Bhutan, the world's last Buddhist kingdom, is now more accessible to foreigners - but at a price. Lynne O'Donnell arrives in time for one of its largest religious festivals
It's 2am and a full Himalayan moon hangs like a huge yellow lantern over the steep, rocky steps leading to the ceremonial courtyard behind Paro Dzong. The whitewashed stone monastic fortress was built in the 16th century to keep out Tibetan warrior monks who regularly raided the valley below, and it still looks as if it could be a villain's secret lair. But as long, flat notes from brass horns reverberate around the enclosing mountains, pacifying the gods and calling the faithful to one of the holiest events in Bhutan's Buddhist calendar, it is clear that it is religion, and the strength of its grip on the devout, that defines the remote mountain kingdom.
Paro Dzong is its holiest place. A snaking procession of pilgrims spills onto the vast quadrangle, which is muddy from rain. The swelling crowd is enveloped in a pious murmur as prayer beads move silently through fingers and thumbs, incense is lit and a muffled voice from a loudspeaker intones a strange incantation. Wide-eyed children clutch adult legs against the cold, and elderly women unfurl straw prayer mats to begin their genuflections before a massive, multicoloured thongdrel that has just been unfurled from the roof of one of the monastery's sacred stores.
This hallowed painted cloth, one of the world's largest thangkas, depicts the journey of Guru Rinpoche, the founder of Himalayan Buddhism and Bhutan's guiding teacher, saint and god. Considered the Second Buddha, he arrived in the Paro Valley in the eighth century, riding a flying tiger and bringing with him the secrets of tantric Buddhism, which were to become the basis of the myth-encrusted life of Bhutan.
To the faithful, just to gaze on this depiction of Guru Rinpoche's eight earthly incarnations is to be blessed. The solemnity of the occasion is written on each of the faces turned towards the thongdrel, which is lit by hundreds of tiny butter lamps. The trek up the mountain in the early hours of the fifth and final day of the annual Paro tsechu, or festival, is a holy obligation, and as dawn approaches the crowd thickens, for before the sun has risen the throngdel will be rolled up for another year.
Bhutan's festivals are not occasions for frivolity; they are a time of reflection and meditation, when families of three, four and sometimes even five generations visit the monastery to take part in the rites.
The central role of religion in Bhutan has never been assaulted by secular ideology as it was in neighbouring Tibet by the Chinese communists and in kindred Mongolia by the Soviets. Because no line separates its spiritual and secular lives, Bhutan has become a focus of Buddhist devotion. The monarch and the je khenpo, or chief abbot, share equal status - only these two men may wear saffron sashes on ceremonial occasions - and monasteries have always been the centre of secular and legal life, as well as religious life. Indeed, the word dzong means fortress, monastery, seat of government and courthouse.
Bhutan's government is housed in a massive dzong atop a hill overlooking the capital, Thimphu. Government ministers and hundreds of bureaucrats share space with monks who occupy the ancient inner chambers. Office workers, wearing the white silk sashes of their low rank, spin prayer wheels lining the courtyards as they leave for home at the end of a working day.
The minister for culture and home affairs, Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, visits monastic celebrations across the country; when I meet him in his office, which is hung with religious paintings, he has just returned from the consecration of a temple in the remote eastern region of Mongar. He is always charmed and heartened, he said, to see that the profound importance of these events to family life is undiminished by the advent of television and the internet.
For the visitor to witness how Bhutan's spiritual heart beats, Paro's annual tsechu is a must. It is the biggest festival in a country of constant religious celebration, matched only by the autumn Thimphu tsechu. For the week leading up to the thongdrel's display, Paro's monastery has been alive with theatre and dances that retell Buddhist legends.
For hours on end, monks in flowing ribboned skirts, huge felt boots and massive wooden masks of buffalo and deer heads, white skulls and red demons wave swords and drums as they turn slow-motion cartwheels and play out the wars between good and evil that their deities fought and won on the way to paradise.
Between dances, families lay out blankets and tuck into picnic lunches while chatting, gossiping and catching up with friends. All are in their best clothes: males wear wrap-around knee-length ghos, their sleeves folded high over white shirts, and with raw-silk shawls in colours denoting their status thrown over their right shoulders; females wear full-length kira, which are rectangular pieces of hand-woven cloth clasped at the shoulder by ornate brooches, topped with cropped blouses and jackets of Chinese brocade.
There's a haunting timelessness to the tsechu, and to Bhutan, that gives you a feeling of having stumbled through a tear in the fabric of the universe, to behold the struggle between ancient and modern, in perhaps the last place on earth where this is played out before one's eyes.
There are also cars, advertising and mobile phones (even for many of the monks). Here in Paro, and in Thimphu, 150km to the north, are shops, restaurants, bars, book shops, libraries, hospitals, hotels, supermarkets and a couple of internet cafes. And why wouldn't there be? This is, after all, the 21st century, and Bhutan sits between the two Asian giants, India and China. But here, nestled among the highest peaks of the Himalayas and often hidden in the clouds, Bhutan seems an incongruous setting for these accoutrements of modernity. Much of the way of life is fossilised, and purposely so, for the Bhutanese know that their survival in a world that has already engulfed, and in some cases destroyed, their Buddhist brethren depends on their display of their ancient culture. Holding fiercely to their identity is what the Bhutanese have done for almost 1,000 years.
The mountain folk who became the Bhutanese were the Huguenots of the Himalayan Dark Ages; dotted around the edges of Paro Valley - and most of the valleys across the western flank of Bhutan - are massive fortresses made of rammed earth, painted white and fitted with arched wooden windows painted with animals and lotus flowers. All modern buildings, from homes, hospitals, schools and shops to phone booths and clock towers, are constructed in the image of the dzongs. It's the law, as is the wearing of national dress in public except on Sundays, when many young men dare to step out in denim jeans.
Bhutan has been opening up to the outside world for only a few decades, since the country's third monarch, King Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, took heed of the plight of the Dalai Lama, who was forced into exile by a Chinese military invasion in 1959 that presaged the demise of Tibet as Buddhism's historic treasure house.
Full-scale colonisation has seen the Tibetan plateau turn from forest to desert in 50 years, to feed China's demand for wood, and mining has polluted the sources of rivers that run from the roof of the world into a dozen countries, providing water for more than two billion Asians.
Having seen Tibet's wildlife destroyed by poachers, and its culture and religion first devastated by the Cultural Revolution and then transformed into fairground fodder for a Chinese-controlled tourism industry, the king pushed his way into the UN. His heir, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, has worked hard to develop his father's legacy and create a niche for the country that both protects it from the predations of geopolitics and attracts wealthy foreigners, who are drawn not only to its quirkiness but also to itsspectacular environment.
That means the country's status as the "last Shangri-la" has become its greatest asset. It has enabled the government, a chamber of nominated representatives answerable to the monarch, to turn Bhutan into one of the world's hottest tourist destinations, a land of untrammelled forests, pure air, protected wildlife, winding highways, quaint towns, bad food and eye-poppingly expensive hotels (which exist thanks to the support of international donors).
Foreigners pay a minimum of €164 a day - with the recent arrival of luxury boutique hotels, the cost can rise to more than €800 a day - for the privilege of witnessing Bhutan's quaint customs, costume and architecture, not much of which is indigenously Bhutanese but which serves as a reminder of what the world lost when the Chinese marched on Tibet and the Indians swallowed Sikkim, Ladakh and Mustang.
It is the fate of these disappeared nations, which once formed a chain of kingdoms along the crest of the Himalayas, that spurs the Bhutanese to hold tight to what they have.
In this part of the world, sovereignty and independence are rare and precious. It is tourism that offers the world a window on a country that is still only emerging from a hermetically-sealed existence. Life remains tough for most of Bhutan's population - which ahead of next year's census is estimated at anywhere between 600,000 and 2.3 million. Subsistence farming sustains most of them, and few even now have access to roads less than a day's walk from their villages. Nevertheless, health services are free and universal, and the medium for education is English, a decision the third king made to ensure his country could interact with the rest of the world.
The day I arrived, aboard one of the brand-new aircraft of Druk Air, a state-run monopoly, we weren't allowed to get off until a VIP passenger - one of the king's six sons - had disembarked. He couldn't get off until a red carpet had been trundled out to the aircraft on an old trolley and rolled out for the royal footfall. The rest of us on the near-empty flight were led towards the arrivals hall - our first encounter with traditional Himalayan architecture - to complete formalities, which include paying €16 for a pre-arranged visa and being met by tour guides in four-wheel drives. Individual travel is not possible in Bhutan; trips must be arranged through government-approved agents.
Tourism is one of two industries - the other is hydroelectricity - that Bhutan is developing as the central planks of its young economy; its prime minister, Yeshey Zimba, has said that protecting Bhutan's environment and abundant fauna is central to ensuring that it draws the sort of visitors the country wants - "People who appreciate what we have."
Last year Bhutan attracted more than 9,000 visitors, a bumper harvest according to Thurji Dorji Nadik, a bearded bureaucrat at the department of tourism who chain-smokes in his office, despite a recent nationwide ban on tobacco. The principle behind the development of tourism is "high value, low volume", says Nadik, and although there are no longer any limits on the number of people permitted to enter Bhutan, the difficulty of getting there and the expense of being there act as filters. Nobody wants Bhutan to turn into another Nepal, trampled by dollar-a-day backpackers whose legacy is trash and cheap hostels.
GETTING TO BHUTAN Greaves Travel in London (00-44-20-7487-9111; www.greavesindia.com) offers packages from £2,577 (about €3,800) a person, based on two people sharing a twin or double room, until June 31st. Travel is with British Airways from London to Kolkata, then Druk Air from Kolkata to Paro, staying at the Oberoi Kolkata and Uma Paro Hotel.
Where to stay, what to do
I stayed at the Uma Paro Hotel, a new resort owned by a Singaporean entrepreneur who has a string of luxury yoga spas around the world. The huge round building, built in traditional style, sits on a ridge overlooking Paro Valley, which in early spring was blushing with pink fruit blossoms, its rice terraces beginning to shimmer with the emerald green of the young winter crop.
Pine smoke and incense scented the building, and the panoramic view from the semicircular restaurant took in the entire valley, the massive white dzong an imposing backdrop for Paro high street, a higgledy-piggledy row of wooden-fronted shops with ladders up to ornate windows, apparently to keep out stray dogs that roam in packs.
Most of Bhutan's hotels, the Uma Paro included, provide a guide for each party and set a programme of hikes, treks and camping trips that vary in difficulty, as at about 3,000m above sea level the thin Himalayan air can make any sort of activity very hard work for the first few days. Many visitors are ardent trekkers, although some of the peaks that would be most appealing to serious climbers, such as the 7,220m Jumolhari, on the border with Tibet, are off limits, having been declared sacred. For the less fit, there are day hikes and short camping trips that take visitors along tracks that wind through forests of weeping pines past monasteries, monuments, farms, homes and tiny villages.