Through my eyes

"His Majesty The King arrived in Lhedi in Lunana yesterday after trekking over the Gangla Karchung, at an altitude of 5,250m, from Laya.

The first settlement in Lunana is at Wachey, where a family welcomed His Majesty to spend the night in their home. His Majesty met with the people who live in Wachey before trekking onwards to Lhedi.

Today, His Majesty spent the day with the people of Lhedi and granted Tokha to the people from nearby areas.The people celebrated the visit with songs, dance, and games. Bhutanese films were screened for the people in the evening.

His Majesty's Kidu Mobile Medical Unit set up a medical camp for the people, who have to otherwise travel long distances to avail advanced healthcare." This excerpt was taken off the official Facebook page 'The Royal Family of Bhutan'

One of my life long dreams is to visit Bhutan. It is still very unclear when where or even how I am going to do it, those are just the finer details I need to resolve, but mark my words, one day I will be going there for sure.

There are many fascinating aspects about Bhutan, like the small insert above which I copied off their official website. I question which world leader, I am not even talking about royalty, would walk to their subjects and then play games dance and sing together Not to mention sleep in their house!

The official name for Bhutan is 'Druk Yul'. Druk means 'dragon' inDzongkha, the official language of Bhutanese. Druk Yul means the"land of the thunder dragon".

According to traditionalaccounts, whenDruk Lineage's founder Tsangpa Gyare began to build Ralung monastery, there was a violent thunderstorm. Thunder is considered as the voice of the dragon. He took this as a good omen; he added, "thunder dragon" to the monastery's name. The monastery came to be known as Druk Ralung monastery. As the sect of Ralung Monastery began to get popular, hey set up monasteries across Bhutan and the land began to be called Druk Yul.

Rather than using theGDPas an economic index, Bhutan measures its overall "health" through the four pillars: sustainable development, environmental protection, cultural preservation, and good governance, which together form theGross National Happiness or GNH measure.

How cool is that

Bhutan is the world's only carbon sink -it absorbs more CO2 than it gives out- and the only country whose largest export is renewable energy: they sell hydroelectric power. Bhutan's carbon dioxide footprint is absent from Earth's atmosphere. Bhutan emits around 2 billion tons of CO2. At the same time its forests consume more than twice that amount.

Bhutan's official religion is Buddhism and it's official ideology is Happiness.They are at 65% in achieving the their happiness goal, the king is very serious in attaining a 100% goal.

Bhutan's transmission from Absolute Monarchy to a Constitutional Democracy was a peaceful process thanks to the 4th King. Jigme Singye became the 4th Dragon King of Bhutan upon his father's sudden death on July 24, 1972. He was just 16 years old. The fifth andcurrentreigning Druk Gyalpo or "DragonKing" of the Kingdom ofBhutan is the Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck.

King Jigme Singye happens to be married to four sisters at the same time and they have nine children together.

There are so many fascinating stories surrounding the Kingdom of Bhutan, I can't wait to experience something that is so humble and so real. Oh how I wish our political leaders could have some things in common with the Bhutanese rulers. Be Happy.