Bhutan

Nestled high up in the Himalayas, is a tiny Kingdom that has changed little in the last millennia. In fact it wasn’t until recently that its citizens got TV and the internet, and even now these are only available in the cities.

I use the word city loosely, because here cities do not exist in the western sense. Take the capital city for example; there are no traffic lights because the citizens thought them too impersonal, more over there is no traffic.

There is a zoo, but with the exception of the national animal (which had to be recaptured because it roamed the streets looking for food after it was released) it has no animals in it, because the king decided it contradicted the teachings of Buddha.

This is a country where the king is quoted as saying the “The gross domestic happiness is more important than the GDP.”

This is the Kingdom of Druk, or in common parlance Bhutan.

My first experience of Bhutan was on board the national carrier Druk Air from Kathmandu. This was also my first experience of the national dish, a spicy combination of chilli and cheese. This will go down as the best aeroplane food I have ever had.

“We will be arriving at Bhutan International Airport in approximately five minutes,” the pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom, as if he was broadcasting from a field radio in some far flung war zone, and not from inside the cockpit in front of me.

I looked out of my window from the desired left hand side of the plane, a position I had secured on Lonely Planets recommendation for spectacular views of the Himalaya, shrouded in some not so spectacular cumulous.

Looking out the window below me I could see a country crumpled up like loose green carpet, with water coursing through its creases, and forested mountains disappearing up into the clouds we had just descended through, but nothing that would lead me to believe we would be landing in five minutes.

Confident in my assertion that we would not be landing anytime soon, I relaxed back into my seat, but no sooner had I done so, than the plane began swerving between peaks, swooping up and over hill tops and hugging valley floors.

I pushed myself back into my seat and gingerly swivelled my head towards the window glancing outside to make sure I had reason to be scared. As I did this the Buddhist monks in front of me began to chant and pray. This wasn’t a good sign!

I frantically tried to remember all of those safety instructions I had so conscientiously ignored. But the only thing that sprung to mind was that a flotation vest was located somewhere under my seat.

While I was pondering the uselessness of this information, the plane made one final dip and landed smoothly in a broad flat valley.

Relieved, I hastily disembarked where upon I began to wonder if the pilot had been forced to make an emergency landing outside a temple. But no, I was standing on a tarmac, and there was a windsock gently nodding itself to sleep beside the runway, so what I thought was a temple must be the terminal.