When dreaming of travel to Bhutan, mostly, it’s the allure of a fabled Shangri-la, in the Himalayan Mountains, that entices travelers. After visiting ourselves, we discovered there are some hard truths about Bhutan very rarely ever discussed. Truths – that led us to question whether their famed policy of Gross National Happiness.
Travelers Perceptions of Bhutan
In the travel community, it feels like we only see one picture of Bhutan, a remarkably beautiful country with a uniquely persevered culture. Captured scenes of Bhutan showcase a land of lush, pristine nature, time preserved architecture, lively folklore, imaginative Buddhist temples, and the world’s happiest population.
First Impressions of Bhutan
Arrival in Paro, Bhutan, is an unforgettable experience. Besides the exciting aerial maneuvers passenger planes make on their runway approach, the scenery is storybook-esque. The lavish green Paro Valley is fed by clean glacial river water, and surrounded by pine-covered mountains reaching to the clouds.
As visitors exit the plane, the senses start working double-time. The air is crisp and cold on the skin carrying with it the fragrance of pine and river mist. Ears are quick to pick up sounds of nature; singing birds, rushing water, and swaying trees – noises of the mechanized world are largely absent.
The airport is a structural charm and visitors’ first introduction to Bhutanese architecture. Colorful and brightly painted wood-framed windows and heroic support pillars ornament a predominately white building canvas.
Inside, the airport terminal is pristine, an expansive interior surprisingly quiet and devoid of the noisy confusion other airports have. There are very few flights in or out of Paro – this leads to an eerily noiseless airport, not even music. Passing through immigration, a large portrait of the king, regally, stares down from high on the wall with eyes that meet each visitor as they pass.
Outside, a jubilant and friendly guide is there waiting to deliver a warm welcome to Bhutan. It’s customary for visitors to be gifted a white silk scarf, a symbol of purity in Buddhist tradition.
The first few hours in Bhutan are stimulation and information overload. The surroundings challenge your ability to decipher between the real and dream world. Bhutan feels as though it could be the setting for a fairy tale or old folklore story, the kind of place only your imagination could craft. Beautiful Bhutanese style wood homes spaced neatly throughout the valley. The structures aren’t too tightly stacked together, nor too distantly spaced apart – it feels just right.
Persistently the mind wonders, “could this be the real Shangri-La?”
Bhutan Travel Visa and Full-Time Guide
Getting into Bhutan requires a fair amount of preplanning and capital to make it a reality. With a tourist fee costing around $250 (USD) per day, it’s an expensive destination.
In Bhutan – Land of the Dragon King, we break down all the info a first-time visitor needs to know about getting to Bhutan.
Part of the tourist fee covers the cost of a local guide. This guide is a full-time escort. The only time you’re not together is when you turn in for the evening. Every step of the way, they’re by your side ready to answer questions and making sure you don’t wander anywhere you aren’t permitted to be.
When the Wonder Fades
Eventually, about a day or so after our arrival, we began to sober from our scenic intoxication and observed Bhutan with more discerning eyes. As we looked deeper, experienced more, and asked probing questions of our guide – a conflicting image started to take form. We started to discover some hard truths about Bhutan.
Experience with the Locals
Bhutan is famous for the government’s developmental philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Their self proclaimed objective is to achieve a balanced development in all the facets of life that are essential for happiness. With a governing philosophy based on happiness, the people of Bhutan must be some of the happiest then. Right?
Unfortunately, we experienced something different. In general, when we encountered locals, we found them to be somewhat unfriendly. Seldom were our smiles returned when we would meet eyes with locals. Before coming to Bhutan, we spent time in Thailand and Nepal, which were a stark contrast to the experience in Bhutan. The treatment by locals made us feel like unwelcome intruders, which made being there uncomfortable. For a country that champions happiness, we rarely saw a smile.
The more encounters we had with locals, the more we saw how glued they were to cell phones. Everyone from guards outside of Dzongs, cashiers at stores, the youth sitting together on sidewalks, people walking along the road, restaurant servers and even hotel staff were always immersed in their phones. Even the Buddhist monks we’d see carrying mala beads in one hand and clutching a cell phone in the other.
Part of the reason for limited social interaction between locals and tourists is probably because the locals are entirely preoccupied with their phones. On one occasion, we stood across the counter from a cashier who ignored our presence for at least five minutes before eventually ringing us up for our purchase.
Curated and Controlled Experience
Our time and travel in Bhutan was strictly controlled, and our experience eventually felt carefully curated. Our guide was terrific and honestly the nicest person we encountered during our time in Bhutan. However, he was restrictive about what we could do and where we could go. He was always at our side, and there wasn’t a moment we were free to explore on our own. Our guide guarded us against any unplanned mingling with the locals. It felt he was intentionally trying to shelter our experience and limit our interactions with the general population.
It so happened we were in Bhutan for Halloween. While taking cash out from an ATM, I noticed a flyer advertising a Halloween party at a local dance club. I told our guide we wanted to check it out. In return, he met me with opposition and dissuasion. He said, “you can’t do things like that.”
We gently pressed the matter to understand why, but he struggled to give us a reason. It was clear he wasn’t going to let us go anywhere near the party. We got the hint, noted the unusual reaction, and let it go.
Dining in Bhutan
Where tourists in Bhutan eat is preplanned and controlled. While we saw some signs of local restaurants and even a few pizzerias, we never went to anything like that. Instead, every meal we ate was in a tourist specific dining room. These rooms didn’t even feel like restaurants, and on no occasion were we ever sharing our meals with locals. Not even our guide would join us to eat. He would disappear into the kitchen, the same as the other guides.
Although our guide referred to the places we ate at as restaurants, they rarely had any sign to identify them as such. They felt more like small dining rooms set up just for the tourism industry. They were strange, cold, and impersonal places. There were only a couple of places where we ordered from a menu, primarily it was buffet style. To make matters worse, the food would already be sitting in warming trays when we arrived. Who knows how long it had been there.
The food options for tourists are limited. Each day it felt like we were eating the same thing for lunch and dinner; red rice, cabbage, and chicken wings. It got old very quickly.
After a couple of days of this frustration building, we started talking with another couple seated near us at lunch. We expressed some of our frustrations, they agreed and went on to voice several of their own. They were confused with having no choice of where to eat.
After the fourth day of eating mostly buffet food, I got sick with a stomach bug. I had uncontrollable chills, high fever, and terrible stomach pains. With some antibiotics, I did get better, but it made for a miserable end to our trip.
I can’t know for sure what it was that caused the sickness, but after doing a bit of research, I’m pretty confident it was the buffet food we ate and improper temperature control in those warming trays.
Nasty Local Habit
Before arriving in Bhutan, our travel agent sent us some general information about the country and culture. This info specifically noted the popularity of chewing Doma – aka betel nut. They went out of the way to reassure us; our driver and guide would not do so in our presence. It seemed odd to mention.
Once in Bhutan, though, we understood how widespread the use of betel nut is and saw firsthand the damaging effects on its users. Consistently among the Bhutanese people, we observed poor oral health conditions as a result of chewing betel nut. At a minimum, beetle nut stains the lips, gums, and teeth of users an unpleasant shade of red. More severe effects include gum damage, loss of teeth, and cancer of the mouth and esophagus.
The habit is visible on more than just the mouths of its users. Red stains from people spitting the excess saliva generated while chewing betel nut can be seen all over concrete walkways, on the corners of the buildings, in stairwells, at prayer stuppas, and even in front of the nations largest seated buddha. Once you realize what it is, it’s hard to stop noticing it.
An In-Depth Look at Bhutan’s ‘Doma’ Epidemic
Doma is the Bhutanese word for an Areca nut wrapped in betel leaf with a smearing of slaked lime. Outside Bhutan, it’s commonly known as betel nut. The act of chewing Doma is engrained in Bhutanese culture. The Bhutanese chew Doma during ceremonial practices, social gatherings, while driving, and almost always after a meal.
Chewing Doma is said to cause a rush of energy and illicit a heightened sense of alertness. The effects are similar to that of stimulant buzz, like nicotine or caffeine. The medical community has identified it as an addictive substance, and discontinuing use can cause unpleasant withdrawals, including headaches, giddiness, and irritability.
The pervasive use of Doma within Bhutan is edging towards a public health crisis in which the government has failed to respond. The Bhutanese Code of Law includes strong condemnations for the use of tobacco but fails even to mention the use of Doma.
In researching for this article, I came across only one measure the government is taking to combat the more visible by-product of chewing Doma, red spit stains in public places. There plan is to start penalizing anyone seen spitting in public places or smearing slaked lime.
While this is a step in the right direction, it’s likely motivated by improving the aesthetics of public areas rather than reducing the use of Doma. The public health cost is steep, and without increased effort by the government to spread awareness of the adverse effects of Doma, they will inevitably have a severe disease burden to address.
To learn more about the use of betel nut across Asia and the devastating impact on the community, have a look at this presentation given at the World Cancer Congress in 2018.
Circling back to Bhutan’s GNH, you would think the government would be more motivated to reduce, if not eliminate, the use of betel nut. How can a population conflicted by various oral diseases and cancers be a happy one? Granted, in the short term, the use of betel nut probably makes a person feel good, but in the long run, the side effects are grisly, and the cost to Bhutan is high.
Bhutan and India’s Special Relationship
The partnership between Bhutan and India is a ‘special’ relationship. The influence India has on Bhutan is visible in the country, and the more you learn about their work together, the more evident it becomes this ‘special’ relationship is more of a dependency out of necessity.
The small country of Bhutan sits between two economic behemoths; China and India. They had no choice but to pick one to work with, and the choice of India was a strategic one to guarantee their future sovereignty.
India is Bhutan’s largest import and export partner. All the goods Bhutan doesn’t make themselves come from India in brightly decorated; some may say psychedelic, cargo trucks. They are everywhere on the roads and impossible to ignore when driving cross country. Not only because of their extravagant adornments but also for the plumes of dirty diesel exhaust they expel when climbing Bhutan’s many mountain passes.
Commonly Bhutan is heralded as the world’s greenest country. But at who’s expense? The answer… India! It’s true, Bhutan is mainly free of the damaging effects on the environment caused by industrialization and large scale manufacturing. However, they still have toothbrushes, cell phones, and automobiles. It makes it easier to be a green country when you just let another country do your dirty work.
So what does Bhutan export? The first and primary export to India is electricity from the various hydro-electric plants in Bhutan’s waterways. Nearly 75% of all power generated in Bhutan is exported to India. India is not only the largest buyer of hydropower from Bhutan; they are also the largest partner in the financing, planning, designing, building, operating, and maintaining those power facilities.
The dams might as well we be India’s. This level of involvement by India in one of Bhutan’s most valuable trading export puts Bhutan in a position of significant debt, a debt that has the power to control pricing and steer governmental policies. India is essentially placing the golden handcuffs on Bhutan.
India’s development influence doesn’t stop with just the hydropower dams. As we learned when we there, India also designs and builds the roadways in Bhutan. The laborers we saw working on new road projects were from India.
The expansion of the transportation network is dually beneficial for India. New and better roads – means more goods can be shipped across Bhutan, increasing India’s GDP and boding well for business overall.
We eventually learned the majority of ALL construction labor is from India. Dam construction, roadway projects, and even vertical construction.
While in Bhutan, the Idian workers live in temporary housing communities that looked more like shanty towns from a distance. The workers are not subject to any worker rights Bhutan has and from what we saw, are looked down upon by the Bhutanese; like a second class citizen.
The Indian laborers are doing some of the most important work for the country. It should be the Bhutanese people doing this work and bringing that money home for their families.
The People and the Royal Family
Bhutan is often referred to as the land of the Dragon King and governed by a constitutional monarchy.
During our time in Bhutan, we frequently spotted murals and photographs of the king with his family. At first, we thought nothing of it until we started seeing them everywhere…
All the shops, Dzongs, ‘restaurants’, and even the few homes we visited had one thing in common – visibly on display, there would be an image of the king in a place of distinction.
In the homes, we visited it was even more bizarre that the king’s image was the only one on display. No family photos, children, or deceased relatives… just the king. His picture usually wrapped in an eye-catching gaudy frame, something which stood out in the simply decorated interiors.
This showy presentation of the king’s image made us question whether this is an expectation more than it was just voluntary. Their reverent, almost saintly display of the king reminded us of images we’ve seen of North Korea, where their Great Leader’s image is religiously displayed.
It felt exceedingly peculiar to experience firsthand.
Besides the outward display of reverence for the king, we noticed a sense of subservience to, and infallibility of the king. When we asked our guide probing questions about the king, it visibly made him uncomfortable. He was incapable of providing an honest critique. His behavior on this specific matter was noticeably different. On most other topics, he spoke very openly and honestly with us, even when asked questions about Bhutan’s government and society.
It led us to wonder what to root of this worship and reverence for the king was.
Examining Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index
While Bhutan states they put a priority on Gross National Happiness over Gross Domestic Product, how does the government quantify their success?
The GNH Index is the rubric developed by Bhutan to quantify and measure the happiness of the general populace.
Every five years, the government conducts a nationwide survey on roughly 1% of the population. During the survey, government officials are sent out across Bhutan, to randomly selected households, to administer an in-person questionnaire.
The survey process is a lengthy one, consisting of 150 questions and taking around three hours to complete!
These questions aren’t a simple rank your happiness on a scale from 1 to 10, either.
Questions include:
How often do you pray?
How many hours do you sleep?
Do you trust your neighbors?
Do you wish you were not a part of your family?
Here’s the 2015 National Happiness Survey Questionnaire
Fortunately, participation is entirely voluntary, and survey-takers are compensated a days wage for their time.
The survey’s goal is to formulate an index value from which the government can assess a household’s level of happiness. The survey questions span nine domains, which include: psychological wellbeing, health, education, use of time, cultural diversity, good governance, community vitality, ecological diversity, and lastly, living standards.
Within these domains, there are thirty-three indicators used to measure a person’s wellbeing.
At the end of the survey, people are put into one of four groups: unhappy, narrowly happy, extensively happy, and deeply happy.
The effort to develop a survey such as this and to derive an index value to measure the nation’s happiness shows good intentions by the government.
However, I see two issues in the process that would (or could) skew the results.
The first issue is in the collection of information. I find it very hard to believe anyone would ever truthfully answer questions asked of a government agent who comes directly into your home, especially in regards to your happiness with the job the government is doing. Maybe I’m just cynical here, but even living in the United States, I would be very deliberate and thoughtful of the answers I provided if placed in the same situation.
Secondly, a relatively small portion of the population participates in the survey. In 2015, of the 787,386 people living in Bhutan, only 7,153 people participated in the survey – that equates to less than 1% of the population. Basing something as complicated as the happiness of a country on responses from 1% of the population seems a bit unrealistic.
As a result, I believe Bhutan’s index of happiness is a poor indicator. The recently completed World Happiness Report, ranked 156 countries by happiness based on data from 2016-2018. The report found Finland is actually the happiest country. Where did Bhutan rank? 95th! The United States ranked 19th.
Discovering A Dark and Dirty Secret About Bhutan
Bhutan’s efforts to frame their countries narrative around happiness has been successful. However, Bhutan has a dark and dirty past that few know of and even fewer ever talk about. Something I only discovered in researching this article.
In the mid to late 19th century Bhutan welcomed people from Nepal to settle in their southern lowlands. These settlers are known as the Lhotshampa people.
The Lhotshampa spoke Nepali, observed Hinduism as their religion, and lived peacefully in Bhutan for up to five generations. They participated in public life, constructively engaged in politics, and even held positions of leadership.
In the mid-1980s the king of Bhutan, the current king’s father, enacted a campaign known as “one country, one people.” It’s believed he feared the Lhotshampas ‘could’ threaten the majority position of the Druk Bhutanese people, which ‘could’ jeopardize the Druk peoples culture and traditional Buddhist religion.
The same king credited for having coined Gross National Happiness.
The new campaign imposed the Druk gho/kira as a mandatory dress code and identified Buddhism as the countries national religion. The king also designated Dzongkha as the countries national language.
These measures acted as ethnic cleansing targeted at the Lhotshampa people. They didn’t wear the Druk gho/kira, practice Buddhism, or speak Dzongkha, leaving them isolated from their community.
The new policy prohibited the Nepali language from being used in schools and dismissed Lhotshampateachers from their duties, and there are even accounts of Nepali book burnings.
By the early 1990s, Bhutan had created there very own humanitarian crisis. There are stories of Lhotshampa people being detained, imprisoned without trial, and even tortured! Bhutan eventually refused to recognize them as citizens.
This hostile treatment led to over 100,000 Lhotshampa people either fleeing or forcibly removed from Bhutan. The majority of the refugees ended up in refugee camps in Nepal. Two of them were still active with thousands of refugees as late as 2016.
Where did the rest go? In 2006, during the George W. Bush administration, the United States responded to the crisis and accepted between 60,000 and 90,000 Lhotshampa refugees and set them on a fast track to citizenship.
This bit of history was jarring to discover. A country that preaches happiness, on the one hand, has the dirt of ethnic cleansing on another. Their words say happiness for all Bhutanese, but their actions reflect happiness for a worthy few. A story like this you’d think would be a big blemish for Bhutan’s image, but for some reason, the world neglects to realize it ever happened.
To read more…
Here’s one account from a refugee now living in the United States who fled Bhutan at the age of nine.
..and…
Here’s another story about some Lhotshampa refugees living in Oakland.
Reflection’s on Bhutan
So what now of Bhutan? Should we still be dreaming of visiting this sleepy little Shangri-la?
Definitely!
It is truly a unique place to see. Few places in the world have escaped globalization for as long as Bhutan has. Try wrapping your head around the fact; before 1958, there were no paved roads, and the king visited villages on horseback! It’s almost inconceivable.
Their preservation of culture, regardless of the means or intention, is incomparable to anywhere else we’ve visited. As a destination yet to be negatively impacted by tourism, there really is nowhere else quite like Bhutan.
I would caution any would-be travelers not to get too drunk on Gross National Happiness though. In our opinion, we think those outside Bhutan somewhat misunderstand it. Happiness is defined differently from one person to the next. I do believe, though, GNH has turned out to be a terrific marketing tool and has been hugely beneficial for the tourism industry in Bhutan.
If you visit, keep your eyes open and strive to create your own unique experience… however, challenging that may be with a full-time escort.
Will we return? I hope so. For one thing, it will be interesting to see how the country changes since our first visit. The next time though, I would like to do some trekking. Pristine nature is Bhutan’s greatest asset and most alluring quality for me. I’d like to spend some time on mountain trails or maybe splashing through some white water rapids.
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