Bhutan zealously protects its tranquil and traditional way of life and restricts the number of visitors who enter the country each year. In fact, the first foreigners were only permitted into Bhutan in 1974.
Bhutan is the only country in the world where the Mahayana Buddhism (Buddhism’s Tantric Branch) is the state religion. Here, western values and concepts have little or no import and life goes on at the pace it always has through the centuries in Druk Yul (the country’s Bhutanese name).
Bhutan lies in the rainiest part of the Himalayas and lush, monsoon-watered forests cover the hills and mountainsides of this tiny Kingdom with a population of fewer than one million.