Do you know much about Bhutan? If not, you're certainly excused: after centuries of closing itself off from outside influences, Bhutan has only recently opened up to visitors. It is a small Himalayan kingdom, about the size of Switzerland, with Tibetan China on the north, and India to the south, east, and west (Nepal is another 70 miles west). I was one of eight guests who recently had the good fortune to visit Bhutan for 18 days on a trip co-sponsored by two exceptional wilderness tour groups, Wilderness Birding Adventures (which runs birding trips mostly in Alaska) and Bhutan Birding and Heritage Travels. 

Mountains, Forests and Wildlife
Some of the world’s highest mountains are in Bhutan, including Gangkhar Puensum, the highest unclimbed mountain in the world, at 24,734 feet. (For a photo: http://www.pbase.com/conduit/image/72398005) Beautifully sculpted Jhomolhari, at 23,996 feet, is sacred to the Bhutanese as the home of the goddess Jomo. Although Jhomolhari has been climbed in the past, for cultural reasons Bhutan no longer permits climbing the highest peaks.

Bhutan is so steep and relentlessly mountainous that there is only one place in the country (excepting some areas near the southern border with India) suitable for an airport. As you're flying in, leaning toward the windows to see hundreds of miles of the tallest Himalayan peaks, including Everest, suddenly there is a sharp 90 degree right turn and a plunge into the Paro Valley, with smaller peaks just hundreds of feet from the wingtips -- trust me, this flight is exciting!

Emblematic of how isolated Bhutan was until recently, the very first road in the country was planned in 1961 and completed in 1965. These few roads are carved into steep mountainsides, so they are narrow, with steep drops. Road maintenance here means a small bulldozer to clear off fresh rockslides. Traffic isn't heavy -- perhaps 25 vehicles pass in an hour. Many are colorfully painted trucks carrying potatoes and turnips to India, often overloaded and unbalanced. Most say "Please Honk" somewhere on the back; if you do, the driver will look for a place to pull over for you to pass.

Over 60% of the country is forested; much of the rest is too high for trees. The population is just over 600,000, which helps explain why so few forests have been torn down for food production. Hunting isn’t allowed in this Buddhist country, so most animals are merely cautious around humans, and much wildlife is easily seen from the few roads. Poachers do come up from India for certain species, such as tigers, few of which apparently remain. Yet while tigers are thought of as having exclusively tropical lowland habitats in India and Nepal, they have been seen at 13,000 feet in Bhutan.

Four species of arboreal monkeys are abundant. Golden, Gray, and Capped Langur monkeys (the latter with bluish fur) all have small black faces and gaze at you from the trees with curiosity while eating fruit or grooming or tending their infants at a...well...languorous pace. For eons, their territories were separated by big rivers, but new bridges for roads now facilitate interbreeding.  Assamese Macaques, the fourth species, are more hurried.

Would you like to see a three-and-a-half-foot long squirrel? The Malayan Black Giant Squirrel is all black but for a white throat and chest, with a two-foot tail. Himalayan Yellow Throated Martens are three feet long and seem like yellowish land otters with small black heads. We also saw Barking Deer, Wild Boar (a farmer chased it from his fields), and small Leopard Cats.

And...since this was mostly a birding trip...it is astounding how many birds there are when habitat is plentiful and hunting pressure low. A few highlights:

• the spectactular 4-foot long, orange, black and white Great Hornbill, which seemed like a 747 gliding in, after days of far smaller birds;
• Himalayan Monal and Blood Pheasants, both spectacularly multicolored;
• 6 species of eagles and 6 more of hawks and falcons;
• two types of Green Pigeons, colored like parrots (for disguise from the many hawks and eagles?);
• several Coral Billed Scimitar Babblers, chestnut birds with black-and-white striped heads and thick curved bills as red as lipstick;
• globally threatened Black-Necked Cranes and White Bellied Herons;
• three types of kingfishers, two with iridescent blue backs, the third checkered with black and white, the size of a small hawk;
• many species of loud and garrulous Laughingthrushes;
• the Blue Bearded Bee Eater, over a foot long (its prey were the largest bees I've ever laid eyes on), most of its chest iridescent robin's egg blue; and
• colorful Rosefinches, Minivets, Redstarts, Yuhinas, Barbets, Woodpeckers, Leafbirds, Fantails, Shrikes, Accentors, Fulvettas, Minlas, and more...

The group saw a total of 219 species, an excellent number considering we couldn't reach the habitats of many birds, and that a few hundred breeding birds weren't present in early winter. One reason we did so well was that our excellent Bhutanese birding and cultural guide, Hishey Tshering, not only knows Bhutan's birds extremely well, but he has over a hundred bird calls on his cell phone. Whenever a particular bird might be nearby, he would "call" the bird into view.

Sonam, another of our guides, got an excellent photo of an Ibisbill through a telescope, also with his cell phone. Holding the cell phone millimeters away from the eyepiece, subject to small movements of hand and body, it's very hard to get a clear photo. But Sonam found that by holding his breath and concentrating on being completely still, he could virtually eliminate any motion when taking the shot.

Friendly People, Buddhist Culture
All the Bhutanese we met were positive, friendly people. One of our cultural guides, Goenpo, has a great ironic sense of humor. When we met five days into the trip, he asked me what I thought of Bhutan. What came to me first was how unpolluted the air was, that I hadn't seen or heard a plane, and that Bhutan was so clean compared to Nepal (or anyplace else I have been, excepting only Alaska). He got a twinkle in his eye, and asked, "So -- are you having pollution withdrawal?" Later, Pan-like, he led our group up the trail to the Tiger's Nest Monastery playing a Bhutanese flute.

The people are poor but getting less so, mainly due to ecotourism. About two-thirds of Bhutanese still work the land, growing rice, potatoes, buckwheat, turnips, and parsnips, husbands and wives working side by side. Younger people have greater opportunities, taking advantage of new schools and better education. Some farm communities are depopulating, as young people move to more "urban" areas, the largest of which has fewer people than Frederick, Maryland. I asked some younger women, working a hotel desk in Trongsa, their views of having many foreigners with their different habits appear in their country, after so many years of isolation. The first two words they said were "schools" and "hospitals," financed in part by the minimum fee of $200 per day foreign guests must pay to enter Bhutan. In general, younger people seemed very excited to have so many new possibilities, even though, as one guide told us in a friendly conversation, "We are never surprised at anything a foreigner does."

Buddhist influence is everywhere: prayer flags flap from tall poles on prominent hills; falling stream waters spin prayer wheels in colorful stupas by roadsides; and monasteries dot hillsides. As they go about their daily lives, Buddhists see constant reminders of prayer -- prayers for compassion and wisdom, to be freed from suffering. Could this be a reason for their being so positive?  When our tour leaders took us into a monastery, we could see that their own Buddhism was deeply felt. They would excuse themselves for a few moments, then would quietly say a few words and prostrate themselves before an image of the Buddha.

Massive "dzongs" in former times were impregnable fortresses into which local people fled with months of food when Tibetan forces attacked. Today, the local dzong encloses both the religious and governmental centers for each of 20 dzongkhags (roughly, states or provinces). Architecturally, there isn't anything like them. And they can be huge: over 1000 monks live in the exquisite waterside dzong in Punakha.

We waved from our small bus at many people we passed, and they invariably smiled and waved back. Children didn't wait for us to wave first. At one point, we came across several men trying, unsuccessfully, to push a truck 100 feet to the crest of a hill, where they could restart the engine by coasting. All of us, guests (men and women aged 35 to 63) and guides, jumped out to push, and soon the truck was on its way again.

Stopping for lunch by the road one day, two elderly twins in old traditional dress walked by. When we asked a question, they responded simultaneously, with identical words. Their names were Sun and Moon, common names for identical twins of either sex in Bhutan.

Archery is Bhutan's national sport, and we were lucky enough to watch two teams in the semi-finals. Skilled archers, in the traditional robe-like garment (called a "gho"), astoundingly hit a small bull's eye 150 yards away about one try in five. When an archer is successful, his team of four does a short ritual dance and song, the words of which, we were told, convey the idea that these are truly great archers, and the opposition has little chance. We were also told that during the finals, the level of ritual insult is raised. Each team now has a group of women who do the dance, suggesting in song that the opposing team might be imperfect in important ways that women would care about.

Although Bhutanese culture requires modesty in dress (shorts are discouraged, for example, even for guests), there seem to be few prohibitions about either men or women expressing their sexual nature in private, whether married or not. The Monarchy is taking a large part in an ongoing campaign against AIDs; the Queen's small motorcade passed our group while we were birding, accompanied by a van distributing condoms.

On our last day, Hishey threw a party at his brother's farmhouse. All the guests came in traditional Bhutanese dress. Six local women performed Bhutanese songs and dances, with guests joining where appropriate. With the local rum flowing, one of the guests sang an a capella jazz selection as well. At the end, Hishey spoke to us, saying that we had come as guests, but he hoped we would now leave as friends. And that is certainly the way I feel about Hishey: he was exceptionally knowledgable, very positive, and did everything in his power to ensure that we would have a memorable trip. He certainly succeeded.

Tom Grahame has lived on Capitol Hill for 31 years. Previous birding and ecotourism trips have taken him to southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Nepal.

Recent History
It is hard to believe, but serfdom was abolished in Bhutan only in the mid-1950s -- that's when most people began to own land their families had farmed for generations. Change accelerated quickly thereafter. The Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1959 made it clear that Bhutan needed to open up to a world which barely knew it existed. In 1972, the King, who had abolished serfdom and established a 12-volume code of law, died and succeeded by his 16 year old son. The son's coronation, in 1974, was the first time foreign press was allowed in Bhutan.

Remarkably, this young King institutionalized the pursuit of Gross National Happiness (GNH) -- not Gross National Product! -- as a central goal for Bhutan. "Gross National Happiness" conveys the idea that material growth must be accompanied by spiritual well being. There are four keys to Gross National Happiness: sustainable use of natural systems; social, economic, and educational development of the people; good governance; and preservation of Bhutan's unique culture. The idea of pursuing more than just economic growth recently has been spreading internationally, with international conferences on GNH in several Asian countries. (Bhutan is featured in Eric Weiner’s recent book The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.)

I asked Hishey how one measured progress toward these four goals. He answered that there isn't a specific quantification, as there might be in Western cultures; rather, people know without benefit of numbers whether the goals are being met or not.

Later this year, completing its political transformation, Bhutan's current monarchy will become a parliamentary democracy, a reform which the current King initiated.

Informational websites:

1. Bhutan Birding and Heritage Travels: http://bhutanheritage.com/ (Hishey Tshering)
2. Wilderness Birding Adventures: http://www.wildernessbirding.com/ (Lisa Moorhead and Bob Dittrick)