{"id":1299,"date":"2005-04-04T23:52:16","date_gmt":"2005-04-05T04:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=1299"},"modified":"2005-04-13T13:30:45","modified_gmt":"2005-04-13T18:30:45","slug":"bhutan_hearts_b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/04\/bhutan_hearts_b\/","title":{"rendered":"Boozing in Bhutan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4369471.stm\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/bhutanAlcohol203x191.jpg\" width=\"203\" height=\"191\" hspace=\"10\" vspace=\"5\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\"><\/a>As\nif the <a href=\"http:\/\/travel2.nytimes.com\/mem\/travel\/article-page.html?res=9506E2DB1239F93AA35752C0A9639C8B63\">beautiful\nscenery<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001253.html\">burgeoning\ndemocracy<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sepiamutiny.com\/sepia\/archives\/001270.html\">religious\ndevotion to penises<\/a> wasn&rsquo;t enough, Bhutan gives us another reason to\nbook our next vacation there: They love to party! <\/p>\n\n<blockquote>\n<p>In Thimphu, trendy bars and pubs have mushroomed. They are popular with young\ncity-dwellers who drop by most evenings for a drink after work. During a night\nof pub-hopping in Thimphu, I saw most places choc-a-bloc with young men and women.\nAlcohol swigging, swirling cigarette smoke and uninhibited laughter. In one,\na few couples were dancing to loud music. The health secretary, Dr Thinley, says\nthe government is working on awareness campaigns to encourage people to drink\nin moderation, and also keep a check on the liquor brewed from rice at home.\n[BBC News]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Sure, the incessant carousing has led to rampant alcoholism, but so does marriage, and you\ndon&rsquo;t see anybody leading a crusade against that. Well, at least not against\nheterosexual marriage.<\/p>\n\n<p>BBC News: <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/2\/hi\/south_asia\/4369471.stm\">Bhutan faces up to alcohol problem<\/a><\/p>\n\n<!--more-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As if the beautiful scenery, burgeoning democracy, and religious devotion to penises wasn&rsquo;t enough, Bhutan gives us another reason to book our next vacation there: They love to party! In Thimphu, trendy bars and pubs have mushroomed. They are popular &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2005\/04\/04\/bhutan_hearts_b\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}