Bhutan
The small Buddhist kingdom in the high Himalayas, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, ruled by a beloved dragon king, famous for measuring its success in Gross National Happiness, for its fortress-monasteries and masked dances, its chili and cheese. The complete guide.
Bhutan is a small, landlocked kingdom high in the eastern Himalayas, between India to the south and China to the north, home to about eight hundred thousand people, one of the most remote and least-visited countries in the world. Known to its people as Druk Yul, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, it is a deeply Buddhist nation that was never colonised and that long chose isolation to guard its way of life, opening to the outside world only in recent decades. It is ruled by a much-loved king, the Druk Gyalpo or Dragon King, who in 2008 led the country from absolute monarchy into democracy. Bhutan is famous above all for its guiding idea of Gross National Happiness, the belief that the wellbeing of its people matters more than wealth alone, and for its mountains, monasteries, masked-dance festivals, and its care for nature. This guide walks through the land, the king, the faith, the philosophy, the food, and the customs in turn.
Overview
Bhutan is a small, landlocked country in the eastern Himalayas of South Asia, lying between India, which borders it on the south, and Tibet, the part of China that borders it on the north. It is a land of soaring mountains and deep valleys, climbing from the warm, low plains of the south through the temperate central valleys, where most people live, to the high, snow-capped peaks of the great Himalaya in the north. About eight hundred thousand people live there, making it one of the smaller and more thinly peopled nations of Asia, with its capital and largest town at Thimphu, set in a mountain valley.
Bhutan is a constitutional monarchy, with a king as head of state, the fifth of the Wangchuck line, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, deeply revered by his people, and a prime minister, currently Tshering Tobgay, who leads an elected government. Bhutan became a democracy only in 2008, in a change led from the throne itself. The state religion is a Himalayan form of Buddhism, the Vajrayana, followed by most of the people, with a large Hindu minority in the south. The national language is Dzongkha, related to Tibetan, alongside other tongues, and English is widely used and taught. The economy rests on hydropower sold to India, on farming, and on a small, carefully limited tourism.
A few deep forces shape life in Bhutan. There is the high Himalayan land and the long isolation that guarded it. There is the beloved dragon king and the young democracy. There is the all-pervading Buddhist faith and the fortress-monastery, the dzong. There is the guiding idea of Gross National Happiness. And there is the strong sense of a distinct heritage, in dress, custom, and festival. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the food and the customs.
The land of the thunder dragon
Bhutan calls itself Druk Yul, the Land of the Thunder Dragon, a name drawn from the thunder of the Himalayan storms and from the dragon of its Buddhist heritage, and the dragon appears on its flag and at the heart of its identity, with the people calling themselves the Drukpa, the dragon people. The land is overwhelmingly mountainous, a country of steep ridges and deep valleys rising from south to north, from subtropical foothills to some of the highest unclimbed peaks on earth, kept sacred and forbidden to climbers out of respect for the mountain gods.
This high and rugged land long kept Bhutan apart from the world, and the kingdom deliberately chose isolation for centuries to guard its faith and its way of life, remaining one of the most closed countries on earth. It was never colonised, unlike almost all its neighbours, and it came late and cautiously to the modern world: television and the internet were allowed only at the very end of the twentieth century, and even now Bhutan limits tourism to small, high-spending numbers to protect its culture and its environment. This guarded path has left its heritage remarkably whole.
Bhutan's care for its land is famous and deep, rooted in the Buddhist reverence for all living things. More than seven-tenths of the country is covered in forest, the constitution requires that most of the land stay forested for ever, and Bhutan is one of the very few countries on earth that is carbon-negative, drawing in more of the gases that warm the planet than it gives off. Its forests and mountains shelter rare creatures, among them the snow leopard, the tiger, the red panda, and the strange national animal, the takin, and the protection of this natural world is a matter of national pride and policy.
The dragon king
At the centre of Bhutanese life and identity stands the king, the Druk Gyalpo or Dragon King, of the Wangchuck dynasty, which has ruled the country since 1907, when the lords of Bhutan chose the first king and ended centuries of division. The kings are deeply and genuinely loved by their people, seen not as distant rulers but as devoted servants of the nation who travel the country to meet ordinary people, and the royal family is held in real affection and respect. The present king, the fifth, and his father before him, are especially revered.
What sets the Bhutanese monarchy apart is the way it gave away its own power. In 2006 the much-loved fourth king stepped down in favour of his son, and in 2008, in a change led from the throne rather than demanded from below, Bhutan adopted a written constitution and held its first elections, becoming a democratic constitutional monarchy. The king urged a sometimes reluctant people to embrace democracy, and the country now has an elected parliament and prime minister, with the king as head of state and a cherished symbol of unity.
The monarchy is bound up with the Buddhist faith, for Bhutan was founded as a land where religion and rule were joined, and the king remains the protector of the faith as well as of the nation. The fourth king is honoured as the father of modern Bhutan and the author of its guiding idea of Gross National Happiness, and the present king carries that work forward, championing the care of nature, the welfare of the young, and the careful opening of the country. The deep bond between the people and their kings is one of the strongest threads in Bhutanese life.
Buddhism and the dzong
Buddhism is the soul of Bhutan, the state religion and the faith of most of its people, and it shapes the country more completely than religion shapes almost any other nation, touching the land, the art, the architecture, the calendar, and the rhythm of daily life. The form of the faith is the Himalayan Vajrayana, the same tantric Buddhism found in Tibet, brought to Bhutan, by tradition, by the great eighth-century sage Guru Rinpoche, Padmasambhava, who is revered as a second Buddha, and later shaped by the seventeenth-century lama Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who unified the country and built its great fortresses.
The signs of the faith are everywhere in Bhutan. Prayer flags flutter in their thousands on the hillsides and bridges, sending their printed prayers on the wind; prayer wheels turn; white-painted shrines called chortens stand by the roads; and monasteries and temples crown the heights. Monks, who often enter the monastery as boys, are a constant presence, and the head of the monastic order, the Je Khenpo, is honoured almost as highly as the king. The Buddhist values of compassion for all living beings, of merit, and of the turning wheel of rebirth run through the whole of Bhutanese life and thought.
The most striking building of Bhutan is the dzong, the great fortress-monastery that stands in each district, a massive whitewashed structure with sloping walls and golden roofs, at once a monastery, a fortress, and the seat of the local government, where monks and officials work side by side. The dzongs, among them the beautiful Punakha Dzong and the towering Tiger's Nest monastery clinging to a cliff above Paro, are the architectural glory of Bhutan and the heart of religious and civic life. Through the faith, the monks, and the dzong, Buddhism orders the life of the kingdom.
Gross National Happiness
Bhutan is known around the world for one striking idea: that the true measure of a country is not its wealth but the happiness and wellbeing of its people. This idea, called Gross National Happiness, was put forward by the fourth king in the early 1970s, who declared that Gross National Happiness mattered more than the usual measure of a nation's wealth, and it has become the guiding philosophy of the Bhutanese state, written into the constitution and into the way the country is governed.
Gross National Happiness rests on more than a feeling. The Bhutanese have built it on several broad pillars: fair and lasting economic development, the protection of the environment, the keeping of the country's culture, and good governance. New laws and projects are weighed for their effect on the people's wellbeing, not on wealth alone, and the government even surveys its people's happiness across many parts of life, from health and education to community, culture, and time for rest. The idea flows directly from Buddhist values, which place inner contentment and harmony above the endless chase for more.
The idea has drawn admiration around the world and shaped how Bhutan is seen, as a country that chose a gentler path. It has also drawn questions: critics note that Bhutan remains a poor country with real hardships, and that the same drive to protect a single national culture lay behind painful episodes in its past. Yet the idea remains central to how Bhutan understands itself and its place in the world, a small nation offering a different answer to the question of what a good life and a good country should be. Gross National Happiness is, more than anything, the idea by which Bhutan is known.
The gho, the kira, and the tshechu
Bhutan has worked hard to keep its distinctive heritage alive, and nowhere is this clearer than in its national dress, which the Bhutanese wear with pride and are required to wear in offices, schools, temples, and at formal and festive times. Men wear the gho, a knee-length robe folded and bound at the waist with a belt, forming a wide pouch at the front; women wear the kira, a long, ankle-length dress of brightly patterned cloth, with a short jacket. On formal visits to a dzong or an official, a long ceremonial scarf is worn, white for ordinary people and coloured by rank, draped across the body. The cloth itself, woven by hand in rich and intricate patterns, is one of Bhutan's great crafts, and fine weaving is treasured.
This care for dress and conduct is part of a wider code of traditional manners and etiquette, which sets out not only what to wear but how to behave with courtesy and respect, especially before elders, monks, and officials. The code has been part of Bhutan's effort to guard its identity, and it gives Bhutanese public life a distinctive grace and formality.
The high points of the Bhutanese year are the tshechu, the great religious festivals held in the courtyards of the dzongs in honour of Guru Rinpoche. For several days the people gather, dressed in their finest, to watch the sacred masked dances, the cham, in which monks and laymen in brilliant costumes and carved masks act out the triumph of good over evil and the deeds of the saints, dances passed down unchanged for centuries that are believed to bless all who watch. At the climax of the greatest festivals, before dawn, a vast sacred tapestry called the thongdrel is unfurled, and the mere sight of it is held to cleanse and bless. The tshechu is at once worship, theatre, and the great social gathering of the community.
Ema datshi and the chili
Bhutanese food is simple, hearty, and famously fiery, the cooking of a mountain people, built on rice, on the vegetables and dairy of the high valleys, and above all on the chili, for the Bhutanese love chilies as few other peoples do, treating them not as a mere spice but as a vegetable and a dish in their own right. Much of the rice is the nutty red rice of the country, and yak meat, pork, dried meat, and the rich cheeses of the highlands fill out the table, though, in a Buddhist land, many people, and especially the monks, eat little or no meat.
The national dish, loved above all others, is ema datshi, a dish of hot chilies cooked in a sauce of melted local cheese, fiery and rich, eaten with red rice at almost every meal. Around it are many cousins, chilies and cheese cooked with potatoes, with mushrooms, or with ferns, along with stews and dried meat. The dumplings called momos, filled with meat, cheese, or vegetables and steamed, are a beloved treat, shared with the wider Himalayan world.
To drink, the Bhutanese take a great deal of tea, including the distinctive butter tea, suja, churned with yak butter and salt into a warming, savoury brew suited to the cold of the heights, as well as sweet milk tea. The home-distilled spirit called ara, made from rice or grain, warms gatherings and festivals. Meals are shared and social, often eaten with the hand from a common spread, and food, hospitality, and the offering of tea to a guest are central to Bhutanese life and warmth.
Archery and the open welcome
The national sport and the great passion of Bhutan is archery, far more than a game, a beloved national pastime woven into festivals and village life. Matches between villages and teams are noisy, joyful, all-day affairs, the targets set astonishingly far apart, the archers in national dress, with singing, dancing, feasting, and good-humoured teasing of opponents around the targets, and a hit greeted with a victory song and dance. A similar game of darts, thrown by hand, is played in much the same merry spirit, and these contests are among the happiest gatherings of Bhutanese life.
Family and community lie at the heart of Bhutanese society. Families are close and often large, the extended family important, and in much of Bhutan women hold a strong place, with land and the family home often passing through the female line, and a notably equal footing between the sexes. Marriages may be arranged or chosen, divorce carries little shame, and life in the villages turns on the rhythms of farming, faith, and the festival. Respect for elders, for monks, and for the king runs deep, and the courtesies of the traditional code shape daily manners.
The Bhutanese are widely known as warm, gentle, good-humoured, and welcoming people, with an easy friendliness and a deep, unforced courtesy that visitors remember. A guest is received with genuine warmth and offered tea and food, and hospitality is a valued part of life. For a visitor, the keys to Bhutan are respect for the faith and its temples, which calls for modest dress and quiet reverence, walking clockwise around shrines and prayer wheels, courtesy to monks and elders, and a warm and open friendliness in return. The gentle, hospitable spirit of the people is one of the lasting impressions of the kingdom.
The nation today
Bhutan today is a small Himalayan kingdom of about eight hundred thousand people, a young democracy governed from Thimphu by an elected prime minister, Tshering Tobgay, under its deeply respected king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. It is no longer among the world's poorest nations, having lifted itself out of the ranks of the least developed countries, its economy resting above all on the sale of clean hydroelectric power to neighbouring India, on farming, and on its small, high-value tourism. Yet it remains a developing country with real hardships, and it works to broaden an economy narrowly based on water and weather.
The nation faces sharp challenges as it opens to the world. Many of its young people, well educated and restless, struggle to find work at home and leave in growing numbers for Australia and other countries, a flight of talent that worries the nation. Bhutan must balance the modern world, its phones, its ambitions, its money, against the traditional and Buddhist way of life it has guarded so carefully. It carries too the memory of a darker chapter, when, in its drive to protect a single national culture, many of its people of Nepali origin and Hindu faith in the south were driven from the country in the early 1990s and spent long years as refugees. And it weighs grand new plans, such as a planned mindfulness city in the south, meant to open the economy while keeping the nation's values.
Through it all, Bhutan holds firmly to the identity that makes it unique. The high Himalayan land and the dragon name still define the kingdom; the beloved dragon king still unites the nation; the Buddhist faith, the monks, and the dzong still order daily life; Gross National Happiness still guides the state; and the national dress, the masked dances, the fiery food, and the gentle welcome still mark the people. Small, remote, and deeply Buddhist, Bhutan carries its long-guarded heritage, and its singular idea of happiness, carefully into the modern world.