Aun Namgay cooks bagels from grain and leaves that carry the yeast and bacteria necessary for fermentation. | Photos by Martin Thibault
Silence. Then, birds chirping. A few prayer flags flutter in the wind. It’s nearly all you hear when crossing over into eastern Bhutan from India. It’s as striking as driving from a bustling megalopolis into the tranquility of a national park. Which, in a way, is what you are doing when entering this mountainous Buddhist kingdom by land. Indeed, more than 40 percent of the country’s entire area consists of protected nature reserves, from the tropical jungles in the south to the mighty summits of the Himalayas in the north. And this is the setting for one of the planet’s last Shangri-Las for farmhouse brewing.
Shangri-La is no mere metaphor. Bhutanese people, their beloved and benevolent monarchy, and their newly-appointed democratic government, all seem intent on making their land an oasis where all creatures can live peacefully, away from the chaos and cacophony of surrounding countries. Here, in a place with one of the most serene national […]
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Bang Chang: The Haziest of Farmhouse Brews
Red-robed monks can be seen bathing in the Jakar River, as a rope bridge clad in hundreds of multicolored prayer flags swings gently in the breeze. The Buddhist men’s temple lies a mile or so in the distance—a dirt path through fields will soon deliver them to it. On the way, they’ll walk by cannabis plants lining the fences. Smoking anything, whether it’s tobacco or marijuana, is illegal in Bhutan. And since people here simply don’t break the law, cannabis grows as though it were any other weed.
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