Bhutan
Specialist Travel in Bhutan
If scenery, culture and mountains draw you then Bhutan surely must be your next special holiday. Bhutan's easy eccentricity is so compelling - a comfortable, unfussy uniqueness that pervades every aspect of life, from the traditional gho and kira that the people must wear to the architecture, scenery and food which, to the scalded and stupefied foreigner, appears to consist primarily of chillies with meat, cheese or vegetable tossed in to provide a bit of body! Then there's the Bhutanese pragmatism, pulling in whichever bits of whichever century they find useful without worrying too much about modernity - or much else!
Picture a scene: near Chheri Gompa at the head of the Wang Chhu river a couple of hours beyond the capital, Thimphu, there was a yak train bringing in ginseng from the mountains along an age-old trading route that winds it's way down from the high alpine meadows through dense temperate evergreen and semi-evergreen forest. As the beautifully decorated yaks trailed in to the road-head a cavalcade of modern Japanese cars swept up the well-maintained road from Thimphu. A monk of some considerable antiquity emerged from the lead car and was, promptly and without too much ceremony, loaded onto a palanquin to be carried up the steep slope to the monastery. It was the retired Head Abbot or Je Khenpo of Bhutan, the second most important individual in the kingdom after the monarch; an office dating back almost 500 years to the Shabdrung or Great Unifier who gave Bhutan its present distinctive national identity.
No matter what your expectations, it would be a fair bet that the country will match them; there are only 700,000 people in a country the size of Switzerland; it is 71% forest; there's a diversity of life in its rugged beauty that is simply staggering although it is most apparent in the flora, the insects and the birds. Another anecdote: On a December evening, feeling our way up to a pass in thick fog with the weird and wonderful shapes of trees draped in snow and ice coalescing out of the murk, a magnificent Monal pheasant strutted onto the road and displayed himself a few yards away, showing no sign of retreating. It was our first sighting of the national bird of Nepal known as the Danphe or the Bird of Nine Colours. Just then 3 females appeared and our cup brimmed over!
These days Uma Paro and the Aman group of hotels each have excellent hotels here, to supplement more traditional properties. Access is usually by air via Kathmandu, Kolkata or Delhi but we also travel to Bhutan by road from one of our favourite places to stay near Darjeeling, a very scenic drive.
