(Note from the editor: If you offend easily, please don't read.)

Let’s just get it out of the way, this place (Punakha Valley) has penises everywhere. They have big penises, small ones, and even some giant ones. We first saw a couple on our first hike but they were just paintings. We thought it was just something that was just there, maybe having some meaning, but irrelevant in our time. But today we learned all about the penis. We got out of the car and saw a painting of a penis with fangs and eyes. The fangs were to scare away evil spirits, and the penis part was to support fertility. The whole penis thing started with Drukpa Kunley, who was a saint who was a crazy guy (The Divine Madman) who would guide women on their journey. There was one story that our guide told us that I really liked. It was about a lady who had a painting and she was bringing it up to a monk to get it consecrated (blessed). On the way up, she met Drukpa Kunley and he asked what the woman was doing. She said that she was going to the monks to get her painting blessed. Drukpa Kunley said, "Oh don’t worry. I will bless it for you". The lady didn’t know what he was talking about and then he started to pee on the painting. The lady was very mad and she snatched the painting from him and then walked up to the monks like she was going to do. When she got to them they asked why she was so mad. She responded by saying a man, down the mountain, urinated on (my) painting. The monk said, "Oh, I don’t have to do the blessing anymore. It is already blessed". The lady was confused, then the monk removed the cover that was keeping the painting clean and the pee had turned into gold. This is one of my favorite stories because it has some humor and it is also a neat story. We then went for lunch at a really astounding place where we ate spicy food with a great view. But all around the room there were penises. There were some wind chime penises, decorative penises, and also a 4-foot-tall/long penis. After our lunch and several penis jokes we went down to see a little village. We saw some really unique houses and even some cool shops. If you had to guess, what do you think was in the shops? Yep more penises, but this time there were more souvenirs. They had some key chains and even some necklaces, all penises. But along with then there were masks and some clothes, but mostly penises. We then climbed up a small hill to reach a fertility temple. On the outside is a stupa, a burial covering for evil spirits. Drukpa Kunley the same man in the first story, tricked 2 evil spirits that had combined into one dog. The story starts where he sits on top of a tree with cows tied to the bottom. At night, he waits for the evil spirits to come. At first the spirits come in 2, one goes to eat the cows and the others sees Drukpa in the tree. They retreat and make a plan, they decided to go as a dog. One spirit jumped into the other and they transformed into a dog. They came back to the tree and Drukpa was still waiting. The spirits walked up like nothing was wrong but Drukpa knew it was them so he grabbed them and killed them. He then built a stupa to keep evil spirits away in the future. Then we went into the fertility temple. It was built in 1499 and named Chimi Lhakhang. People come from all around the world to perform a ritual that will help them have a baby. I don’t know how to end a story about penises, so...

The End