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Outside Magazine March 2003

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The Hard Way
Beyond Belief (Cont.)

BHUTAN IS A MOUNTAINOUS kingdom the size of Switzerland, in the heart of the Himalayas. Bordered on three sides by Indian states—Sikkim, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh—and by Tibet to the north, it remains one of the most inaccessible countries on earth. There is only one airport, in Paro (just west of the small capital of Thimphu), served by one airline, Druk Air, and only one narrow, twisting highway that crosses the country from west to east.

Until the early 1970s, Bhutan, a nation of roughly 700,000 people, existed in self-imposed, self-contained isolation. The Bhutanese bred their own animals and wove their own clothes. Serfdom was abolished only in 1956. There were no paved roads prior to 1961. The first bank was established in 1968; before that, the Bhutanese bartered. In 1999, the government ban on television was reluctantly lifted.

The state religion is Mahayana Buddhism, a form deeply tuned to ecological balance. In dramatic contrast with the rest of the Himalayan plateau, almost 75 percent of Bhutan is virgin or reclaimed mixed-tree forests, and roughly 25 percent of the nation has been designated as an ecological preserve of some kind. Clear-cutting and hunting are banned; fishing is severely restricted. In 1995, Bhutan's National Assembly passed a resolution declaring that the "country must maintain not less than 60 percent of the Kingdom's total area under forest cover for all times to come." In 1999, almost 10 percent of the landmass was officially protected as a system of "biological corridors." In sum, Bhutan is one of the most environmentally progressive countries in the world.

This commitment to ecology is matched by a thoughtful concern for human well-being. In the late 1980s, Bhutan's leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk, 47, declared that "gross national happiness is more important than the gross national product." The GNH concept was adopted as government policy and described in a 1999 report as something that "cannot be found in the conventional theories of development, [but something that] resides in the belief that the key to happiness is to be found, once basic materials have been met, in the satisfaction of nonmaterial needs and in emotional and spiritual growth."

Although a number of travelers penetrated Bhutan over the past few centuries, including several British botanists, official tourism didn't begin until 1974. Fearful of the backpacking counterculture that was quickly Westernizing Nepal, the Bhutanese originally set an annual quota of just 2,000 visitors. Today the government keeps tourist numbers low by pricing excursions into the country well above a shoestring traveler's budget. Foreign visitors pay a minimum of $200 a day for meals, lodging, guides, and transportation, 35 percent of which goes to the government as a tourism tax. Only about 7,000 travelers visit Bhutan each year, most of them on packaged bus tours. Fewer than 1,000 are trekkers.

Jon managed to obtain our permit because Bhutan's Ministry of Tourism recognizes the popularity of trekking and, in a country where the per capita annual income is roughly $365 and 85 percent of the citizens are still subsistence farmers, also recognizes the potentially low-impact, high-revenue economics of hinterland travel. That is, as long as adventure travel doesn't deleteriously affect the sacred traditions of Bhutan.

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