It's an auspicious day in the Himalayas. I haven't consulted a Buddhist astrologer to confirm whether it's officially auspicious in the traditional sense of the word, but good omens are everywhere. The sun blazes in a cerulean sky, the distant peaks sparkle like diamond-studded snow cones, and I'm speeding through the Bhutanese countryside in a bus piloted by a driver named Danbahadur who tackles the 20 S-curves per mile like a seasoned NASCAR racer.

But something feels a little off. It's only my third day in the world's last independent Tibetan Buddhist kingdom, and I'm already getting cultural whiplash from the ping-ponging yin-and-yang

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energy that the tiny nation emanates at every turn. To wit: I just left a luxury suite at the Paro Valley's Zhiwa Ling ("Place of Peace") hotel, a beautifully handcrafted $5.5 million, 45-bedroom compound decked out with a state-of-the-art computer room, Bhutanese-Indian-American-fusion food, satellite television, and bathtubs that would float a small kayak—signs of the country's growing obsession with modernity. But when the resort opened last September, Ugyen Rinzin, its cell-phone-toting, multilingual 41-year-old owner and one of Bhutan's hottest entrepreneurs, invited a reincarnated lama to perform an ancient "Borrowing Ceremony." Since all land is owned by spirits—about 80,000 of whom can wreak havoc on your world, according to one form of Buddhism—he needed to ask their permission to use the property.

Then there are the penis paintings. As the bus rolls by Wang's Wood, a small mom-and-pop sawmill on the banks of the Paro River, we pass a ten-foot phallus rendered in impressive detail on the

Bhutan is a doubleheader of enlightenment: We get inside the "It" destination of Himalayan travel while exploring our inner frontiers with a man who's been called the Billy Graham of Buddhism.

exterior of a farmhouse—the first of many such depictions we'll encounter. The organs are supposed to distract passersby from focusing on the largesse of the property, plus they ward off malicious gossip and evil. But it's an interesting aesthetic for a country so modest that kissing in public is taboo.

I'm contemplating these juxtapositions when Danbahadur slams on the brakes and politely yet urgently asks us to disembark. I assume we have a flat tire or engine trouble—a bad omen! But I soon realize that all the other vehicles on Bhutan's only major highway have also come to a stop.

Robert A. F. Thurman, the spiritual guru of our eclectic crew of 23 international travelers, isn't sure what all the fuss is about. The 64-year-old is slightly hard of hearing and has had his head buried in a Tibetan meditation book, practicing what he calls the "ultimate tolerance of cognitive dissonance"—in Bobspeak, to be here and not be here at the same time. But Thurman is a veteran road-tripper and knows how to go with the flow.

"OK, campers, off the bus!" he shouts cheerfully, following the example of our logistical leader, 48-year-old Brent Olson, who is shooing people off the twin vehicle that holds the rest of our group.

GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS: Village life in Ngalhakhang (Brian Doben)

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