Happy to be here: why Bhutan deserves our attention

by Eric Boa

The concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) gained worldwide attention and a lot of gentle mocking when first mooted in the early 1970s. The mockers have been replaced by converts and adherents. An annual World Happiness Report ranks a score or index based on physical and psychological wellbeing, coupled with good governance, cultural and ecological diversity and resilience, and a host of other measures. Finland is the latest country to come out top.

It all started in Bhutan, which surprisingly came in the lower half of 156 countries ranked in 2019. GNH is probably the main reason why a minority of people have ever heard of Bhutan. Or know where it is; it’s in the northeast corner of India, bordered by China to the north. I’ve known about Bhutan for many years. It’s even possible that I saw the foothills and glimpsed the yonder snowy peaks from the northern extremity of Bangladesh in the mid 1980s. A few decades later I began to read about Yarsa Gumba, a hugely valuable natural medicine gathered at high altitude. More about this later.

This summer I joined a group of thirteen folk on a short visit to Bhutan. I surprised myself. Group holidays have traditionally elicited in me a similar reaction to cruises and tattoos. I haven’t changed my mind on being cloistered on a monstrous ship or paying to have my body defaced, but I’ve warmed to select groups of like-minded people going on holiday together. I also had pragmatic reasons for signing up. There are few realistic opportunities to visit Bhutan unless you go in a group.

Bhutan has a thriving tourist industry, drawn by its spectacular topography, coupled with a smattering of mysticism. Always a winning combination. The majority of its 727,000 people are Buddhist. Monasteries abound and in recent years nunneries have been established. I can testify to the serenity of Bhutan, a feeling that has been amplified since I’ve returned to the UK. One reason for the peacefulness is that you encounter few people. The capital Thimphu has just over 100,000 residents and is by far the largest conurbation. There’s only one international airport (at Paro) and a hefty tourist tax of $100 per day.  It used to be twice that before Covid caused a post-pandemic rethink. The limited ways of entering Bhutan and the tourist tax keep a lid on the number of tourists. We also arrived in the tourist off-season, a deliberate decision to maximize opportunities linked to our main purpose: hunting for mushrooms.

International mycologizing is a niche pursuit. Daniel Winkler, the ebullient organiser of our visit, has been running tours for many years to Colombia and Bhutan. He’s one of the few. Daniel’s mushroaming tours are timed to coincide with the best conditions for the emergence of mushrooms. Think lots of rain and warmish temperatures. In other words, the tourist off-season. Why Bhutan? It has abundant forests, an essential ingredient for mushroom forays. The majority of species we found were growing on, or rather with the pines, firs, hemlocks, oaks that abound on the hills of Bhutan. The rich association between many mushrooms and trees, trading nutrients and supporting mutual growth, keeps both happy.

We puffed and panted a little as our ageing cohort (65 – 89 years-old, plus a youthful 34 year-old) scrambled to locate our prey. Fortunately the rain had preceded our arrival and we were warmed and greeted by blue skies during all but one of our forays. There was a collective and happy glow as our finds were pooled for an al fresco discussion of what we’d uncovered. We weren’t specifically looking for edible species or indeed anything of a magic nature. Daniel is both hugely knowledgeable and fearless when it comes to tasting potential edible species. A small bite followed by a thoughtful chew checked out those species he wasn’t sure of. His ostensible cavalier method would horrify many, but the reality is that he was only repeating what people have done for centuries: cautious testing to determine edibility.

I’ve written about the universal edibility test before (see here[1]). Nice to see it in action again. Daniel has eaten over 300 species so I was confident in trying for the first time the inner layer of a stinkhorn egg. It’s not the most appetising thought, though compared to those who eat tripe, the stomach lining of various grazing animals, I’ll stick with the radishy taste of raw stinkhorn. Mature stinkhorns are another matter, with an unappealing cap which emits the stench of rotten meat to attract flies. It sounds as bad as it looks. Common stinkhorns belong to the genus Phallus. Their occurrence in Bhutan has a curious symmetry. This is a country where the other sort of phallus is celebrated in countless murals and other public displays. Much remarked upon by tourists but really rather tedious to recall.

A fortnight of mushroom forays is overkill and Daniel had sensibly advertised his tour as Mushrooms, Monasteries and Mountains. We absorbed a little of Bhutan’s rural life as we drove to our destinations and wandered up and down valleys and hills seeking good sites. There are limited opportunities for growing crops because of the terrain. Winter temperatures at higher altitudes – much of Bhutan is more than 2000 metres above sea level; rising to over 7000 masl in the northern parts –constrain agriculture. Yet even at the higher elevations, where trees are absent, there are opportunities for yak-herding and collecting mushrooms. The Bhutanese we met were intrigued by our group but unsurprised at why we’d come. Mushrooms are part of national life in Bhutan, often for casual consumption but also for serious commerce. Two particular types enrich livelihoods and make important contributions to the national economy.

Yarsa Gumba is a small fungus that parasites the larvae of moths, known more widely as Cordyceps, and scientifically as Ophiocordyceps sinensis. Yarsa Gumba is found in high altitude pastures, from about 3500 masl to over 5000 masl, where yak herders tend their charges in the brief summer months. The mushroom is gathered enthusiastically because of the value derived from being a revered natural medicine in China. It’s a painstaking hand-and-knees job to harvest Yarsa Gumba. A collector we talked to had amassed 200g after a month’s effort. The larger specimens were a few cms long, carefully cleaned to attract the highest price. The reward for his efforts was a potential $4-5k. Yes, thousands of dollars.

We happened by chance on a Government-run auction, alerted to its presence by long lines of parked cars along the main east-west highway and a buzzing set of stalls selling sundry goods. This hive of activity reflected the money swirling around. This year the price for the highest quality Yarsa Gumba was $24k. Last year it was $36k. I’ve still to try my $2, lower quality larva and to discover if this will enhance my wellbeing and deliver more happiness. I suspect this might require some of the $18 specimens. Imagine what these fetch when on sale in China. The other valuable mushroom traded from Bhutan is matsutake, a prize edible in Japan. I finally got to try some, bought in Thimphu for considerably less than the $100 plus per kilo at final destination. Unimpressed.

We had the opportunity to visit two rural households and get a flavour of Bhutanese life away from the towns. The most striking and not entirely unexpected discovery was that Bhutan youths are moving away. No more tending cattle, growing crops in small plots or coping with the vagaries of isolation. Yes, there’s the glory of the mountains, valleys and nature to celebrate, but you can’t eat the landscape. Mobile phones have made a difference to the majority who live outside the major towns. Improved roads, transport and electricity and a nurturing state have also benefitted many. But there’s only so much these can do to meet the expanded aspirations of new generations.

The parents of Songham, our lead guide, lived alone on their farm, able to cope for now but with concerns for the future. All the children had left for jobs and careers elsewhere, some long distance. There’s a thriving Bhutanese community in Melbourne, Australia, for example. Migration is a double-edged sword. Rural regions depopulate yet remittances sustain national economies. Bhutan needs all the income it can get. Its main export is electricity, to its neighbour India, generated from large dams. Tourism is the second main earner, employing significant numbers of people.

After all my reservations about going on a group holiday, the comfort of strangers helped to sustain and amplify my enjoyment of the Bhutan adventures. My thanks to Teresa for listening to my chatter as we ascended the 600 metres to the Tiger’s Nest monastery, an essential part of any tourist’s visit. This was our final venture that further highlighted the unhurriedness of Bhutan. I’ve been many times to Nepal, a near neighbour with cultural links and other similarities. Nepal is also rich in culture, geography and nature, but many many times more hectic. And noisy.

Bhutan has a calmness and natural beauty that is beguiling. It looked a little like Switzerland at times though with distinctive signs to remind me that this was not a European alpine setting. Domesticated (cattle) and wild animals roam on and along the roads, where we saw langurs and macaques. Bhutan will never be a busy tourist destination, nor does it aim to be. But it’s a country well worth reading about because of the way it goes about its everyday business. The contrast with its two clamorous neighbours could not be starker, evidence that you can exist independently and be everything that India and China are not. The suggestion of complete independence is of course a little disingenuous. Bhutan is constrained in what it can do diplomatically, exactly because it is surrounded by two powerful neighbours. Yet there are distinctive differences. There are no real or imagined dissident groups threatening the security of Bhutan. No Naxalites or Uighurs and no outward sign of tension between social groups.

There is a legacy of historical disputes and dismissals of Bhutanese of Nepali descent, which came to the fore in the 1990s. Tensions may simmer between different groups and have not disappeared. Yet the fact that this was discussed during our visit – all those long drives – is a huge sign of openness that bodes well for tolerance and social cohesion. India has a long history of struggling to manage its fringe territories and regions. Witness the ongoing conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, and other disputes that mar the northeastern states from Assam and Arunachal Pradesh to Tripura. Bhutan remains apart, bequeathing all of us the notion of Gross National Happiness and the hope for better times ahead. 

[1] https://www.only-connect.co.uk/post/how-do-we-know-what-to-eat