Great Walls of Thimphu

If we organise a competition to select the best compound wall in Thimphu, which organization will win? 

Of course, there will never be a compound wall contest, but I wonder why organizations compete to build extravagant walls. What are they trying to protect? What are they trying to hide?

Isaac Newton once said, “We build too many walls and not enough bridges…” and this is so true about us, in literal sense. In villages, we build compound walls and fences to protect our crops from animals, but here we neither have crops nor animals. And yet we have the strongest and biggest of walls built around our offices! By chance, if the walls are built to keep intruders away, then it’s common sense to know that they can walk through the gate or climb over the wall.

Supreme Wall

Looking at the enormity of the walls that are being built around government offices in Thimphu, it seems like Thimphu is in the state of war, and that each warring office is trying to protect itself from neighboring enemies and invaders. That certainly reminds us of the Great Wall of China protecting Chinese empire, but today even that famous wall is a mere tourist attraction with no defensive function.

But since Thimphu is a peaceful city with no stray cattle, the only thing walls are contributing to is isolating one part of a place from the other, blocking thoroughfares and depriving pedestrians the right of way.

My Neighbourhood 

For example, in my suffocating office neighborhood: ECB is adjacent to ACC but for me to get to ECB I have to take a detour from near Zorig Chusum; RAA is adjacent to RSPN but I have to walk all the way around from MoH gate; same is the case between MoH and NLC; MoE and UN House; MoH and Bhutan Telecom. They are divided by Berlin walls of their own. Pedestrians have no option but to follow the motor road to get from one place to another. No offices have left thoroughfares. And that’s just around my office in Kawajangsa.

So Close, yet so far!

It’s understandable for private property owners to enclose their estate within the four walls and station guard dogs (and put “beware of dogs” sign on the gate), but public offices should be kept as accessible as possible. The leadership of the organizations should think broadly at a national level.

Tri-Junction

It’s Bhutan on either side of the wall after all, and if offices talk to each other and mutually agree to share parking spaces and make free access, it will only save resources for the country. Building walls between offices only creates differences and distance between offices. I wonder who pays for these walls! I am sure no one can be a bully like Donald Trump to demand Mexico to pay for the wall that he wants along his border.

So much investment to disconnect

Compound walls don’t come cheap and it’s taken from the limited public money. Instead of walls, the money can go into useful infrastructure like roads, toilets and park facilities to name a few.

Highly secure- but from what?

I once asked a friend in Royal Audit Authority how they failed to catch government institutions wasting huge amount of money in walls. She laughed and told me that building wall around office is an official requirement. Baffling! So, on one hand it’s official mandate to waste precious budget on building walls, and on the other hand we hear officials cry about not having budget for replacing a broken tap in the office toilet.

Their roofs are almost touching, but they are completely disconnected

Construction of walls and fences of any sort around public offices should be discouraged, rather a set of CCTV cameras purchased at the cost of tiny fraction of the wall would effectively do the job of securing the area.

As long as the walls remain just as physical barriers it’s fine, but we know things just don’t stop there. The physical walls are either the result of diplomatic differences between the leaders of the organisations, or the cause of it. It is the symbol of mistrust and isolation. Walls, as you see, will never promote goodwill, and we have seen enough bureaucratic walls in Thimphu, one becoming a bottleneck for other and other not failing to take revenge. The whole little territorial dramas finally hits the general public the hardest; having to visit five different offices across their walls to get approval for a single work, when ideally one office could easily get across to other four offices online and get the work done on one table. 

Walls, therefore, is injurious to our harmony and our efficiency. 

“In the recent past, it has become evident that institutions in our country are all asserting “independence” and seeking greater “autonomy” at the expense of overall harmony. There is limited communication and coordination among agencies and this invariably leads to a lack of coherence.”- His Majesty the King, 17 Dec, 2013

Bhutan’s Killer Highways

In 2011, somewhere below Nobding in Wangdue, I don’t want to remember, my car was hit by falling boulders but I survived to tell the story because a chunk of rock that sliced through my windshield landed near my right foot without hitting any part of my body. I still wonder how that was possible. I still feel grateful. ( I could never sue anyone for it)

Haunting Memories from 2011

Since that fateful night, I have become a little paranoid about travelling alone, travelling in the rain, travelling across deadly slopes and the charm of travelling is replaced by fear of being crushed by huge boulders and buried under a mudslide.

Famous- Reautala on the way to Zhemgang from Trongsa

Over the years, roads became wider but safety didn’t change much. In fact, with bigger roads, bigger damages were inflicted on the slopes and we are seeing deadlier landslides. Every highway has a leading landslide spot and a few supporting ones that are crippling the traffic every monsoon and claiming precious lives.

We have seen several deadly accidents with multiple casualties, the recent bus accident at Basochu being one of the worsts, which should have served as a harsh wakeup call for us to relook at the way we build roads. But looking at the way Damchu-Chhukha bypass was built we seemed to have learnt nothing substantial. This road though done so recently using all the modern machinery and high-tech equipment doesn’t look any different from the ones our grandparents built using a crowbar. The short span of the road from Damchu to Chhukha has at least four death traps that will gradually become slaughterhouses.

One of the four deadly stretches on Damchu-Chhukha bypass

With all the impending landslide, no accidents shall be unexpected. It’s simple physics to understand that the rocks that are held loosely on the slope will come rumbling down due to gravity. And that road being the busiest, we are only to count the number of dead bodies over the year. I can already see prayer flags being offered at two spots on that stretch where the accidents have occurred, and lives lost. If nothing is done, we shall run out of space to offer prayer flags.

Strangely, in the so many deaths due to road accidents I have seen drivers being blamed and charged, but never have I heard of a case where road contractor or official being taken to court for murder. Yes, it should amount to murder. When talking about road safety we always point at the speed limit, drunk driving, etc. but never about the condition of the road. Drivers are fined for violating road safety rules and endangering their own lives and lives of others, but did road safety officials ever charge road contractors for endangering public safety due to their negligence and their incompetence?

Building road along the mountain must be a big feat but it comes with a huge price tag, and when one is paid the price for a job it’s their responsibility to ensure the road is built and that all related damages are rectified and that there won’t be landslide from above or below the road. Sadly, we can see how this is grossly neglected, perhaps it’s not even in the mandate. I don’t like to believe this, but I heard that some loose ends are intentionally left to ensure that there are repeated slides and roadblocks so that the contractor or organisation can have excuses to have more works. Such bad logic.

Whereas at Chhuzomsa in Wangdue, a Japanese company has done a marvellous bridge and on the two ends of the bridge they have solidified the entire hill using pressurised concrete so that there will never be any sort of landslide or shooting boulders. That’s the level of professionalism in the way Japanese work; they leave no loose ends, the only thing they leave behind is legacy of outstanding quality. Unfortunately, they are not building our roads.

Japanese Legacy at Chhuzomsa in Wangdue. Look at those hills!

The method Japanese used to seal the loose rocks into solid concrete to prevent landslide is called shotcrete. This method, which is extensively used in hydropower projects, can help make a lot of our landslide-prone areas safe. I have seen it used in Tala Project and now in Punatshangchu projects, but I haven’t seen it used outside the hydropower box. Except by Japanese. Why is it not used in making our roads safe?

Shotcrete

Another method I have seen being used in hydropower projects is rock-bolt, where a long anchor is used to bolt the loose exterior rock onto the solid interior rock mass. This will ensure that all those creepily hanging rock you see on our highway will not come down on us. But that’s only if we are willing to invest in safety.

Rock-Bolt

During many of my meditative driving modes, when my wife’s lost in her own thoughts and when I am driving across scary slopes I thought of many ways to prevent landslides and shooting boulders. In fact, in my head, I use shotcrete, rock bolts and even build RCC walls and then contemplate massive landslides. 

But even in my imaginative simulations walls don’t stand a chance against the force of nature. There is no way humans and our technology can stop the forces of nature when it’s on the move, but that doesn’t mean we can't divert it. Any powerful force can far easily be diverted than stopped.

Tunnel roads

That’s exactly what’s going wrong with the way we are managing our landslide-prone roads; we try to stop slides by building walls and therefore the massive force of the slide then takes along the entire road itself. The best solution to that is hiding the road from the path of the slide using the tunnel or half-tunnel technology. 

Half-tunnel, about which I read many years ago, could be our best chance at making our deadly roads safe for driving across all season. The half tunnel will hide the road and all properties, including us in the artificial cave and whatever falls from above, no matter how powerful, will just fly over our head. This is what I mean by diverting the force of nature and not trying to stop it. It could be expensive to build but when it’s done the amount of recurring cost, lives and property it will save on top of preserving the condition of the road for a sustained period of time will make the huge investment all the worth. 

Half-Tunnel

Otherwise, how can we stop a force like this: On Trongsa-Zhemgang highway

Talking about the huge cost of adopting the solutions I mentioned, I am reminded of an analogy someone shared with me (there must be a name for it as well); A poor man goes to a shop and buys a pair of Nu.400 shoes, while a rich man buys a pair of Nu.3000 shoes. The poor man’s shoe wears out in four months and he buys another pair. Every four months he has to buy a new pair. The rich man’s pair of shoes last for a good five years, while within that period of time the poor man has to buy 15 pairs of the cheap brand, costing him Nu.6,000. The poor man who was trying to save money lands up paying double the price at the end.

Same happens with us, the so-called-poor countries. We think we are a poor country and go for the cheapest way out, but in the end the recurring maintenance cost will be far greater than if had invested in the best. We may be a poor country but we have to carry a rich country mentality when it comes to investing in nation-building.