moment: the Sopsokha region’s first pop-up discotheque
had opened that weekend. It was rumored that some
village girls trying to make money to travel overseas were
setting up the club for a month, and fresh-faced young
farmers and yak herders had traveled from all around to
buy bottles of Misty Peak and the local firewater, ara,
which many drank in traditional fashion, mixed with
chunks of scrambled egg. The music was a medley
of Western classic rock, Indian pop and Bhutanese folk
songs, all equally beloved by the wildly dancing crowd. As I
lurched home at 3 a.m., I could feel that the script was
beginning to fray.O
f course, these cultural immersions paled in
comparison to chasing the yeti skin. As I wandered
the Gangtey Monastery with Max, trying to find
someone who would let us in to see the artifact, I began to
appreciate for the first time the depth of traditional lore in
Bhutan. The religious complex, a bone-rattling five-hour
drive from the capital, was an otherworldly enclave that
seemed to float on its lonely hilltop, caught between lush
forests and luminous clouds. Mist from the valley floor
began to drift through the ancient courtyards, and every
room was blackened by the soot from four centuries’ worth
of incense sticks and butter lamps.
It was a minor setback to learn that the top oicials
were away. Surely someone other than the abbot had
a key? Max saw that I wouldn’t take no for an answer.
A f ter g iv ing it some t hought, he expla ined t hat each of t he
three inner shrines in the monastery did have its own
special caretaker. If we were lucky—and I gave a decent
“donation” for the upkeep of the monastery—one might
open the tantric chamber.
We descended to the village’s backstreets, poking our
heads into farmhouses and barns, dodging donkeys,
chickens and dogs before finding a pallid monk in a red
robe. As Max made our case, the monk looked me over
with a furrowed brow. “I told him you are not a tourist but
a respected Buddhist scholar,” Max confided as we slowly
wa l ked toget her back up t he hi l l to t he monaster y. I felt a
new sense of camaraderie. Max was suddenly my new
best friend. He didn’t even seem to mind that my only
spiritual credentials came from daily meditations on the
Headspace app. “Maybe you are a Buddhist scholar then,”
he laughed. “Almost a lama.”
Night was falling by the time we reentered the
monastery. The monk indicated that we should climb a
wooden ladder to the second floor, where we groped in
near darkness past murals of demons grinning
malevolently. I entered one shrine filled with rusted
weaponry—antique spears used against Tibetan
invaders, muskets that repelled the British—but nothing
resembling the hide of an abominable snowman. And
then, to my surprise, the custodian waved me over to
another portal, which he unlocked and slowly opened.
I couldn’t believe it: the inner sanctum. Holding my
breath, I pressed forward into a wood-paneled chamber
illuminated by the watery light coming through one sliver
of a w indow. A s my eyes adjusted to t he sepu lchra ldarkness, I saw a wall lined with ghoulish
animal trophies, like the monsters of a medieval
bestiary—the desiccated carcass of an
enormous fish baring piranha-like fangs; the
hide of a feline that resembled a saber-toothed
tiger; the scaly skin of a giant serpent. “This is
the hand of a ghost,” Max said matter-of-factly,
pointing to a skeleta l claw t hat had belonged to a
“dead king” who once haunted the valley. I had
been transported back to a prescientific age,
looking at evidence of myth and legend.
Max then shined the light of his iPhone to
revea l a g r isly skin na i led to t he wa l l a nd
hanging like a sinister cape—the red yeti. I
cautiously ran my fingers over the 400-year-old
prize. It was definitely animal hide, stiff and
fraying, with mummified claws and feet
attached. Framed by long strands of hair (which
was very black by now) was a grimacing, simian
face. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but the
yeti’s features may have been reworked by the
monks over the centuries, perhaps with
stretched leather, to stem the tide of decay. The
attendants solemnly explained that this strange
creature was known as a meichum, a smaller
type of yeti, which had been spotted around the
v i l la ge in t he 17 t h cent ur y. The creat ure had a
thorn in its foot, and the peasants, once they got
over their terror, helped to remove it. Later,
when the yeti was found dead in the forest, the
abbot ordered its skin preserved for the
monastery’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
I felt like high-fiving Max. Instead, I soberly
slipped some cash into the offering bowl,
bowing profusely. Walking back down the
mountain trail, I was exultant. Caught up in the
moment, it didn’t matter whether the hide was
authentic. Instead, I was happy to suspendIN THE
ORNATE
SHRINE, A
MONK WAS
CHANTING
TO HIMSELF