Paro arrival

A 3:30 am wake up call, and we're off to meet our fellow intrepid travelers and embarque on a new adventure to the Kingdom of the Thunder Dragon, Bhutan. Perched high in the Himalayas between Tibet, Nepal, and India, Bhutan has been able to maintain its independence. The Bhutanese cherish and live in harmony with the environment, and are the only country left in the world to follow the Tantric form of Buddhism. They refer to their country as "Druk Yul", land of the thunder dragon, and to themselves as Drukpa people.
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Bhutan is the world's youngest democracy, electing their first king in 1907. They have a dual system of religious and secular government. They don't have a class system and educational and economic opportunities and open to everyone, men and women both. To keep their culture alive, they wear their traditional clothing of a gho for men, a long robe tied around the waist, and a kira for women, a beautifully colored ankle length dress.

Because of their love of the environment, the Bhutanese control tourism by inviting a select group of tourists each year. We know that we are blessed to be among this group as we board our Druk Airlines Airbus to begin our journey. After a brief stop in India, we take off on a 30 minute hop to Paro. As we begin our descent, we can see the lush hills and valleys below us, with a scattering of dwellings and rice paddies. Suddenly, the hills and dwellings rise up to the level of the wing of our airplane! To the right and the left, you can almost see into the windows of the homes as we swerve along the snake like river below us. I have done a similar flight to this when I flew in a small plane through the fiords of southern Alaska, but never in a large airbus. This has to be one of the most treacherous flights for a pilot. We all held our breath until we finally landed in Paro.