The chill wind hit me as soon as I got off the bus. I tried to pull my scarf closer to avoid the wind and at the same time looking for my niece. She was to pick me up from the bus stand. I scanned the crowd and finally spotted her looking frantically, searching for me. Yes! She was there. I waved and she saw me and came towards me and towed me into a waiting taxi.
I hadn’t planned to go to Thimphu initially but since I was standard in Phuntsholing for a countless days due to Assam and Bengal strike, I decided to finally pay visit to the capital city. My friends were worried because they knew that I hadn’t been to Thimphu in winter and they thought I wouldn’t be able to stand the cold weather during the peak winter season. I nearly changed my mind twice but then I thought that if I went back to my words I would not be able to make the visit in the near future. So finally I decided to g ahead with my plan and got a bus ticket to Thimphu. After spending three days in Phuntsholing, I finally boarded my bus to Thimphu. I made sure that I had some warm clothes before I boarded the bus and purchased an extra jacket.
I and my friend (roommate) decided to watch the Korean movie (serial) “ Autumn in my heart”. It was not planned initially because both of us had been very busy with the preparation of group presentation. We worked through Saturday and spent almost half of Sunday on it. (Both of us were working separately since we were in different group) My group members (male) didn’t show their face during the entire preparation time because they said they had other errand. After spending about half of Sunday in the room, we decided to go to the market. We strolled the town, buying nothing of importance. After lunching out, we came back and then sat down to watch the movie.
We come back from our session in the evening and get busy with the preparation of next day's presentation. I rigorously look for some references in the library and browse the net. The time flies by and we don’t even realize that it’s past the dinner time. Damn! We missed the dinner again. This is the 6th night that we had been here and we never saw the dining hall in the mornings and evenings and the reason we gave was we were too busy. It’s not that we are so engrossed with the preparation for preparation and other assignments but engaged mostly in the silly tit bits of our life.
Being away from home is like a hell but being away during losar is unthinkable. On the eve of losar, my cell rang a numerous times and I got many wishes from family, friends and other well wishers but all those wishes were wasted on me because my only wish was to be with my family on that day which I could not. Sometimes I wish that I had been wise enough not to join this course because though the duration is not very long its seems like ages since I have been here but when I counted the days, I realized that it’s just three days since I had come here.
I bought ticket for the public transport enroute to samtse. I was travelling with my two friends to attend the course. We paid Nu. 38 each for the tickets and got onto the bus. The bus was not very crowded when we boarded from the bus stand. I was squeezed between my two friends. As soon as the bus crossed the Indo-Bhutan boarder, there was a crowd of passenger waiting to board the bus. The conductor started shoving in all the extra passengers. The people started pouring in and the bus got more crowded and there was not a single space to place a foot yet the people kept on boarding. After about five minutes the bus started moving. By then the people sitting on their respective seats were also complaining about the comfortableness of the ride.
