Bhutan 1/11/20

Crossing the dateline and traveling for what feels like days make it difficult to know the date without the trusty computer.  Lucked out on my seats - got bulkheads on both long flights with the middle seat of 3 empty.
Had a sweet encounter with some Japanese women working the counter in Tokyo.  They are definitely unique in a wonderful way.  Lots of tittering.
Watched lots of movies; pretty mundane but Ad Astra was just the thing for rattling along in the dark.  Great special effects and lots of space scares.  Brad Pitt does a great job showing some personal growth from a damaged man with flat affect to someone able to emote.  Don't want to ruin it.
Now in my room in Bangkok.  Meet our surgeon tomorrow, then nurse practitioner Monday.
Tomorrow we take one of the scariest flights in the world into Paro, Bhutan.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OykXhUK2S04 (about 8:02)

Bhutan 1/10-20/2020

Friday departure.

It's a long time since I have been able to get away on one of these missions.  Family issues and Mom lives with us now, as does my son Ross who is so helpful with her care.  So now I venture off on an educator trip, shorter by design than the mission trips, and we'll see how it goes.  Thank you, Ross and Mom!

Bhutan has an obscure history, at least as I search.  Tibetan monks fled Tibet in 9th century to Bhutan.  The Drukpa Kagyupa school formed and is the dominant Buddhism there today; Bhutan also about 1/4 Hindu.  Bhutan does not seem to have been occupied or conquered by an outside power, but they had close ties to Britain.

Bhutan sits just south of the autonomous region of China and the Himalayas, and is east of Nepal except for a slip of India.  India is also to the south, the area of Bengal.  Some areas are biodiversity hot spots.

Bhutan has an area of about 15K miles, but just over 750K people, giving it one of the lowest population densities in the world.  It is a constitutional monarchy known for its measure of national success using "gross national happiness".  Interestingly, Bhutan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, possibly linked to lack of work and domestic violence.

Thimphu is the largest city with a population of 115K.  The medical school is here.  The residents of Bhutan have a life expectancy of about 70 years.  Smoking has been illegal in Bhutan since 2010, so maybe these numbers will change.  There has been a drop in mortality rate in women with the improvement of reproductive services.  There are about 250 clinical doctors and 1000 nurses and aids, plus traditional medicine workers.  They have a system of universal health care, but are not able to treat many diseases, including cancer and burns and their scars.  This is where Resurge hopes to educate and have an impact.  Currently many complicated cases have to be sent to India.  These burn patients are usually the very poor and live with much pain, so travel can be a great burden.  It would be much better to have that care closer to home, in Bhutan.

Thimphu is about 14 hours ahead of California or GMT+6 hours.  Probably the best time to communicate will be 6 a.m. Bhutan time in the morning before my work; it will be 4 p.m. the day before in CA.  Or 10 pm for me will be 8 a.m. in CA.  Will be using What's App for contacts.

In the middle of it, Rainy was raiding the trash and got caught "red-handed"...  I'll miss everyone!

Off we go!