TRAVELANDLEISUREASIA.COM / APRIL 2018 79
status as one of the world’s purest and most remote
countries, places restrictions on foreigners’ activities.
Travelers must follow a preplanned itinerary and have a
guide present at all times, per the government. By the end
of the first day, I was ready to step off the manicured path.
I told the Aman employees that I was headed off on a solo
stroll around Thimphu. But it turned out I couldn’t leave.
Such a jaunt was not on my “schedule,” the staff kindly
informed me. All the guides had gone home, and I was not
permitted to explore the capital alone. In any case, they
added, it would be all but impossible to find a taxi at this
hour, and there was no public transport.B
hutan has had some excellent PR. The tiny kingdom
of 700,000 people squeezed between India and
China has long been billed as the untouched gem of
the Himalayas, attracting Buddhist celebrities like
Richard Gere and Uma Thurman. Some of the reverence
dates back to the mid 70s, when King Jigme Singye
Wangchuk announced that, instead of measuring the
gross national product, Bhutan would measure Gross
National Happiness. It was a media coup, and this
chestnut has been repeated in every story on Bhutan ever
since—it’s trotted out as proof that the Buddhist kingdom
really is a spiritual haven, untouched by the crass
materialism of the Western world. You’d think that all
visitors were swept up in a euphoric state of
enlightenment the moment they crossed the border.
Adding to the mystique is Bhutan’s unique approach
to tourism. In 1989, the country imposed a “minimum
da i ly ta r i ff ” to keep out t he r i ff ra ff (now US$250 in high
season, including a US$65 sustainable-development fee,
which goes toward providing the citizens with free health
care and education). The restrictions were imposed to
allow the country to step gingerly into the modern era and
avoid the fate of other fragile cultures crushed by global
onslaught. Sti l l, Bhuta n is ha rd ly in stasis: Si x Senses is
opening five luxury lodges there this year, in the same key
valleys as the Amans, and rumors swirl that other brands
are looking to join them. Interest in Bhutan has grown in
recent years, in part because the country still feels like a
dreamlike time capsule, especially when compared with
the many other corners of manic Asia that are plunging
into the future.
“Tour ism in Bhuta n is di fferent from a ny where else in
the world,” explained Dhamey Tenzing Norgay, son of the
famous sherpa Tenzing Norgay, who guided Edmund
Hillary to the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. Dhamey,
whom I met in New York before my trip, lives in Bhutan
and works as a mountain guide. “Independent travel
doesn’t make sense. It’s too hard to get around alone.” He
suggested I alter my expectations to fit this reality.
“Bhutan is not a vacation destination. It’s more of an
emotional journey.” In other words, it was a pilgrimage,
and one should obey the rules.
I’ll admit I have a shamefully Western attitude toward
travel. If I am doing the same thing as everyone else, it’s
all but impossible to have a sense of discovery and
wonder. Happiness means different things to differentpeople, and for me, happiness means doing
different things than other people. So beneath
the blazing Himalayan stars that night, I
became determined to find a little ancient
magic on my own.T
his resolution induced a Zen-like calm.
From then on, most of the time I would
work within the system, selflessly
accepting the more luxurious blessings of my
seven-day journey—Amankora’s fine cotton
sheets, for instance, or its multicourse dinners
in a former potato barn surrounded by
hundreds of candles, like an elvish feast out of
Tolkien. I would sink into a traditional outdoor
hot-stone bath heated by fire-roasted rocks that
released healing minerals. But for the rest of
my weeklong expedition, I looked for every
opportunity to slip through the cracks.
It was easy to disappear on short hikes,
since, outside of Thimphu, the Amankora
lodges are in rural settings connected by a
spiderweb of footpaths, which meander
through rice paddies and past shrines with
colorful prayer flags. One afternoon, I met a
family of farmers who invited me to drink a
Himalayan tea called suja, a dubious concoction
flavored with yak butter and salt. On another
hike, I stumbled upon an archery match
(archery is the national sport) where a dozen
enthusiasts in leggings paraded about like
Tudor aristocrats, showing off their state-of-
the-art metal bows and chatting about their
cha nces of ma king it to t he Oly mpics. These
were fleeting glimpses into other worlds.
And I began to realize that the Bhutanese
guides weren’t so much passive as very shy, and
unsure about what might actually interest a
traveler. When Saturday night rolled around in
Punakha, a pastoral valley with skies so bright
a nd wa r m it resembled Napa w it h r ice fields, as
a joke I asked one guide, Ugyen, what the
weekend party scene was like. Ugyen, who with
his slicked black hair and aviators qualified as
the hippest of the Aman employees, soon
divulged that several nightspots were
operating in a village called Sopsokha, half an
hour away. It seemed wildly improbable. But
after dinner, a few game guests piled into a car
w it h Ug yen—now in muf ti, hav ing traded in
his gho for a black hoodie and jeans—and
roared off into the dark countryside.
The spontaneous nightlife tour began in a
roadside pool hall, where players had to dodge
long strips of bloody beef hanging from the
rafters in the early stages of being air-cured.
Soon after, we were following pounding music
dow n nea rby sta irs into a concrete bun ker
illuminated by colored lights. It was a historic