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Mahindra Jeep of the Bhutanese police
bounced toward us. The wailing siren
and flashing red light told us to clear
the road.
Spooked, I stepped on the Enfield’s
brake pedal and skidded into
a patch of mud, stalling the
engine. Bhutan’s hereditary mon-
arch appeared over the rise in
his white Toyota Land Cruiser.
Leaning the bike against my
leg, I tore at my helmet, forget-
ting I was still wearing my Ray-
Bans. My ears nearly came off
too. I threw the helmet, gloves
and glasses to the ground, just
managing to press my palms
together and lower my head in
the approved fashion before His
Majesty’s arrival. You’re not sup-
posed to look at the royal pres-
ence, but I sneaked a peek. A
puzzled smile crossed the regal
visage and a hand was raised in
greeting as he flashed past. He
was probably wondering how five
scruffy bikers managed to get
into his country.
We were also obliged to genu-
flect toward each of the next four
Land Cruisers as they sped by
— red, blue, white and green —
each bearing one of King Jigme
Singye’s four sibling-wives.
Bhutan is a remarkable coun-
try. Its geography, terrain, reli-
gion and stable leadership, together
with strict immigration rules, have
allowed it to remain a quiet backwa-
ter. Somehow, riding the anachronistic
Enfield over its rambling mountainroads seemed perfectly appropriate.
And you just never know when you’ll
bump into the king!The country
They say it’s the last Shangri-
La: I preferred to think of it as
a magic kingdom. Only slight-
ly larger than Maryland (U.S.),
Bhutan in 1997 was not much
more than a scattering of villages
and small towns on the southern
slopes of the Himalayas with a
total population of just 750,000.
It was perhaps more easily
defined by what was not there
than by what was: There were no
trains, cities, shopping malls or
freeways, and very few vehicles.
The country’s only traffic signal,
in the capital Thimpu, had been
considered unnecessary and
removed. A bored, uniformed
cop directed what little traffic
there was. In the week we were in
Bhutan I saw just three bicycles,
and more cows than cars.
Though poor, the Bhutanese
seemed easy-going, friendly
people, usually smiling and
polite. (In 1972 King Jigme
Singye Wangchuck introduced
a Gross National Happiness
Index to supplement conven-
tional measures of economic
growth, like GDP.) As subsis-Mechanic Gyan rebuilds a Royal Enfield gearbox on the
roadside (above). Graham negotiates Yutong La (top).