Bhutan:
Very few Westerners visit Bhutan. It's an isolated Himalayan mountain kingdom where about 80 per cent of the 1.6 million people farm their own plots of land. By modern standards, they are poor, but who's to say whether the stressed-out yuppie urban lifestyle is much better?
If you can get into Bhutan, you will be rewarded; it's truly a different world. Hiking and trekking are limitless, and the people are warm and welcoming. About 70 per cent of the country is forested, and the old name for Bhutan meant "Southern Valleys of the Medicinal Herbs" because so many plant species grow in the forests.
In 1991 a law was enacted that required everyone to wear traditional dress (tourists are exempted...). King Jigme Singye Wangchuck is intent on preserving Bhutanese culture and values, and the natural environment, and that's why tourism is growing very slowly. Tourists can only enter the country in groups of six or more, and the annual limit is 6,000 tourists. (Thailand gets 12,000 tourists per day.)
In April 1999, Japan installed its gift of Asia's most advanced telephone system (all-digital) in Bhutan. The public education system, partially designed by Canadians, has turned the people into an educated workforce. Healthcare is excellent as well. And on June 2, 1999, the country got its own television service, and an Internet server that will allow the new urban professionals to surf the Net. The King has also introduced an element of democracy; he now has an elected national assembly, which elects a cabinet.
There were some ethnic tensions between the native Bhutanese and about 90,000 people of Neapalese origin. But the king has solved this problem by deporting all the Nepalese, who are now living in refugee camps in Nepal.
This page last updated February 20, 2000.