LAND OF THE DRAGON
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4 x 30 minutes
It is a remote and beautiful land shadowed by the savage beautiful snow peaks of the Himalayas. Over the centuries those who visited did not find the journey an easy one. Even today few people have visited the remote Kingdom of Bhutan.
On all sides natural barriers separate it from its neighbours - to the North China, to the East and West stark mountain ranges stand between it and the hill districts of India. In the south the mountains reach an abrupt end running up against Sikkim, West Bengal and Assam. For many years Bhutan remained to the world at a large a mythical Shangrila. It remains a profoundly traditional and religious society where the modern trappings of the outside world have been slow to infiltrate.
This series of four programs explores the day-to-day world of a yak herder who survives with his family on the high altitude grasslands. In the Punaka Valley we follow the life of a village headman; and in the Paro Valley to visit Taktsang the "Tiger's Nest" a Buddhist monastery perched high on the ledge of a sheer 3,000 foot cliff. We end our journey to Bhutan in the tropical south of the country as we follow the patrol of a forest ranger in the Manas Game Sanctuary. This is the world and people of the little-known world of Bhutan.
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Episode 1 - Mountain of the Goddess
Dawa is a yak herder. He was born in a Yak tent and has spent his life, as his family did before him, surviving on the high altitude grasslands in the shadow of Chomolhari that marks the border with Tibet’s Chumbi Valley.
Dawa and his family depend entirely on the Yak for milk, meat, clothes and transport; even their tents are made from Yak hair. This is Dawa’s destiny, and that of his childrens to live and move with the Yak on the Mountain of the Goddess.
Episode 2 -Man of the People
Samthen Dorji is a moderately wealthy farmer by Bhutanese standards, and his farm in the Punakha Valley provides him and his family with the necessities of life and enough produce to exchange for goods grown elsewhere in Bhutan.
Samthen is also a village headman, elected by 300 village families he represents. For this “Man of the People” and his family and all those who live in the Punakha Valley, the western world and its modernity holds little attraction, for, after all, how can one improve on a society that has everything.
Episode 3 - The Tiger’s Nest
In Bhutan monks are held in great respect and play an active part in community life. After Buddha himself, the religious figure most revered by the Bhutanese people is Padma Sambhava, who brought Buddhism to the country at the beginning of the ninth century.
Several temples are associated with Padma Sambhava, among them Taktsang, “The Tiger’s Nest”, in the Paro Valley, so named for the legend that he flew to Bhutan on the back of a tiger. This startling monastery, perched high on the ledge of a sheer 3,000 foot cliff where the only sounds are the murmurs of wind and water and the chanting of monks, is visited by pilgrims from all over Bhutan.
Episode 4 - Man of the Forest
On the banks of the mighty Manas River in southeastern Bhutan, which forms the border with the Indian province of Assam, is the Manas Game Sanctuary. Suraj Kumar Pradhan is one of several forest rangers, whose responsibility it is to patrol and protect the jungle, forest and grassland areas of the 161 square mile region and the elephants, tigers, rhinoceros and the many species of deer that live there.
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Purchase Land of the Dragon, Episodes #1 to #4 on DVD for $12.95 plus packing and postage
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