Customer Reviews

Buttertea at Sunrise: A Year in the Bhutan Himalaya

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Britta Das has written a wonderful and honest account of her year working at a small hospital in Eastern Bhutan. As a physiotherapist, she writes from a unique perspective. She was hired to run the clinic, and to train technicians, but arrives to find no equipment. Her living conditions are sparse, and to add to her difficulties, she arrives during the monsoon season.

She takes up the challenge, learning the language as she goes. Slowly she makes progress, accepts the hospitality of the Bhutanese people, and grows to love the country. Many of her patients had been disabled for years, with no access to treatment. Using her initiative and local materials, her work helps them gain new mobility, although she is realistic about her efforts. Her book is full of lively descriptions of all the people she meets as she explores the countryside. It captures the spirit of Bhutan as she discovers the culture of this little known Buddhist country. Adding to her experiences is her friendship with a doctor, two foreigners working together. When she leaves Bhutan and returns to Canada, it is with a real feeling of loss.

I spent time in Bhutan a few years before Britta, travelling across the country, being invited into homes, schools and health centres. I have read Buttertea at Sunrise twice, and enjoyed every page. It brought back great memories, and made me long to go back.

I would highly recommend this book to those who know Bhutan or plan to visit the country, to people thinking of working abroad, and to anyone who appreciates a good travel book!

First off, let me point out I have find Bhutan a amazing nation, being brave enough to say that being HAPPY was the most important thing. Think of it? Gross National Happiness! I have a few books about the Kingdom, having visited their displays and exhibits last year on the National Mall.
One of the reasons I enjoyed this book was how realistic and gritty the author's view point was. She saw the dirty homes, the ill people, not just the natural beauty and the Buddhist lifestyles. Of course, she was there to work along side the people, not just passing through like many others.
She found a lot in her journey - love, pain, understanding, enlightenment. She brought something back, not just photos or stories to write about, but maybe a changed soul? She is brave enough to share those experiences. She didn't just tell us about temples and shops, street names and problems with the toilets, like so many other travel books. She told us about her fears, dreams, her romance and her failures.
Can't get more real than that!

"Buttertea at Sunrise" by Britta Das is the fascinating true tale of a young woman who decides to leave her comfortable life in Canada in order to teach her physiotherapy skills to medical workers in the unique kingdom of Bhutan, just emerging from a medieval society into the late 20th century world. Having traveled in Bhutan for a few weeks recently, I was particularly interested in her observations of a somewhat different part of the country than I had experienced (she lived in southeastern Bhutan), and in a somewhat different era - although only a dozen years ago! Das's prose throughout the book is remarkable for its clarity and richness. The story is compelling, the language is satisfying.

As someone who has travelled four times to Bhutan and loved every minute,I like this book's description of life in Bhutan as it really is. I could recognise the hospital, as I've visited a few myself. Britta writes about her life during one year as a volunteer in the eastern part of Bhutan, her encounters with the local people, how religion is woven with every part of their life, and with hers as well. Her writing lets you feel her experiences, you can see the mountains if they're not in the clouds, you can feel the rain during the monsoon.Her pictures add much extra value to her words.Britta writes about the Bhutan of 1997, and it is interesting how little has changed in the essence of life there.
I recommend this book to all who plan to travel to Bhutan, to see beyond the dazzling tourist sites.

Her father was a traveller, she was a young physiotherapist. He had been to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan several times, and he invited her to join him on yet one visit. She travelled with him, and stayed for a year.

Britta Das' very personal account of her stay as a pioneer physioterapist in remote East Bhutan almost 15 year ago is an honest story of being a young woman from Canada staying and working and trying to understand a rural Himalayan society, so very different from her own - and mine. I have been fortunate to visit Bhutan and other Himalayan countries as a traveller and tour leader, and I appreciate her beautiful way of approching the culture and the people of this remote society way up in the Himalayan foothills. She describes the problems she meets in a sincere and humble way, and she gives a sensitive insight in the societey and the meetings with the Bhutanese people. I learned a lot from her observations and experience. I also enjoyed getting to to know Britta Das as a person, she comes very close on her readers.

Things have changed in Bhutan over the past 15 years. Roads have been opened, TV and other media, handphones bring remote societies closer to the bigger world. Yet the people and their culture remain, and Britta Das brings them very close. I enjoyed meeting the people of East Bhutan through Britta Das' eyes, and I enjoyed discovering this part of the world with her - and Dr. Bikul, her personal guide. It is good to meet nice people, and to learn a lot in the process!

Since returning from Bhutan, I have devoured a number of books by people who have experienced that country on the cusp of modernity on a much deeper level than is possible for the tourist. Britta Das's very personal description of her months (not quite a year) in the hinterland of a country that is itself a hinterland, is probably the most heartfelt of them all. Having a multi-cultural background of her own, and previously traveled to the area, Das was probably better prepared to immerse herself into this oh so different Buddhist kingdom than some of the other authors. While her own experience (and physical suffering) is definitely part of the mix, and to some extent front and center, there is no self indulgent whining about the hardships encountered. Instead, there is an incredible sympathy for and openness to the complexities and ambivalences that mark this culture and the deep beauty of the country and a pragmatic desire to make it all work and truly add value through the mission she had set out to accomplish (teach and practive physiotherapy, one person at at a time). The narrative is not the most polished, and one does get the sense that English is not the author's native language and the quality of the pictures leave you with the impression that they were taken much longer ago than is actually the case. However, these are minor quibbles that don't detract from the pleasure the books provides.