“SHE IS THE QUEEN,' THE POLICE OFFICER TOLD ME, referring to the elegant woman leaving the Paro Rinpung Dzong. Actually, she was the Queen Mother, the former Queen. Amazingly she stopped to talk to Connie and me, asking where we were from then telling us about all the places she had visited in the US. And holding up the crowd trying to leave the festival but not daring to pass her.
The Queen Mother
We had just left the Paro Festival, four days of traditional dance and colorful costumes, and the theme of our tour. On this, the first day, the festival was held in the small courtyard of the Rinpung Dzong, an area much too small for the huge crowd that kept crowding in. When Connie and I had taken all the squeezing, pushing and pummeling we could handle – the Bhutanese women are cute but unrelenting – we fought our way out the only exit and up the stairs to freedom.
It's a wonderful town
We walked into Paro for a look-see and an ice cream. Paro is charming – that’s the only word I can think of – just two main streets of cute-as-can-be buildings. After a while we headed back to the pre-arranged meeting place to wait for the rest of our gang. And that’s when we had our brush with royalty. Penjur almost choked when we casually mentioned at lunch, “Oh, we just walked around had an ice cream and met the Queen.”
