JIAGON, India - We came up with the plan over dinner, chicken with a creamy cheese sauce with butter roti on the side. The plan required our party of three to divide in two groups: the whites and the non-whites.
Jeremy, a Chinese-Canadian, blends in with the local mix of Bhutanis, Nepalis and Hindus. He could just walk across the border, since local people were allowed to cross freely. As a precaution, he'd wear a plain white shirt, leave the Diesel knockoff shoulder bag in the hotel and stash his camera in his pocket. There'd also be a passport in his pocket, in case something went wrong.
After he made it through, Zack and I would make our attempt. Zack is from California, and just like me, he's rather white. No one would mistake either of us as locals any place south of the Tropic of Cancer. I'd been subconsciously preparing for this crossing the past couple weeks, reading travelogues where people drove overland through Latin America and West Africa. I'd learned much about the bribe and how to use it.
Zack and I would approach the border checkpoint casually. One of the security guards would blow a whistle and direct us to a sitting pair of officials on the left side of the gate.
One security guard would start thumbing through my passport, flipping past the seven Chinese visas and Latvian entry stamp, looking in vain for a Bhutani visa. Finally he would give up and ask: "Excuse me sir, do you have a visa?"
Zack and I would stand there, dumb-founded. "We need a visa? I thought this was a free town, and we could come here for the day. Our guidebook says so."
The security guard would shake his head, apologetically, and inform us the policy had changed.
"But we've come all the way from the United States, and we really want to see Bhutan. Is it possible to just let us in for the day, perhaps if we pay a small fee?"
We look crushed as our Bhutanese dreams begin to crumble, but at the same time I reach for wallet and take out some Indian rupees. I press them into the guard's hand, and Zack does the same, and then we walk through the crimson gate adorned with Buddhist iconography and enter one of the most isolated countries on Earth.
That's how we'd do it.
Our journey to the border began in the Indian town of Silguiri in West Bengal aboard a white and green Bhutan Transportation Services bus. Jeremy and I shared a seat while Zack conversed with a large Bhutani woman, who insisted she had once been engaged to American also named Zack, but had to break it off for some convoluted reason. She said Phuntsholing, Bhutan was a wonderful place, where we could expect to see temples, alligators and crocodiles. For a small fee, we could also feed these large reptiles.
It sounded exciting, especially as we wouldn't be able to venture past Phuntsholing. The tiny Himalayan country of Bhutan is barely discrenible on a middle-school size globe: it can easily be seen as a smudge on the east side of Nepal. But despite its small size, the terrority has erected some of the largest barriers to tourism in the world. All tourists - except those from the country's patron state, India - are required to book a tour and spend at least $200 a day in the low season, $250 a day in the high season. There's a limit to the number of visas and those with the cash aren't guaranteed entry.
But the current edition of the Lonely Planet describes a wrinkle in that policy. Five years ago, the Bhutanese decided to open the border town of Phuntsholing to day trippers, who could come without a visa or spending outrageous amounts of cash. A Google search produced photos and travelogues confirming that some amount of smelly backpackers had crossed the border. We added the town to our interinary, desperate for the unusual passport stamp and bragging rights to be the first among friends to visit.
The Bhutanese bus made no stops in the tiny towns of West Bengal, not even a bathroom break. I gulped a Mountain Dew shortly after getting on, so by the time the tea estates ended and the small textile shops of Jiagon, I'd christened the route the Bladder Busting Express. When we arrived I sprinted to the nearest toilet, which turned out to be in a hotel/restaurant. We took a room, and with the guidebook claiming the border would be open until 10 p.m., headed for dinner in Bhutan.
Jiagon is a couple long streets which slope downhill toward the border. At the bottom is a sign, "Welcome to the Royal Kingdom of Bhutan." Turn right at the sign, go under the gate and you're in.
"Sir, can I see your passport please?" It was a border guard.
They were not expected; Lonely Planet promised free entry into the town of crocodiles. Instead aman in a teal uniform told us that the policy had changed, pointed to a sign that said visas were required for all foreign nationals, and sent us up the hill, back into India.
The Ashoka Hotel Restaurant's selection of Bhutani dishes seemed a small consolation for what lay on the other side of that Buddhist gate, but the chicken was quite tasty. Zack, Jeremy and I drew up our plan, and later in the evening, as we watched Bollywood music videos on our 13-inch television set, I separated my money into 400 rupee denominations, to make for easier bribing.
I woke up a little before 11 the next morning, to the sound of torrential rain. Outside Jiagon was under several inches of water. The monsoon raged now, throwing buckets of water down each second. I went down to the restaurant, where I found Zack and the day's Kolkata Telegraph. Roads were out throughout the northeast of India, landslides had washed away the rail track to Darjeeling and another foot of rain was expected in the next 36 hours.
Jeremy arrived at the same time as my masala omelet soaked to the bone. He put down a small plastic bag on the table. Inside were three postcards. He'd gotten up early, snuck across the border. He showed us pictures of the other side: men wearing capri pants, signs warning about the high rate of malarial infection, Buddhist temples with broad roofs and gold spheres on top. For breakfast in Bhutan they have pork, which we hadn't tasted in three weeks.
But he had bad news. Security in Phuntsholing was tight, there had been police at most intersections in town. Even if we could make it past the border, we'd have no paperwork to pass these check points. Besides, the rain continued to fall so fast that my passport might disintegrate before the border guard made it past the fourth visa.
We needed to leave before we were stranded in this No Man's Land. I left with a postcard to send my parents, a stomach full of chicken and cheese, and 10 glorious seconds in Bhutan, standing under the arch, hoping that there would be many more.
