OUT THE PORTHOLE looms the world's highest peak. The flight from Delhi skirts the Himalayan giants before plunging into one of the world's most reclusive destinations: the tiny kingdom of Bhutan. The entire Bhutanese air fleet consists of two BAe 146 jets, both blessed by lamas. They need the benediction--Paro landing strip rates as one of the globe's trickiest. The plane banks sharply, skims a mountain top, and drops into a valley of rice paddies, landing abruptly on a short runway where a row of Buddhist prayer flags flutters in the breeze.

      Right away, from the traditional style buildings at the airport, you know you have arrived somewhere exotic. Bhutan unfolds by the roadside: a land of wooden chalets set in dense pine forests. The capital, Thimphu, has no traffic lights--just a few policemen who perform graceful tai-chi-like movements with white gloves. Not that there's much traffic to direct in this town of 35,000 anyway. In an age where Asian capitals have let their traffic run amok, Thimphu appears to be remarkably quiet, slow, and sane. And the people are remarkably friendly, polite and good humoured for city dwellers. There are no huge billboards scarring the landscape--advertising is restricted.

      There's only one newspaper in Bhutan--a weekly 16-page effort called Kuensel. It is printed in three languages. Editorials during my visit debated the government's highly controversial proposal to introduce personal income tax for the first time. Bhutan is ambivalent about modernising: the country finally logged onto the Internet in mid-1999, making it a cyber-kingdom of sorts. Its Internet provider was set up by a Canadian development agency. At the same time, the first domestic television broadcaster went on the air in Thimphu, timed to coincide with King Jigme Wangchuck's Silver Jubilee, marking 25 years on the throne.

      In a nation where people still think the world is flat--not round with satellites--and where farmers consult the local astrologer to determine auspicious dates on when to get married or when to start building a house, these are heady times. But Bhutan is not completely isolated: video rental-shops in Thimphu give access to a wide range of movies in English and Hindi.

      Sandwiched between Tibet and India, Bhutan is roughly the size of Switzerland and seeks to be as neutral. In fact, so neutral is Bhutan that it sat through both world wars with most of its citizenry blissfully unaware of what was transpiring. The Bhutanese were, however, aware of the British invasion of Tibet in 1903-1904. Because of Bhutanese assistance in this venture, the British supported the establishment of a new monarchy in Bhutan in 1907--the Wangchuck Dynasty.

      In a stroke of genius, the third Wangchuck monarch landed Bhutan a seat in the UN in 1971, thus protecting the kingdom from a takeover by India, which had its beady eyes upon it. Today, Bhutan relies on the Indian army to patrol its northern borders and keep Chinese troops at bay. The coronation of the fourth (and present) king, Jigme Wangchuck, in 1974, permitted a trickle of privileged Western visitors to enter Bhutan. The king, who is in his forties, is married to four queens--sisters from the same family--and has ten royal heirs. The royal family wields considerable power and employs its own force of royal bodyguards.

IT'S THE MEN WHO WEAR THE ROBES in Bhutan--a traditional knee-length garment called the gho. This is complemented by a pair of knee length socks, often argyle, leaving you to wonder whether a regiment of Scots in kilts got lost here earlier in the century. Socks are something of a fashion statement among Bhutanese men (our guide said he used to smuggle in top-quality socks from New York). The women wear a graceful ankle length gown (the kira), fastened at the shoulders with twin silver brooches. Traditional dress is compulsory: a fine can be levied for not wearing it in public, although exceptions are made if playing soccer or indulging in other non robe friendly activities.

      The mania for preserving traditional culture extends to a number of facets in Bhutan, most strikingly in architecture. New apartment buildings, schools or hospitals are constructed Bhutanese style, with paintings of mythical animals or lucky symbols gracing exterior walls. Across central Bhutan, large dzongs dominate main towns. Most of these fortress monasteries were built in the 17th century, and still function today as district government headquarters.

      The Bhutanese follow a form of Tibetan tantric Buddhism: monastery or dzong courtyards are venues for annual religious dance festivals, which rank as prime touring attractions. Our small group heads out of Thimphu by car along the nation's only east-west road, toward the region of Bumthang, to catch the annual festival there. Along the way, we get to see idyllic pastoral snippets: most of Bhutan's population is engaged in subsistence farming combining crops, livestock and forestry. Ubiquitous in these rural regions are wooden two storey farmhouses with red chillies drying on shingle rooftops. Ema datsi (chillies and cheese) is the staple Bhutanese dish eaten with rice, and leaving the uninitiated with a fierce afterburner. More familiar foods--excellent cheese and apple juice--are produced with Swiss-backed technology in Bumthang.

      Dance festivals in Bhutan--though religious by nature--are also an excuse for the locals to get together, picnic and party, and indulge in archery competitions, long range darts, gambling and drinking. To ward off evil forces and ensure auspicious happenings, lamas perform a series of masked or costume dances: among them, the Black Hat Dance, and the Dance of the Terrifying Deities. Intermission means picnicking, where locals dressed in their finest get down to the serious business of consuming plates of chillies and cheese with their bare hands--and washing it all down with Bumthang Beer. A man with a jester mask circulates--cracking lewd jokes and eliciting guffaws from the picnickers.

      After stuffing ourselves, we stagger back for the next round of dance, The Day of Judgement. This sobering number is actually more of a medieval passion play: dancers with wild animal masks chase a man (technically in a post-death limbo zone) up a tree to bring him in for judgement. His life's deeds are contained in two bags of small stones--white for good, black for bad. Weighing up the pros and cons is The Lord of the Dead, seated on a throne, wearing a large mask embroidered with skulls, and holding a sword and a mirror. At the end of play, the suspect goes to hell, I think and all the Bhutanese all rush over to the Lord of the Dead for a sacred blessing. The man behind the mask is a real lama--and a highly revered one, judging from the amount of pushing and shoving going on.

BHUTAN STRETCHES FROM frigid Himalayan snowcaps to the heat of the Indian plains, ranging from over 7000 metres right down to 300 metres. Apart from its traditional culture and festivals, Bhutan's biggest visitor draw is its pristine environment. We get a glimpse of its alpine splendour on a three-day hike from Thimphu back to the airport at Paro. Hiking is still the only way into remote parts of northern Bhutan, where there are no roads. An impressive 60 percent of Bhutan is forested; some 20 percent of the total land area is set aside as reserves or national parks--unprecedented for Asia. Strict regulations are in force on the felling of lumber, and no killing of wildlife is allowed. Thus rare Himalayan animals such as the snow leopard and the takin survive. And so, it is rumoured, does the legendary yeti: the Abominable Snowman pops up in folktales--and on several of Bhutan's whimsical postage stamps.

copyright Michael Buckley - 2000