Dragon Kingdom Breathes Fire at Sightseeing Hordes

It’s a rigorous three-hour, 2,600-foot climb to the Tiger’s Lair, a Buddhist monastery that seems attached with some impossible adhesive to a sheer granite cliff.

The surrounding mountains, forested with pine and oak and splashed by mountain streams, are spectacular. The ancient monastery, one of the holiest in Bhutan, is unforgettable.

It will cost you $200 to get there. And you probably won’t be let in.

In a world where tourists seek ever more exotic and remote destinations, Bhutan could be the ultimate adventure. But budget travelers will never see this reclusive Buddhist kingdom in the eastern Himalayas.

Bhutan’s monarchy is aggressively conservationist and deliberately insular. It doesn’t like too many foreigners tramping through the woods.

To limit the number of visitors, Bhutan gives tourist visas only through organized tour companies that charge $200 a day. That includes hotel, food and tours or hikes.

There aren’t many takers--about 5,000 a year, compared with 300,000 annually in nearby Nepal.

“We want high value, low numbers,” says the minister for trade and industry, Om Pradhan. “We don’t want Thimphu [the capital] filled up with tourist hotels and restaurants. Then our whole way of life would be disrupted.”

Bhutan, wedged between eastern India and Chinese-controlled Tibet, has just 600,000 people in a country slightly smaller than Vermont and New Hampshire combined. Nearly three-fourths of its landlocked territory is forest.

Its national parks are sanctuaries to some of the world’s most endangered animals, from tigers in the tropical lowlands of the south to the snow leopard in the high mountains of the north.

The Bhutan adventure begins even before arrival. A 72-seat plane of Druk Air, the national carrier with a fleet of two, swoops down the Paro Valley on its final approach. Passengers on the right can see the tiny airstrip as the plane doglegs between the mountains, just before the pilot announces: “To those landing at Paro for the first time, you may see mountains closer than you’ve ever seen before.”

Bhutan is a mystical land of deities and demons, often painted on the window frames or walls of the wood-and-stone buildings. Sprawling fortress-temples overlook the valleys. Red-robed monks endlessly recite Buddhist hymns.

The most revered of the temples is the 1,200-year-old Taktsang Lhakhang, or Tiger’s Lair. Legend says Guru Rimpoche, who brought Buddhism to what the Bhutanese call the Land of the Thunder Dragon, rode here on a tiger’s back to do battle with evil spirits.

The temple, at the end of a steep dirt path, is inhabited by one custodian monk and several hermits who engage in mute meditation for months at a time.

Tourists are barred from entering this and many other temples unless armed with special permits. The restrictions were imposed after several religious treasures were stolen. At the Tiger’s Lair, tourists are stopped about 500 yards from the temple.