Traveling in Bhutan: The No-So-Hidden Dragon Kingdom
Go to Bhutan. I know I don’t usually start out a travel piece like this. However, go to Bhutan. It's worth it. It’s beautiful and interesting and a genuinely unique experience. There are a few things that I literally can’t quite explain what it was like, particularly the insides of the temples. I only visited the most developed and touristy Western part of the country, which covered Thimphu, Paro, and Punakha. And honestly, I want to go back and see the rest of the country. In the spring sometime in the future, so I can see the flowers in bloom.
Bhutan was actually the impetus for my Himalayan trip. I decided I wanted to go there as my extra giant trip of the fall and added on Nepal because I had to fly in and out of Kathmandu anyways to get there, and I wasn’t going to fly literally half-way around the world for only a week-long trip. Here are my impressions, the amazing, and the “um, ok?” of the trip.
Impressions
In many ways, Bhutan feels like a magical kingdom away from the rest of the world, but that honestly is a flattening and unfair exoticization of a place a. because it's not true (there may not be a Starbucks but I saw a store selling BTS merch) and b. because the way modern Bhutan looks and works didn't just spontaneously happen. It is the product of active government planning, laws, and monarchical management. Much of the magical vibe of the place natural beauty which is constitutionally required, and the unique cultural aesthetics that the government actively is working to maintain. Architectural styles must conform to traditional Bhutanese standards, and in many jobs and from what I saw in school uniforms, people are required to be in the national dress – the kira for women and gho for men (please note that this is the national dress for the dominant ethnic group – no country is truly homogenous). And I can fully appreciate the reasons for these policies. Dealing with globalization while maintaining cultural integrity is a monumentally difficult task. But it is important to remember that the current beauty and systems in Bhutan are a product of governmental and monarchical policy choices.
The Amazing
Tiger's Nest Monastery
The Tiger’s Nest Monastery is on if not my top 10 then definitely my top 15 wonders of the world. The monastery is perched - literally - on a cliff face close to a huge and beautiful waterfall. It was initially a site of meditation for Guru Rinpoche, one of the most important religious figures for the Bhutanese. The current monastery was built in 1692. It is an excellent example of 17th century Bhutanese architecture, which is what you’ll see in most of the historical buildings in at least western Bhutan and is the basis for modern Bhutanese architecture. There are seven different temples in the monastery and you can visit most of them, and some people I saw were meditating under the instruction of the monks. The hike up to the Tiger's Nest (so named because Guru Rinpoche got there on a flying tiger) is intense, especially at the beginning, with the altitude being the worst part. It does get better though as you go and as long as you hydrate and take as many rest breaks as you need, it’ll be ok. It truly is THE must do of Bhutan.
The National Museum
Visiting the National Museum was honestly the most purely fun thing I did in Bhutan. The National Museum is located in a former 17th century watchtower, that was converted to a museum initially in the '60s. The result is a small-looking museum that has a lot more than one might think, as there are 7 stories. You enter the museum on the 4th story, and the design of the museum leads you up, and then back down and then further down. The museum is the only place in Bhutan where I saw English signage, and the informational placards were excellent. I warned my guide that I go all in on museums but I don't think she entirely believed me. It took me about two hours to get through the museum, which covered history, religious paintings, ethnography, and crafts (I particularly liked the displays of teapots). I did rush through a few exhibits near the end, as the museum was closing though, and I would have liked to spend a bit more time on my favorite objects. It is an excellent museum and I highly recommend it.
Chorten Nyingpo
This was the most spiritual and completely non-touristy place I visited in Bhutan. Chorten Nyingpo is a monastery at the top of a very narrow, winding, unpaved road that had me genuinely white-knuckling it at one point, especially since it looked like it was going to rain (shout out to my amazing driver for the trip – he handled it so well). Once we got there, it was us and a bunch of red-robed student monks studying and chanting what I think were lessons. The main temple is a large, square building around 400 years old (internet says it was built in the 18th century) and is dedicated to Drukpa Kinley, the mad monk, who was at a campfire with his cousin nearby one night when he saw that the area nearby where three demons were chatting and plotting. So he grabbed a burnt stick from the fire, threw it at them, and they all burned up and a tree grew from the stick. We were allowed into both the main area of the temple and then another monk actually unlocked the door and let us into the upper sanctuary part of the temple. You could feel the age of the place, maybe because it wasn’t updated for tourists and while I saw electric bulbs, it was only natural light. It also had that aura of, for lack of a better word, sacredness, that some religious places have. It just felt so completely different from all the other temples I’d visited thus far. Also, an incredibly friendly dog low-key adopted me there.
View from the patio of one of my hotels.
The “Ummm Ok?”
Being On a Completely Managed Trip
Bhutan has a lot of rules related to tourism, in order to focus on their “high value, low impact” visitors goal. Which I get – especially given overtourism. The official regulations have changed since the country reopened in 2022 where you don’t technically need to be on an organized tour but honestly, on a practical level, you need a guide and a driver to see the country. Which created this odd situation where, even though I could in theory do whatever I felt like I was in a managed bubble. Partially because my hotels were mostly in isolated locations, and once I was there, I couldn’t really leave, and partially because of the nature of being on a tour. I could request activities, adjust my itinerary, and request types of food for a meal (I requested a traditional Bhutanese meal on my last night for example) and they made the arrangements and deposited me there. And the “there” would often be where the other tourists were. I legit ran into/saw multiple people from my flights at restaurants I went to, not just sites. I genuinely wondered if it was what it felt like for westerners to travel behind the Iron Curtain in the 1970s. I know a lot of it was actually totally normal “on a tour” stuff and I’ve been on plenty of day tours, but the whole combination of the vibes felt peculiar to me.
The Monarchy
I will be the first to say that Bhutan has the most attractive and photogenic royal family I have ever seen. That said, as a Patriotic American™, reverence for royalty is a little weird to me. And Bhutan loves their royal family. So much. Every single hotel, restaurant, temple, museum, and store I went to had a picture of the current royal family on the wall. Even the immigration officials in the airport were wearing pins with his and the queen’s faces on them - no idea if that was voluntary or a part of the official uniform. Constitutional monarchy was imposed on Bhutan by the monarchy with the first elections in 2008. The amount of respect for and lauding of the Wangchuck Dynasty is impressive. It's not just propaganda – they genuinely admire the king and one Bhutanese tour guide (not even my tour guide) gave me a long list of the amazing things that the current king has done for his people. Honestly though, if the King of Bhutan is half as awesome as I was told – they are pretty dang lucky.
Conclusion
My conclusion is basically the same as my intro - go to Bhutan. That said, go with your eyes open. It can be easy to get caught up in the Bhutan and traditionalism of the place. But it’s also interesting to see how it’s modernizing - like how at the vegetable market they a Bhutanese Venmo system - and growing like when I had a whole conversation with a tour guide about the future of tourism in Bhutan. Also, because you need a guide, a driver, and there is a daily fee just to enter the country, it is expensive to visit. You will also spend way more time in a car than you’d expect, because roads are narrow, often bad, and the national speed limit, even on good roads, is 50 kilometers per hour (so like 30mph). All of that said, this place does live up to the hype and is worth visiting if you can.
