Above: Tktsang Palphug Monastery, also known as Tiger's Nest. Below: Bhutanese high school students Nanjita (left) and Sonam (Mary Kay Magistad).BHUTAN, Himalayas - The guys in the band are in black, with shaggy hair, and attitudes. They do a sound check in their rehearsal room and then let it rip.
Guitars shriek through a familiar opening then move into a hyper-paced riff on the Pachelbel Canon. This might not be the usual punk rock fare -- but then, not all self-proclaimed punk rockers are polite, well-spoken Bhutanese college students.
- AUDIO: Why travel in Bhutan costs $200 a day (MP3)
- Bhutan* wants to boost tourism while keeping the number of visitors under control. So it requires tourists to spend a minimum of $200 per day. The amount goes up next year.
“Most of our audience is not into hard music, like what we like to play,” says 19-year-old guitarist Ughyen Phuntso, a communications major. “So mostly, we end up playing in my garage.”
Or they play here, at the Youth Development Fund’s youth center in [the capital of] Thimpu, where rehearsal space and instruments are offered free as an attempt to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble.
“We had noticed there were very few places where the youths could engage productively,” says Dorji Ohm, the center’s program director. “They’d go to the movies or to the bars. In fact, we did a survey and found 500 bars and one library, which was shocking.”
