Bhutan Summary

The royal lineage of the five kings from 1907 to present.

King 5 with his father king 4.

King 4 married 4 sisters and had 10 kids, 5 boys and 5 girls. He now has one grandchild.

The Bhutanese flag.

Encouraging the populace to maintain their culture and traditional clothes.

The famous saying modified on a bus.

Feral dogs.

Traditional horns.

A Bhutanese cemetery.

The women carry their children like this. The Africans tend to wrap the legs around their waist.

Summary

I loved my stay in Bhutan. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people. After spending six weeks in India, Bhutan was a welcome relief. It was clean, quiet, serene and cooler. The difference became instantly apparent to all the members of our group as soon as we crossed the border. Gone were the incessant horns, the chaotic and crowded streets and traffic, the sometimes vile smells, the omnipresent poverty and people living in the streets and the endless litter. Over the next couple of days as we travelled further inland into higher elevation, the heat and the pollution dissipated as well. 

If it were not for the Bhutanese architecture and the people wearing traditional clothing, you might understandably mistake the country for British Columbia, with its endless series of evergreen forested foothills and snow-covered mountains. The architecture is beautiful and unique and is represented in their fortresses, the Dzongs, their temples and their houses. Most have a covered open attic which in the farms and houses is used for ventilation and storing grains and other crops. Most houses have iconic paintings depicting events or people from the religious beliefs. 

Bhutan is the second least populous nation in South Asia at 725,296, after the Maldives. Thimphu is its capital and largest city at 104,000.

The following is a precis of the Wikipedia article on Bhutan combined with things I learned from Chimi and Sherba and my personal observations.

The independence of Bhutan has endured for centuries and it has never been colonized in its history. Situated on the ancient Silk Road between Tibet, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the Bhutanese state developed a distinct national identity based on Buddhism. Headed by a spiritual leader known as the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, the territory was composed of many fiefdoms and governed as a Buddhist theocracy. Following a civil war in the 19th century, the House of Wangchuck reunited the country and in 1907, Ugyen Wangchuck was unanimously chosen as the hereditary king of the country by an assembly of leading Buddhist monks, government officials, and heads of important families. He established relations with the British Empire. After the new Union of India gained independence from the United Kingdom on 15 August 1947, Bhutan became one of the first countries to recognize India's independence. Bhutan fostered a strategic partnership with India during the rise of Chinese communism and has a disputed border with the People's Republic of China. 

In 1953, the fourth king of Bhutan Jigme Dorji Wangchuck established the country's legislature – a 130-member National Assembly – to promote a more democratic form of governance. In 1971, Bhutan was admitted to the United Nations, having held observer status for three years. In July 1972, Jigme Singye Wangchuck ascended to the throne at the age of sixteen after the death of his father, Dorji Wangchuck. In 2008, it transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy and held the first election to the National Assembly of Bhutan.

The people of Bhutan love their monarchy and there are pictures of the present king and his wife and the king’s father everywhere, in all the restaurants, hotels and in the houses we saw.

The fourth king was the one who turned the country into a democracy. He is also the one who coined the famous: Gross National Happiness (also known by the acronym: GNH), when he stated in 1972 in an interview, that Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product. It is a philosophy that guides the government of the country. It includes an index which is used to measure the collective happiness and well-being of a population. Gross National Happiness is instituted as the goal of the government of Bhutan in the Constitution of Bhutan, enacted on 18 July 2008. 

In 2012, Bhutan's Prime Minister Jigme Thinley and the Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon of the United Nations convened the High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm to encourage the spread of Bhutan's GNH philosophy. At the High Level meeting, the first World Happiness Report was issued. Shortly after the High Level meeting, 20 March was declared to be International Day of Happiness by the UN in 2012.

GNH is distinguishable from Gross Domestic Product by valuing collective happiness as the goal of governance, by emphasizing harmony with nature and traditional values as expressed in the 9 domains of happiness and 4 pillars of GNH. The four pillars of GNH's are 1) sustainable and equitable socio-economic development; 2) environmental conservation; 3) preservation and promotion of culture; and 4) good governance. The nine domains of GNH are psychological well-being, health, time use, education, cultural diversity and resilience, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity and resilience, and living standards. 

One example of pillar number 2) that Chimi explained to us was the new metal rooves that the government subsidized and have replaced the traditional wooden slats. The metal rooves last for years and save countless trees as the wooden rooves rot with the rains and snows. The government also holds all Himalayan mountains sacred and no one is allowed to climb them or to cut large trees.

All of this may sound idealistic and maybe naïve to us, but it really seems to be working in Bhutan. The people love their country, their culture, the monarchy and their religion. The people I met seemed genuinely happy. Maybe it is a better way to live than chasing the almighty dollar.

Traditionally Bhutan was a country that chose isolation. For example, TV and the internet were only introduced in 1999 and there are still a few areas who have just recently got it or because of their remoteness are still waiting. These two modern forms of communication are changing things in Bhutan as the people are realizing that there are other ways to live and things to do. As a result many of the children of farmers are choosing education and careers in the cities rather than traditional jobs. For years the government kept its borders closed to tourism. They saw the changes that tourism made to other countries, notably Nepal, and eventually decided they wanted to do it differently. They decided to strictly control who came into the country and how much they spent. In 2014, Bhutan welcomed 133,480 foreign visitors. Seeking to become a high value destination, it imposed a daily fee of US$250 on tourists that covers touring, hotel accommodation and meals. The tourist industry accounts for 1.8% of Gross Domestic Product and improves Gross National Happiness by employing 21,000 people. 

As a result all tourists to this point have to enter the country in a tour group and have to hire local guides. Tours tend to be one to two weeks in duration. The steep price and organization of group tours excludes most young backpackers and solo travellers. I am not sure who sets the itineraries but I think it is the Bhutanese tour groups or foreign tour groups, like Dragoman and Intrepid, who have to have them approved. In this way the government can control who can come in, where they can go and what they can see. There were numerous check points along our routes where Chimi had to present our group travel documents to an official. However, when we were in towns or cities we were allowed to wander around freely and were never questioned where our guide was. Interestingly, Indians get a much cheaper visa that all other nationalities. This is because of the close bond between the two countries. Bhutan exports much of their hydro-electric power to India and India provides money and manpower to build the roads and infrastructure. Chinese tourists are not welcome as they are not trusted.

All of the hotels we stayed in were top notch, very clean with all the amenities Westerns want. The meals were all buffet style. I presume that in this way they can control the cost by providing the same meal options to everyone but it also has the added value of speeding up the meal times, because the food is ready and we don’t have to order things separately and wait for it to be cooked. At many of the restaurants we visited there were other tour groups as well, kind of a ‘gringo trail’. I found it interesting that in Bhutan there are no breads served, except for toast at breakfast, unlike India and the rest of Asia where there are many types of bread such as chapatis, naans, rotis and pappadums. The two farm homestays were quite basic but realistic. The families did everything they could to make us feel welcome and the food and water was all cooked with our digestive tracks in mind.

The people are encouraged to wear their traditional clothing and many of the people do, especially in the tourist business. 

The people of Bhutan are very devote. There are temples everywhere, from very large to small neighbourhood ones to prayer rooms in private houses. It is estimated that between two-thirds and three-quarters of the Bhutanese population follow Vajrayana Buddhism, which is also the state religion. About one-quarter to one-third are followers of Hinduism. Other religions account for less than 1% of the population. Buddhism was introduced to Bhutan in the 7th century AD. Tibetan king Songtsan Gambo (reigned 627–649), a convert to Buddhism, ordered the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Bumthang in central Bhutan and at Kyichu Lhakhang (near Paro) in the Paro Valley. The leader of the Buddhist religion is said to have the same powers as the king and they wear yellow sashes on their clothing to indicate their equal status. 

The Bhutanese people are cremated but families hoist a prayer flag to honour them. They are replaced once a year until either the family can no longer afford or they decide not to. They are usual posted in a cluster on hills and slopes overlooking the valleys. This is their cemetery.

I asked Chimi how does someone become a monk and she told me that they are often the youngest child in a family that cannot afford a large family, or they are orphans or other unwanted children. The parents send the five to eight-year-old child to either a monastery or a nunnery. They are fed, schooled and raised as strict Buddhists by the monastery. They perform their rituals and take care of the monasteries. When they reach a certain level they become masters and then raise and indoctrinate the next generation. With the advent of social media the monks are realizing that there is another world out there. If they chose to leave they have to buy their way out. This can only be done if either their family can give them the money or they earn enough as masters and teachers. Again, the modern forms of communication are changing things.

The one problem that Bhutan has in common with India is animals. There are free range cows and feral dogs everywhere. The cows wander across roads and through towns leaving their mess behind and the dogs sleep all over the place in the day and bark all night as they guard their territories. The local people do feed the dogs and the cows too. The dogs are timid and didn’t bother us, however, their mess is also a problem. The Buddhist religion does not allow the killing of animals which is part of the problem. We saw many unhealthy, wounded or mangy dogs that in the West that would be treated or euthanized. At the very least they need to neuter some of them to control the population. 

I will always remember Chimi’s expression when you said thank you, she replied: ‘you are most welcome’. But it came to a head when I found out she was divorced and I asked if there was a stigma attached to that as there is in India (she says there isn’t), and she said ‘no, if you and your partner argue all the time and can’t get along you are most welcome to get divorced.’           

My visit to Bhutan was wonderful. Chimi and Sherba were excellent ambassadors for their country. The climate at this time of year was much like spring in Toronto, warm sun and a slight chill in the air. Altogether time well spent.