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Menchu of Menchuna: A Hidden Gem in Tobesa, Punakha

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Nestled in the serene village of Menchuna, Tobesa, Punakha, lies the mysterious and historical site of Menchu. As its toponym may suggest, Menchuna is a place where tradition and nature intertwine in fascinating ways. Once renowned for its medicinal hot springs, Menchu has a story that reflects both the resilience of its people and the enduring allure of its natural gifts. Here’s a journey into the intriguing tale of Menchu and its place in the heart of Bhutan. The Legacy of Menchu: A Once-Prominent Hot Spring Menchu was once celebrated as a revered hot spring, its waters believed to hold remarkable healing power with medicinal as well mineral properties. For centuries, the people of Bhutan trekked to Menchuna, as it is ideally situated near traditional Punakha-Thimphu trek trail. The hot springs, with their mineral-rich waters, were a vital source of therapeutic relief, providing solace and healing to countless visitors. The Struggle and the Change However, as is often the case with p

How can public servants escape antagonistic role?

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Exclude few exceptional, self-less and top notched public servants, many of the public servants have taken antagonistic role. "Antagonistic role" is a grave description to describe any public servant without well founded justification. Anyone using this phrase, including myself, could run into turbulence of criticism and public hatred. After neatly weighing all possible outcomes of post, I choose to publish this. How public servants have assumed antagonistic role? In rendering our services, rather than orchestrating the confrontation of impediments to progress, we have made ourselves the impediments of progress. The vicious art of impediments have been crafted in manners described below.  1. Publicity and popularity seeking has became the top priority over efficiency of service delivery because of which we deliver third class service and write first class report. 2. Promotion to higher grade is more important than production. For this reason, farm production report is more th

The Divine Stones of Singay Thang ༼སེང་གེ་ཐང་གི་གནས་རྡོ༽

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རྟ་ཕག་མགོན་པ། Two hours to the  north of Trongsa Chhoekhor Rabtentse Dzong, Tafa Goenpa  ༼རྟ་ཕག་དགོན་པ༽  is renowned meditation centre for Trongsa Rabdey. As we have etymologies for most names of the places, the name of the meditation centre is derived from its religious significance attached with its topography. Since the whole ridge on which it is situated is holy site dedicated to and blessed by Hayagriva  ༼རྟ་མགྲིན༽  who is wrathful manifestation of Avalokiteshvara and Dakini Vajaravarahi  ༼རྡོ་རྗེ་ཕག་མོ༽  who is wrathful form of  ༼རྡོ་རྗེ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་མ༽ Vajrayogini, the place is named after their divine names. The Goenpa has her religious as well historical marvel to those who pursue the subject seriously but that is topic for another story. Top Edge of Singay Thang Around one and half hours north-west to Tafa Goenpa, walking past marshy land, bent rhododendron trees, and dwarf bamboo plants that may even hide our friends who is just a meter away among its leaves, an alpine meadow/g

Trees of Eastern Girls at Thowa Drak ༼ཤར་ཕྱོགས་མའི་ནགས་ར༽

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There is so much charm in hearing the stories we never heard but there is nothing that fascinates us more than validating the stories and legends we heard. My parents narrated stories and folklores that lived throughout my life and I always carry this huge urge to validate and testify the stories to satisfy myself. One satisfactory testimony of the story I heard is one of the many living legends of Thowa Drak, a famed spot that cling to the highest rocky cliff to the north of Tang, Bumthang མཐོ་བ་བྲག་ལྷ་ཁང་ Thowadrak, one of the four great holy cliffs of Bumthang, famed by meditators, faith seekers, and pilgrims from all walks of life, is full of amusing legends and stories that awestruck everyone who pay visit to the temple or hear about it. The most important story from Thowa Drak is enthralling story of Guru Rimpoche performing miracles though divine powers to subdue vicious demons and summoning them as Dharma protectors. The second legend of Thowa Drak that never fail to entice us

Mythical Temple of Lugi Raw ༼ལུག་གི་རྭཝ༽

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Lugi Raw Temple Have you heard of Lugi Raw? Many haven't. If you are one of them you are on the right platform. This is for you.  3200 meters above the sea level, secluded among the towering mountains that feed Tshachuphu river, surrounded by fragrant cypress, juniper and pine trees, the temple of Lugi Raw (Rawa) is mystically yet snugly tucked at the heart of perilous cliff. Once you are at the temple clouds scudding overhead and the eerie silence of the surrounding perfectly blends with mysterious existence of temple. The old and rugged structure looks straight from the mythical era of 10th century. Very little is known about this temple. That is no wonder since the temple was established sometime between 10th and 11th century by some renowned Buddhist master.  Ngog Chöku Dorje (C@Mar Ngog.Org) The huge rocky cliff on which temple sits is believed to be meditation cave of Guru Rimpoche. The founder of the temple, however, is attributed to Lama Ngog Chöku Dorje (AKA Ngog Ten Choe

Busyness without Business? A corrective reflection

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Six years into the teaching service, I have never felt relaxed and accomplished. I hardly had time for myself. Every evening, right after school, I feel so exhausted, even to prepare a refreshing cup of tea. It takes at least an hour for fatigue to leave my body. Somewhere in my mind being busy has acquired new status, and it has been wrongly synonymous to being important and productive. However, series of introspection revealed that, at the end of the day, nothing great has been achieved; sometimes it has not even been attempted, I decided to look up and write this piece. Why was I usually busy? In lieu of doing something, I have actually experimented with too many trivial activities that are neither part of my goal nor organization’s requirement. I have normally packed my days to brim which are typical of adrenalin junkie. The trickiest part of getting trapped in adrenalin junkie is that we are in busyness even without any serious business. I now realized that a day fueled by adrenal

Lost

Even at our best, we lose. Our busiest business is of course to search for the lost Sometimes, we lose buffalo we have. At other times we lose buffalo that is ours. We even lose the buffalo we don't have. We search them all. Tediously? Oh No!  Joyfully... Only to lose ourselves

Why I write this blog even without reader and follower?

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One thing that every blogger crave, care and boast about is number of readers and followers they have. Number of follower is proportional to their circle of influence, or atleast assumed that way. Yet here I am, writing, but without followers and readers. It takes buckets of courage to write which I derive from story of astrophysicist and Noble Laurate Dr. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Today, I write this to remind myself of his great story.  Subramanyan Chandrasekha r Dr. Chandrashekar was a brilliant astrophysicist and remarkable man who achieved stellar success in his field of his interest. Despite his stellar success in later part of life, he worked in relative obscurity when he came up with revolutionary ideas and discoveries because scientist took about 30 years to accept his ideas and works realted to stellar evolution. Despite rejection of his work, scornful remarks from his mentor, and disappointment he faced, he overrode the momentary failure by focusing on subject of his inter