Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I thought back to Benji's warning from just that morning: “I got robbed in Patna.” Well,
now I was really going to test the city's kindness. I was going to be sleeping in a yellow
motorbike on the side of one of its bustling roads—although sleeping would probably not
be the correct word. As I tried to fall into a hazy slumber, I found myself awoken by many
festival goers just walking home from the day's celebration. Some even took photos of the
crazy Englishman sleeping in his yellow bike. I couldn't blame them. We had become quite
famous.
* * *
If asked, most people probably couldn't find the country of Bhutan on the map. I couldn't
even find the country of Bhutan on the map. But back when I was looking at the great map
of the world that scrolled across the edges of my desk in LA, I noticed one interesting little
blip just to the northeast of India, and that blip was Bhutan.
As I soon found out, Bhutan is not just a brief commercial break in the long TV program
known as India. It is also home to the inspiring and equally humbling concept known as
“Gross National Happiness.” As soon as I heard the words, I felt like I was back on Holly-
wood Boulevard, staring at the homeless man's sign. Bhutan wasn't just a place I wanted
to visit. It was a place that I wanted to make a part of me. It was a place I felt like I was
already a part of.
In Bhutan, they determine the success of their country by the happiness of their people.
It's not about wealth. Or power. Or their GDP. The concept of Gross National Happiness
was built on the foundation of how love and kindness are traded between their people, and
how that trade—not of money and goods, but of real human connection—brings the one
thing you can't trade: joy.
But before I made it there, I would have to survive the remaining Indian roads and the
many hundreds of miles that still stood between Bhutan and me. What would have been a
twelve-hour journey in most other parts of the world, turned into a three-day trek involving
stray cows, irate truck drivers, random potholes, and a fleet of wild geese!
Over the next three days, I saw the map that was once scrolled across my desk come to
life. My first stop was in Darjeeling. I don't think the queen would have been very happy
with me if I didn't pay a visit to the birthplace of Indian tea. I visited a tea farm, drank
some delicious local tea, and found a nice Englishman to stay with. But more than that, I
found a sense of calm that I had yet to discover in India. My trip seemed to slow down.
