The Kingdom of the Divine — page 3

THE BHUTAN CHALLENGE
From government ministers to rice farmers, every Bhutanese you speak with will declare that his country is in constant, imminent peril. And considering that Bhutan's neighbors China and India have absorbed the once sovereign states of Tibet and Sikkim over the past half century to leave Bhutan as the world's sole remaining Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, such fears may not be paranoid. After taking the throne in 1974, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck instituted a number of policies designed to preserve the country's political independence and cultural identity. While making education a priority, he restricted corrupting influences like television (which was introduced only in 1999) and required citizens to wear the nation's traditional kimono-like garb.

Looking with horror at the many negative social, cultural and environmental effects that virtually unrestricted tourism was having on nearby Nepal and other developing countries, the government instituted a "low-volume, high-value" tourist policy in the 1970s that continues to this day. The only way to visit Bhutan is on a package deal that includes hotels, food, guide and driver. The packages cost a minimum of $200 a day. Although this is arguably not bad value, considering everything that comes with it, the policy succeeds in keeping the backpacking hordes confined to places like India, Nepal and Thailand; only 7,000 tourists fly into Bhutan's one airport—which is serviced by just two planes—every year.

Bhutan is thus a place where travel still feels like an adventure, where the illusion of true exploration is occasionally still believable. Go to Bhutan, and you may well find yourself driving for hours along terrifying, winding mountain passes and then climbing to a monastery perched on a cliff that seems to defy all laws of physics. If you are lucky, you may be granted permission to enter the primary temple in the center of the courtyard. Stepping over the high threshold and into the inner sanctuary, you can barely see, because the room is dark and the air is thick with a mixture of butter-lamp smoke and cypress incense. But slowly, brilliant murals reveal themselves, and an elaborate altar backed by a pantheon of finely detailed gold and bronze buddhas, bodhisattvas and saints seems almost to glow. The air is humming with the sound of monks reciting their sutras. There is no one else here but you and them, and for a split second, it is possible to feel that you are the first non-Bhutanese who has ever seen such a sight.

That feeling, of course, is solid travel-industry gold. And Aman is set to capitalize on the fact that until now, even at $200 a day, no accommodations in Bhutan could be considered international quality. At the country's very best hotels, the showers will probably be hot, the toilets will probably flush and the electricity will probably work. But go one notch down, and even those bets are off. And no matter where you stay, the linens may feel better suited to carrying potatoes than to sleeping. "We have been hearing from a lot of people, future customers, who have been telling us, 'We have been waiting for someone like you to come to Bhutan before we visit,'" says John Reed, Amankora's general manager.

But few in the Aman organization realized how difficult bringing luxury accommodations to the country was going to be. Aman began building in early 2002, yet only one of the six properties is functional. Zecha says he is hopeful that the others will all be ready by next spring, but he also says that every time he draws up a new building schedule, it proves to be fiction within a month. "This is the most difficult Aman project I've worked on," says architect Hill, who has designed three of them.

Virtually everything but the timber, stone and sand has to be imported, usually by truck. Monsoons in the summer and snows in the winter frequently shut down the nation's sole highway. "It's a daily occurrence that shipments come in incomplete, damaged or just incorrectly filled," says Hill. "Every lightbulb is a challenge." Lumber is scarce, not just because the industry is strictly regulated but also because there are only two lumber-seasoning kilns in the entire country. At one Aman site, in the breathtaking Phobjikha Valley, there is no electricity, no phone lines and no cell-phone coverage. Every time he needs advice from the head office, site manager Ziwan Chetri has to drive an hour to the nearest phone.

But many of the problems are even more fundamental. Bhutan has, effectively, no native construction industry, so bricklayers, carpenters and electricians need to be imported, mostly from India. Achieving the standard of craftsmanship that Amanjunkies expect, says Hill, has proven very difficult. With long lists of construction defects to correct, he's begun to wonder whether it's even worth addressing them all: "If, at the end of the day, two pieces of timber don't match, so what? Perhaps it's what you might expect in an out-of-the-way place. We are not cutting corners, but it is a value judgment we are currently making. Perhaps, philosophically, we shouldn't try to make it too perfect."

Food will be a problem, too. "To prepare for shortages of meat, which are still fairly common here, we will be making our own sausages and curing our own hams and bacons," says Reed. "Every once in a while, we will go down to the market and buy a yak and butcher it ourselves." He laughs. "This is something Amans have not typically done before."

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