prince, Guru Rinpoche was being built based on an ancient prophecy. The statue was incomplete with bamboo scaffoldings, but the face was almost done. And it looked down on me with an air of majesty, compassion and peace. I felt a trickle of dharma rain down my exhausted frame.

On returning, we offered a lift to an elderly man from Lhuentshe, who indulged us in a delicious anecdote of a legendary king who lived in ancient Lhuentshe and built a nine-storied underground fortress.

The ruler of Bangtsho in ancient Lhuentshe was famed for his riches that lured Tibetans across the border. But the king had skillfully built a fortress underground that it was practically impossible to locate him.

Entrance to the underground fortress of the Bangtsho King

The old man went on almost in a monologue, - “the fortress can still be seen today”, said he, “but no one dares enter.” To this day, people believe the king still dwells within the fortress in the form of a serpent.

Later however, after many failed attempts by the Tibetans, the king was caught grazing his cattle in an open field. One of his servants betrayed the king by informing the Tibetans.

I simply wondered why the king took time to graze his cattle when a servant could do such menial jobs.

When we returned, we headed towards Mongar, a much bigger town than Lhuentshe. We stopped at a village called Chali, where I was surprised by the language they spoke. Their language was a mix of all the languages spoken in the country including a spattering of English and Hindi.

Trashigang Dzong, built by Chogyal Minjur Tempa

The legend of the origin of their language according to an oral literature goes back to the time when the gods were distributing languages across the world. It is said when the gods reached Chali, all the languages were already distributed. So the gods picked bits and pieces from all languages and gave it to the people of Chali.

We continued onwards to Mongar and then back to Trashigang, I had a day left when I should be returning to Thimphu. Much yet remains to be seen and explored.

Eastern Bhutan is truly amazing; it was a rare opportunity to live a poet’s dream, ‘far from the madding crowd.’ 

Could there be more dimensions? Review of Flatland, a movie

Warning: Don’t try to imagine how people see in a two dimensional world, it will injure your brain. 

A Square living in a two dimensional world is in a hot argument with a Point living in just one dimension. Each one believes his own world is complete and that the world was the world and there was nothing bigger than it or beyond it.

Enter Cube from a three dimensional world, the world that we live in now. Cube takes Square to the 3D world and manages to convince him that there is a third dimension. To show him, he moves sideways and up and down.

Square is convinced there are other dimensions and that they are infinite. Cube believes his is the ultimate world while Square thinks there could be millions of other creatures living in millions of other dimensions infinitely.

I was discussing this book called Flatland with a friend, who’d already read it and suggested I not even try because it’s difficult to imagine a world in 2D. I said, I will give it a try and since then I am yet to buy a copy of the book.

But then I saw a movie based on the book and couldn’t help but watch it.

To think of a fourth or a fifth dimensional space from the lens of our own existing laws of Physics and Mathematics would be problematic. But there could be other laws in other dimensions, which makes it more compelling and interesting to think of the possibilities.

Hollywood movies and films have restricted our imaginations of extraterrestrial life. We think of aliens having huge round head with antennas and long slimy fingers. But possibilities are, as always, infinite. We could very well be living among aliens right now and not even know about it, - a reality crossover.

It is fascinating to simply consider diverse possibilities such as those that tell us we are mere characters in an alien computer simulation and that the whole universe that we know today is an infenetissamliy tiny microscopic dot within a whole new level of universe.

Stephen Hawkins in his famous Brief History of Time offers a visual analogy. If a creature from a three dimensional space where to live on a two dimensional world, it would divide the creature into two halves, since we have a passage right through our body for eating and excreting. Perhaps the picture beside would help you understand what exactly Hawkman meant.

Could there be infinite dimensions with their own laws of physics and mathematics quite different from ours? Are we living among creatures from other dimensions, completely unaware of each others’ existence? Well, these are just some interesting things to wonder upon.

Bardo Thodol, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

I find this book exceedingly engaging because of the solid justification it makes, while also drawing many parallels with science. It is my first book on religion, but I often hear that Buddhism is not a religion. One of its fundamental teachings is that ‘in reality there are no such beings anywhere as gods, or demons, or spirits, or sentient creatures – all alike being phenomena dependent upon a cause.’

In its original form, or what we refer to as poti or folio, the editor Evans Wentz says that the book of the dead was ‘first committed to writing in the time of Padma Sambhava, ‘the lotus born’ in the eighth century, it was subsequently hidden away and then, when the time came for it to be given to the world, was brought to light by Rigzin Karma Lingpa.

We see its rendition during the Tshechu, the dance of the Judgment Day, where the Lord of the Dead, (Shin Jei Cho Kyi Gyalpo), The Good Genius (Lha Karchung) and The Evil Genius (Due Nagchung) decide the fate of the deceased. The judgment, according to the Tibetan Book of the Dead takes place during the final stages of the bardo, called the Sidpai bardo.

When we die, we enter a fourth dimension of space. Deprived of our nervous system, we cannot differentiate between day and night. Only a twilight-like primordial light shine upon us. We go through various stages of the bardo meeting face to face with peaceful deities and the wrathful ones. If you haven’t gained liberation at the Chikhai Bardo and the Chonyid bardo, you enter the Sidpai bardo where the final judgment takes place.

The book describes the after death plane ‘as a prolonged dream like state in the fourth dimension of space filled with hallucinatory visions. These visions will be happy and heaven like if the karma be good and miserable and hell like if the karma be bad.’

Ultimately, one must meditate upon the subject of voidness, the visions are all void, reality is void, everything ultimately is void, your being and the visions you see are all void and thus voidness cannot injure voidness.   

The following is a short excerpt from the book explaining the experiences of the deceased during the Sidpai bardo at the judgment. It is read to the deceased thus:

 “O nobly-born, listen. That thou art suffering so cometh from thine own karma. It is not due to anyone else’s: It is by thine own karma. Accordingly, pray earnestly to the Precious Trinity; that will protect thee. If thou neither prayest nor knowest how to meditate upon the Great Symbol nor upon any tutelary deity, the Good Genius (lha Karchung, Little White God) who was born simultaneously with thee, will come now and count out thy good deeds [with white pebbles] and the Evil Genius (Due Nagchung) who was born simultaneously with thee will come and count out thy evil deeds [with black pebbles].

Thereupon thou wilt be greatly frightened, awed and terrified and wilt tremble and thou wilt attempt to tell lies saying, ‘I have not committed any evil deed.’

Then the Lord of Death will say, ‘I will consult the Mirror of Karma.’

So saying, he will look in the Mirror, wherein every good and evil act is vividly reflected. Lying will be of no avail. Then, one of the Executive Furies of the Lord of Death will place round they neck a rope and drag thee along; he will cut off thy head, extract thy heart, pull out thy intestines, lick up thy brain, drink thy blood, eat thy flesh, and gnaw thy bones (these tortures symbolize the pangs of the deceased’s conscience) but thou wilt be incapable of dying.

Although thy body be hacked to pieces, it will revive again. The repeated hacking will cause intense pain and torture. Thy body being a mental body is incapable of dying though beheaded. The Lords of Death are thine own hallucinations. In reality, thy body is of the nature of voidness and thus voidness cannot injure voidness, and the qualityless cannot injure the quality less.”

The scripture from the book is read in this way to the deceased, to guide him to liberation.