Squashed between the giants India and Tibet, Bhutan has for centuries served as a buffer against conflict. While its borders — internal and external — have been shaped by territoriality and geography, its soul has remained intact. Bhutan remains a Buddhist stronghold and maintains a hereditary monarchy.

Paro Dzong

A royal decree states that all Bhutanese must wear the traditional outfits of kira for women (a floor-length dress made from a brightly colored rectangle of cloth, wrapped around the body and worn over a Tibetan-style blouse) and gho for men (a long robe hoisted to knee-length and worn with a tight belt; it looks rather like a dressing-gown). But, even here, nothing is certain: In a temple I meet a monk wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt under his crimson robe.

While the government is battling to decrease deforestation, and supplying hill farmers with wood-burning stoves to cut down fuel consumption and respiratory disease, the people prefer to cook over open fires as they have always done.

Shops in the town of Paro often have no doors, so women, with babies on their backs, climb over ladder-stiles through glassless windows for their shopping. Purchases could be dried yak meat, Nike trainers, bamboo rice strainers, or glossy imported lipstick.

And so centuries collide in a time warp that, as more children pass through the education system and learn what alternatives there are to their age-old routines, is sure to become shaky.

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