I find myself in a window seat on the right

What helps, too, is that like Disneyworld and unlike parts ofthe countries that surround it it's clean, safe and everybody iswonderfully, genuinely, smilingly nice. Perhaps those allusions toShangriLa aren't too wide of the mark. Before all this, though, you have to get there. And most peopledo this through Nepal. After meeting my tour group and stayingovernight in a Kathmandu hotel room seemingly last used by a teamof Olympic chainsmokers, we have a 6am start and a queue to getinto the airport. Here, under the gaze of a soldier with one hand on his gun andthe other halfway up his left nostril (why am I deeply worriedabout an armed man who picks his nose?) we are searched. Andsearched again. And then searched again on the tarmac, where wealso have to individually identify our luggage before it can beloaded onto the jet waiting patiently nearby. Many people in the queue are clutching the Bhutanese bible, akathe Lonely Planet guide to Bhutan, which would explain the suddenand unseemly rush to get onto the aircraft. "The Druk Air flightfrom Kathmandu to Paro provides the most dramatic view of Himalayanscenery of any scheduled flight," it says, before adding theparanthesised advice to "get a window seat on the left if youcan". I find myself in a window seat on the right. Even so,the flight is spectacular, especially when those on the lefthandside get tired of gawping at stunning, snowcovered mountains andmove their big fat heads so you can see the peaks passingby almost near enough to touch. Over there, standing grandly abovethe rest, is Everest. Descending into the town of Paro above a winding valley of greenhillsides corrugated by rice paddies, we can see below us scattereddwellings and farm houses with shining, corrugated iron roofspatchworked with bright red squares of chillies drying in the sun Rosetta Stone .Chillies are a staple of the Bhutanese diet and, in the countrysideat least, there is rarely a house that does not sport a splash ofscarlet or, more occasionally, yellow. Finally, we burst out of the valley and into the wide, broadplain that houses Paro, a small and loose conglomeration ofbuildings on either side of a wide, shallow river lined with willowtrees. Squatting like a castle on a hill above a bend in the riveris the white vastness of Paro dzong, amonasterycumcastlecummuseum. Below the dzong is a wooden bridgewhich we visit on the way to the hotel and which, when we getthere, is being used by an old woman and her cow. We watch as shestops to turn the prayer wheels at either end before continuing.It's stunning. Now I know how Alice felt. Paro is the second largest town in the country, and you can walkthrough its quaint main street, its colourful shops hung every fewmetres with bundles of bright red, drying chillies, and be out theother side in five minutes. Thimpu, the notquitesosedatecapital, is 53 kilometres away to the east across the 4000metrehigh ranges. In Thimphu a few years ago they installed the country's firstset of traffic lights and then promptly took them out againbecause people didn't think them friendly. That particular junctionis, once again, ruled over by a whitegloved policeman who directstraffic from a covered podium in the middle, like an orchestraconductor with a hard hat. This is very much a metaphor for what's happening in Bhutan asit walks a tightrope stretched between the almost medieval societyit was a mere 80 years ago and the 21st century. As such, you canvisit the national library in Thimphu and look at dusty scrollswhile a couple of redrobed monks wait their turn to surf theinternet. Bhutan is often likened to Switzerland because of itssnowdusted mountain ranges and the pitched roofs of the houses.There, thank goodness, the comparison stops. Switzerland was neverthis colourful.