The Kingdom that Asks for Nothing

A friend was getting married in Chennai in July. Weddings in India follow the dates priests deem most auspicious, and, as they soon learned, July happened to be monsoon season. Once the trip to India was locked in, Laurie and Fred started looking at the map, wondering what else was nearby, maybe a little cooler temperature-wise, and with less rain. Bhutan appeared, about an hour-and-a-half flight from Delhi. Fred had seen a photograph of Tiger’s Nest. A couple of friends had climbed to it and returned saying it was extraordinary. That was enough.

The wedding was a great opportunity to visit India, and having recently retired, they were able to build a longer trip: 29 days across India, Bhutan and Sri Lanka, with Mikael at Art In Voyage designing the parts that weren’t already accounted for by the wedding. It was Mikael who further encouraged a visit to Bhutan and also recommended Sri Lanka. “He knows us,” Laurie says. “He told us we’d love both, and he was absolutely right.”

LIVING IN THE CLOUDS

Flying into Paro, a historic valley town located in western Bhutan is, by most accounts, one of the more dramatic arrivals in commercial aviation. The valley…