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I first heard about Bhutan a few years ago when its King (yes, King) announced a new system of measurement for the country — Gross National Happiness (GNH).
“(GNH) is based on the conviction that material wealth alone does not bring happiness or ensure the wellbeing of its people, and that economic growth and ‘modernisation’ should not be at the expense of the people’s quality of life,” writes Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Queen Mother of Bhutan in The Bhutanese Guide to Happiness.
What a bold and wild concept for this American.
After discovering GNH, I quickly went down a Bhutanese rabbit hole. I found out through my Googling that Buddhist values are deeply infused and ingrained in its culture and widely practiced but not mandated among its citizens. Not to mention, it is landlocked between India, China and Tibet, fairly untouched and tucked away in the Eastern Himalayas, and is referred to “The Last Shangri La” by many tourism companies in the West.
I distinctly remember putting Bhutan to the top of my travel bucket list that night, as I became fascinated by how this small country seemed to live such a drastically different life than the rest of the world.
I’ve talked incessantly about Bhutan to my close friends since, fantasizing about a remote life where I would own and run a goat farm in the Himalayas, being the Millennial hipster that I am. (Spoiler: This is not actually possible. Yes, I looked into it. There aren’t really goats in Bhutan. The closest animal is its national animal, the takin — a beautifully, majestic nearly-extinct type of Himalayan bull that produces no milk!)
So once I heard that my yoga studio was hosting an advanced Bhakti yoga training program in India, I looked to see how far Bhutan would be. I could be in Thimpu, Bhutan’s capital, in about three hours from Delhi. And I knew in that instance, that it was time for my #yolopilgrimage.
Going into Bhutan, I had my doubts and assumptions about the country. I warned my family and friends that I would be off the grid the entire time, after the AT&T customer rep asked me if Bhutan was a part of India when I inquired about…
