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- 1933-09-01 (Creation)
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1 page
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SUMMARY:
Heavy traffic on the route is attributed to HH’s fair in Bumthang beginning on the 7th, alongside plans for reforms such as cash payment for work. At Sumitang, the party had fine weather but a delayed start (likely due to Ngudup); the writer prefers Changchuk managing transport, and with most seed still unripe, Pasang will return in a month to collect target species from beyond Sharitang and around Bumthang/Kyikyi La, after noting a jelly-coated aquatic plant and cooler conditions than Bumthang.
CONTENT:
Lot of coming and going on this route, perhaps especially just now as HH holds a fair in Bumthang on the 7th for seven days. People come from quite a long way away for it. He told me he expected 1,000 people at the fair, from every part of Bhutan and also some from Tibet. This is one of the innovations of late years. But it is nothing to what HH plans for the near future, like payment in cash for work done - "after seeing that the work is good" he added. It is a pity that this must be introduced, but I suppose it must. Inevitably it will lead to trouble; when that will be depends on the time money takes to govern everything, as it does elsewhere.
6th September. Sumitang. Fine most of the day, and fine most of last night too. Some difficulty in getting off this morning, due probably to Ngudup's dislike of leaving early. I must say Changchuk is a much pleasanter man to have running one's transport arrangements. We got a little seed, but nearly everything is just not quite ripe yet. Pasang will have to return here in a month's time, and make a hurried collection of the better things. For most of these we would have to come very far beyond Sharitang. We want seed of the following: "Lachasung", Deutzia, Philadelphus, "Kushim sung", "Rugosung", and from further up, the big white Clematis, but this can be had from Bumthang or the Kyikyi La. I took a queer plant out of a small 5' deep lake today. It is nothing to look at, but it is covered, 1/8" all over with a perfectly clear transparent jelly, which has made pressing rather difficult. The jelly at first is not sticky, but later on seems to become more and more so. It is much cooler up here than in Bumthang, and more like May when I came up first.
