Punakha Dzong

The Head of the monk body in Bhutan resides here, in Punakha, in the western part of

this tiny country perched on the eastern end of the Himalayas. Our expedition, with

four or five international ballooning teams, happened to co-incide with the propitious

moment to cremate the previous head, who, since his death, had been kept in salt for

a few years, awaiting the most favourable time. None of us knew about it until I

happened to wander over the footbridge (centre, bottom) to find out what all the

activity was, expecting a market or something. It was my propitious moment too, as

the pyres had not yet been lit and my Bhutanese crew got me permission to film the

event, which became the central sequence of the film that eventually sold to Channel

Four. Not without a fight though: they wanted to exclude this sequence, despite

approving my rough cut, on the grounds of sensitivity to their pre-watershed audience!

I had to threaten breach of contract before it got re-instated. Nobody complained.

This photograph is from my previous encounter with Punakha Dzong, taken from the

hot-air balloon piloted by Neil Robertson and Phil Dunnington, Cameron Balloons, as I

also tried to interview them on camera about their proposed trip to be the first to fly

balloons on Antarctica. As it later turned out, the trip would have been virtual suicide for

numerous technical and safety reasons. But neither would it have been the first, I

found out: Scott had had a tethered balloon on the Ross Ice Shelf in 1911.

The Head of the monk body in Bhutan resides here, in Punakha, in the western part of this tiny

country perched on the eastern end of the Himalayas. Our expedition, with four or five

international ballooning teams, happened to co-incide with the propitious moment to cremate the

previous head, who, since his death, had been kept in salt for a few years, awaiting the most

favourable time. None of us knew about it until I happened to wander over the footbridge

(centre, bottom) to find out what all the activity was, expecting a market or something. It was

my propitious moment too, as the pyres had not yet been lit and my Bhutanese crew got me

permission to film the event, which became the central sequence of the film that eventually sold

to Channel Four. Not without a fight though: they wanted to exclude this sequence, despite

approving my rough cut, on the grounds of sensitivity to their pre-watershed audience! I had to

threaten breach of contract before it got re-instated. Nobody complained.

This photograph is from my previous encounter with Punakha Dzong, taken from the hot-air

balloon piloted by Neil Robertson and Phil Dunnington, Cameron Balloons, as I also tried to

interview them on camera about their proposed trip to be the first to fly balloons on Antarctica.

As it later turned out, the trip would have been virtual suicide for numerous technical and safety

reasons. But neither would it have been the first, I found out: Scott had had a tethered balloon

on the Ross Ice Shelf in 1911.

Punakha dzong, Bhutan