Tent camping on a mountain trek is surprisingly cozy despite the snow( top); a Bhutanese family stops to say hello along a Druk Path( left).
for its trappings. Modernization has come late but quickly to Bhutan. Until the‘ 50s, when the third King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck initiated the process, the country was essentially a feudalist state, operating much as it had been for centuries. With the help of subsidies from India and other countries, it slowly developed an infrastructure of roads, national health care, and education. In 1971, Bhutan joined the United Nations and established ties with other countries. It was only recently, in 1999, that television and the Internet were introduced; cell phones only came two years ago.
After four days in the hills, Thimpu, the capital city with a population of 50,000, seemed like a buzzing metropolis. Its main thoroughfare of handicraft stores and general shops seem to successfully sell the exact same things: bottles of Fanta, bags of Lay’ s, plastic trinkets, and leather shoes. The heart of the town is the spectacular dzong, where the nation’ s assembly meets. The city is one of the few places in the country where one can watch a movie in a grand theater or go out to a half-dozen discos. Overall, though, Thimpu is extraordinarily mellow. It is often noted that it’ s the only capital in the world with no stoplights. Instead, the centers of rotaries are filled with colorful, long-stemmed blooms, or a traffic cop whose directions seem to be a mix of air-traffic control signals and an imaginative, ballet-like dance.
Thimpu, however small, is still the center of Bhutan’ s fragile fledgling economy, which is the pivotal factor in the country’ s path toward sustainable development. The tourism industry, which employs a large percentage of the population, seems to promise a favorable source of income for the country. In 2005, visitors brought more than $ 18 million into Bhutan, which has a miniscule GDP of $ 840 million. But many worry that tourism, paired with unchecked modernization,
could threaten Bhutan’ s unique culture— and with it, the experience of a remote, untouched cranny that tourists seek there.
The government’ s solution of low-volume, high-yield tourism, enforced by a daily $ 200 tariff and required guides, has helped limit visitors while maintaining economic benefits. In order to disperse the impacts, the Department of Tourism has started to promote other seasons and develop new attractions. In addition to new communitybased treks, outfitters are offering mountain biking and rafting trips.
After a night carousing in the Thimpu bars, we made the twisting eight-hour drive to central Bhutan. Long, looping drives are integral to any trip to Bhutan, as the roads are seldom wider than one-and-a-half lanes and, according to a believable rumor, have an average of 17 curves per kilometer. Speeds upward of 30 miles per hour are virtually unheard of. On our way, we navigated around cows and yaks in the middle of the road, and glimpsed daily life in the tiny villages, terraced rice paddies, and orchards that punctuate the steep forests. Inside the car, Chencho and Phuntsho reminisced about their old flames as we listened to their collections of Eminem, Shakira, and Guns N’ Roses.
We visited a farmhouse that once belonged to a queen’ s servant. One room was entirely occupied by an elaborate shrine, and the woman of the house said her family of four happily survived on a two-burner gas range, a carpet for eating, one mattress and a mess of blankets.
And while Westerners worry about the potential loss of cultural values and natural resources, for the Bhutanese people, the march toward the future provides some very tangible benefits. In the late’ 50s, Bhutan’ s entire school system consisted of 11 schools and fewer than 500 children. Today, access to education and health care is widespread. In 1960, the life expectancy of the average Bhutanese was about 38 years; today, it is about 66.
B efore leaving central Bhutan and making our way back to Paro, we spent a morning at the Jakar dzong watching the tsechu. The dance was central to my experience of the traditional side of Bhutan, but like many travelers, I discovered some of the most beautiful parts of the country in accidental details. I loved how the big trucks that throttle and choke down the skinny, winding, one-and-a-half lane highways are decorated in tinsel, decals, colorful pictures of animals, sequins, and painted exclamations of“ Good luck!” I loved sitting down in a restaurant in Paro next to monks reading the paper, smoking cigarettes, and idly chatting like the happy, old men one sees in town squares in virtually every country in the world. I loved lying in my tent in the mountains during my trek, listening to the voices of my guides, cook, and horsemen rise into eerie Himalayan melodies before they drifted off to sleep. I loved rambling through the Punakha dzong’ s temple and hearing the dull, sobering, reverberating thumps of my socked feet as I treaded the ancient floorboards.
On my last night in the country, Chencho and I drove the twisting, dust-choked road back to Paro. While he fixed a flat tire, I visited the Paro dzong one last time. As I crossed the bridge, festooned with prayer flags, and climbed the stone pathway up and up, I passed curious schoolgirls and boys and admired the immense medieval structure, imposing against the cloudless twilight.
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