WELCOME

"With our passage through the bridge, behold a curious transformation. For just as Alice, when she walked through the looking-glass, found herself in a new and whimsical world, so we, when we crossed the Pa-chhu, found ourselves as though caught up on some magic time machine fitted fantastically with reverse, flung back across the centuries into the feudalism of a medieval age."

So wrote the Earl of Ronaldshay upon entering Bhutan in 1923, and even now, arriving in the Land of the Thunder Dragon still gives you an overwhelming feeling of travelling back in time... and into another world.

Squashed into a high pocket of land between Nepal, Tibet and Northeast India, Bhutan is an extraordinary country, home to a fascinating and unique culture, stupendous scenery and a truly charming people. Cut off for so long from the rest of the world - both through geographical positioning and its own political desires - in many places things have barely changed at all over the last 500 years.

The vast, 17th century dzongs - or Buddhist monasteries - that perch spectacularly atop high cliff-tops or by thundering rivers, the colourful festivals of dance and story-telling, the clusters of eerie prayer flags, all contrive to transport you back over the centuries to the land of demons and spirits that still lie at the heart of Bhutanese culture.

And the forested hills and snow-capped peaks, so rich in wild plants and animals - Bhutan is home to more than 600 species of orchid alone - will have you gasping in wonder at the scale and beauty of this far-flung land.