bhutan - Phobjika

Beautiful jewelry for women is an important aspect of the culture of Bhutan. The jewelry above, while surely expensive and highly valued, was apparently part of the daily dress of the woman pictured cooking dinner below.
If you will look closely will see a brown and white bead that stands out as different from the others.
This bead signifies great protection. There are 3 kinds, the plastic tourist version, a glass more generally used version and the rare antique version. Perhaps something was lost in translation but I was told that the rare bead costs around $500,000 USD.
There is a story attached to this bead. In a large plane crash in Indonesia there was one survivor - a Bhutanese man wearing the bead.
The pin seen near the woman's shoulder is one of a pair called komas. The koma is used to clasp the womans dress, kira, at the shoulder.
A kira FYI is one piece of woven cloth about the size of a single bed sheet that is wrapped in such a way as to create the beautiful long dresses that all Bhutanese women wear. An elaborate kira can take a whole year to weave. It would take equally as long were I to try to dress myself in one.