It is one of the poorest countries in the entire Asian continent, but it is one of the most livable, as shown by all the statistics compiled based on the guiding parameters to calculate the state of well-being of a people: the percentage of perceived happiness is the highest of Asia and, following the most recent analyzes, the octave of the world.
In short, in Bhutan, you live with little, but well: despite being a state compressed between two giants such as India and China perched at the foot of the highest mountains on the planet, and therefore characterized by a territory that is difficult to travel and even more to make productive, however, its inhabitants live constantly with a smile on their face.
Air quality, level of education, health, and social relations would be the elements that more than any other contribute to making the Bhutanese better disposed towards the passage of time than many others. It is no coincidence that the monarch who governs in Bhutan over his eight hundred thousand subjects has introduced the FIL, or the gross internal happiness rate, among the official parameters for evaluating living conditions, as reliable as and more than any other economic parameter, but much less sterile.
More and more tourists every year reach that tiny kingdom wedged between the mountain ranges of the Himalayas in an attempt, if not to seize the secret of its inhabitants, at least to breathe the same air of serenity and inner peace. And if they do not succeed, they can still console themselves by visiting some of the most beautiful places in the country, which themselves deserve so much effort to get there.
It is not necessary to be professional athletes or trekkers, nor to have climbing licenses to be able to have fun in those parts. What’s more: the tourist offer of Bhutan does not live only on mountains, which on the contrary manages to lure even the most seasoned travelers with small jewels of great, very great value.
One of them is the so-called “tiger’s den”, or the Taktsang Palphug Monastery, a spectacular complex of Buddhist temples that has become one of the holiest places of that religion. It is located in the Paro district, perched on a rocky peak 900 meters above the valley below since 1692 when the monks began its construction around the cave in which it is said that the guru Padmasambhava had meditated for three years, three months, three weeks, three days and three hours in the eighth century.
Legend has it that the ascetic was transported there by a tiger, in which, however, the wife of an emperor would be transformed to learn the mysteries of meditation directly from the greatest of all. The architecture is extraordinary, but even more extraordinary is the landscape setting, the real spring that attracts hundreds and hundreds of visitors up there.
The monastery is made up of four main temples and a series of buildings intended for residence built following the profile of the mountain behind, decorated with paintings that today constitute the most precious iconographic treasure of the country; inside the complex, there is the characteristic well of the faithful, guarded by an elderly monk, who rings the bells every morning at 4. To grab a bit of happiness, on the other hand, this and more.
