This is the typically traditional Bhutanese door
for all the dzongs and monasteries.
Benji taking me into the monastery at Gangtey in central Bhutan.
(BENJl) It's very important, the painting - the mandala.
Why are they re-doing it? Was it falling down?
(BENJl) Maybe termites or maybe the timber was getting too old.
So the head of this... Gangteng - the Gangtey Tulku...
he felt that he had some donors who would support him to rebuild it,
so he's taken this undertaking.
- The monks are still here? - Yes.
- How many are here? - (TRANSLATES)
- About 50. - Do they help with the rebuilding?
(BENJI TRANSLATES)
Yes, he said they have to.
Especially also the laymen. They all have to.
(PALIN) It's a big job to do a monastery of this scale.
(BENJl) It is.
(PALIN) So that's how it's done? There are no plans? Nothing written down.
(BENJl) Everybody does the cutting.
So this is a...
These are real craftsmen carving these.
- Who devised these patterns? - These are all set patterns.
This particular pattern, you can see, is predominantly the crossed dorje.
- "Dorje" is what? - The thunderbolt.
Thunderbolt? That's a very Bhutanese symbol, is it? Yeah.
So they're replicating what was there 500 years ago.
- How long have they been doing this? - (TRANSLATES)
He has been working two years.
He served his apprenticeship and learnt how to carve as well.
(PALIN) It's so delicate, isn't it? It's very, very delicate stuff.
- How do they move these beams up here? - This is amazing how they do it.
I suppose they must be putting it on a truck or something...
It's remarkable that in this fairly remote village
they're spending so much time and trouble over their local monastery.
This is Thimphu, the small capital - only 50,000 people...
in Bhutan.
Grown up very, very quickly.
The Institute of Traditional Medicine looks like an Elizabethan manor house.
There's Benji leading me in.
I'm going to meet people who may have found the pharmaceutical Holy Grail -
a herbal Viagra.
First they're going to show us their display of medicines.
- These are constituents of the medicines? - These are raw materials.
The people showing me round are called Dorje, as most people are in Bhutan.
The other side is herbs.
This is a display of raw materials that we use for the production of medicine.
The charts on the walls, where are they from?
All from Tibet. In the past, our people used to study traditional medicine in Tibet,
so they have brought the knowledge back to our country and established a system here.
Now we also have a training system here.
We train physicians. We train also "menpas", which is three-year diploma.
Physician is five-year programme.
- So lots of the knowledge came from Tibet? - Yes.
In Tibet we were in Yushu and they were selling these little caterpillars
for a great price.
- Are they something you have here? - Yeah. We call it "yartsa gunbu".
- Which is? - It means "summer grass, winter worm".
Right.
If you remember, years ago at the Atlantic Olympic Games...
Atlanta, yes.
...they had this army of athletes, the Chinese were winning all...
One of the Chinese girls said that they were taking tonics made from this cordyceps
to recover their energy.
So it's a tonic. Yeah.
Bhutan is a very penis-rich country.
Not only inside their trousers, but also on the buildings.
Look at some of these fellows. Have you ever seen one like that?
You're a man of the world, Tshewang.
Can you tell me about the penises that are drawn so beautifully on the walls here?
Where does that come from?
Is it an accepted part of Bhutanese culture that you can have a penis on your house?
- Well, it's not vulgar at all. - Obviously not.
In fact, I would say that it's part and parcel of our culture.
You see that on the walls, you see it hanging from the roofs
and sometimes you'll see miniature versions on the necks...
hanging around the necks of children.
Basically, to ward off evil spirits.
But it does have its legend and its lore
and it also has to do with the...
the richer... the folklore.
You'd be then talking about Bhutan's own legendary figure in its history -
the Divine Madman, Drukpa Kunley.
I've read about him, but nobody has described...
Tell me about him. Why was he mad and divine?
The way he... taught Buddhism was not your academic...
- Intellectual? ...intellectual and heavy kind of...
It was palatable to the people.
Like for the fact that we wear protective threads around our neck
and in one of the poems he says...
Somebody says, "Here's a protective thread." He says, "I want to wrap it around my penis."
And if you really go by Buddhism, that's not blasphemy
because the Buddha said
that if you really want to accept my teachings, you have to test it.
This is a celebrity lunch in Bhutan.
I'm meeting some local ladies to talk about life here.
This is Khendum, who is Benji's cousin, related to the royal family,
an American lady and Françoise Pommaret on the right, who wrote the guidebook.
It's all a bit of a culture shock.
We've been looking at black-necked cranes
and felt rather out of it and now here we are in the metropolis.
- Where are you from? - I'm from the USA.
- And? - I'm from France.
- Would you like some of the local? - Rice wine.
There are delicacies here. What are those?
- This is betel nut. - Ah.
It will give you a kick.
It'll give me a kick? I'm sure I need some kicks.
- Everybody sort of chews that here, don't they? - You get this red colour.
- It makes a red colour? - Yes, and it warms you up.
Can you show me how to do it? Because I've never had that before.
I've seen people preparing it.
It depends on everybody's taste.
Do you all have a taste? Do you chew betel?
- No. - Not normally.
Khendum, is this something that is done in polite society?
- Do you want to try some? - You should try some.
For documentary purposes.
I know. I have to try everything. That's rather interesting. What is this?
- Vaguely like "chang". - This is fermented rice wine.
And they've added fried egg and a little bit of butter.
Really? Odd thing. I can't see a fried egg in here.
Careful, Michael. This makes you red.
- Oh. Red? - Here's your doma.
It's such a feature of the Himalaya area, is it not?
Yes. It keeps you warm for about 15 minutes. It gives you a nice rush.
OK. This is definitely a first.
They have it in Assam, Tibet, not other parts.
(BENJl) Vietnam, Indonesia, Burma, Laos...
How have I missed it on my travels?
What is that? Something you pour over me to cool me down?
- OK. What do you do? - Just put it in your mouth and chew.
OK. Here goes. I want all your names because I could have a heart attack!
- We'll take you to hospital. - Thank you. Good hospitals here?
- We know the medicine's good. - Very good hospitals.
- Mm. Oh, it's very... - Hard.
- Good facial expression!
- (LAUGHTER) - You can take your time.
- Slowly, yeah. - Let's just talk about life in Bhutan.
- You're supposed to spit out the... - We need something for him to spit in.
It's not terribly... It's quite bitter. The leaf is very bitter.
The nut is very hard. I'm just grinding little bits off as I eat.
- It doesn't feel hot. Am I going? - You're fine. You're doing well.
- Here's a spittoon for you. - When you're done.
- You've obviously eaten a lot of things. - I have. And I never ask first.
If people tell you... If you say, "What's in there?" and they say, "Saliva",
you'd probably say no, but I have eaten a rice wine in Peru
which was fortified with saliva from the local natives and it was fine.
But if they'd said that beforehand, I'd have probably said, "Hold the saliva."
I think I'll...
- Not yet, Benji. - OK.
- Two of my teeth have come out! - (LAUGHTER)
- Try the rice wine. - I've got some of this.
Cheers. Very nice to see you all.
- Tashi delek, as we say in Bhutan. - Tashi delek.
Here's to Thimphu and... I am beginning to feel nice and warm.
Yes.
My image of Bhutan was somewhere I'd read about in geographics...
and the phrase "Shangri-La" was attached to Bhutan much more than anything else.
Now I'm here, it feels rather at home.
I don't know why that should be. Maybe it's being in Thimphu.
- Maybe you were here in a previous life. - Maybe.
Does it feel cut off for you from the rest of the world? Do you want to know?
For me, no, it doesn't feel cut off because now we have television, the internet.
We have Worldwide Wrestling, so I can see my wrestling any time I want.
- Are you a wrestling fan? - No, I'm just kidding. People watch it here.
But I think the idea of Shangri-La is...
I don't think Bhutan is Shangri-La,
but compared to the rest of the world it is definitely.
Do you get lots of visitors here?
Do you feel that you're in touch with the wider world? Does that matter to you?
It's nice that our culture, our country, is exposed to people of different nationalities
and they have a chance to experience what is everyday life for us.
We like that. We like to have the feeling that other people enjoy visiting Bhutan.
We benefit from their coming here
and we like to think they benefit from their visit.
It feels to me, having been to a number of countries in the Himalaya,
that there's much more freedom and tolerance here than you find in some countries.
For instance, to talk to three women who aren't veiled - that is quite unusual.
That, I think, is a part of our culture because of our religion.
Because Buddhism is so tolerant and so accepting.
Yes, we're aware.
I think women in Bhutan are generally aware and happy that we are emancipated
and allowed to, basically, do anything that we like to do.
- Are there women in government? - Yes, there is a great percentage.
In very high positions, too.
This is Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh,
and I'm meeting one of the enterprising women of Bangladesh, Rubana Huq,
who, with her husband, runs a very successful clothes business
which does a lot of foreign markets - 68% of their output goes to America.
- 2,000 people are working with us. - So is the garment business booming?
It was booming. We started off in '85 with only 364 factories.
In 2002-2003, we have around 3,760 factories.
"We" meaning Bangladesh?
Of course. It's always a country perspective.
The industry has been protected by quotas - they're guaranteed a certain number of exports -
but these are all going to end in 2005 with quite an impact on the workforce.
If we close down, they won't have anywhere to go
and I seriously think that the only profession they're going to turn to
is the sex trade - they'll probably all be out on the streets.
It'll be a social disaster.
68% of the output goes to America
and there's been quite an outcry about conditions in Third World countries
and so a place like this now is obliged to follow very strict guidelines
about who they employ.
They want to ensure that we are totally child-labour free.
- It's a big issue, isn't it? - It's a very big issue.
Bangladesh is child-labour free.
Even then, we still have to prove to buyers that we're really child-labour free.
An incident happened just the other day when a buyer came in,
picked out five women and said, "They're under-age."
And we argued and we showed them the doctor's certificate.
Not all of them have age certificates - and they said, "No."
So they asked them to widen their mouth and they counted how many teeth they had.
- They checked the number of teeth? - Yes.
They said, "We still think they're under-age."
So we had to go through a bone scan to prove to them.
We really appreciate it. It's a social pressure on us.