It's about me, about my life – it's about all or nothing. Rinchen Chewang, the royal astrologer of Bhutan, has just inquired as to my name and my date of birth. Now the barefoot giant, clad in a blood-red robe, broods over a scroll bearing the images of some gods as he consults dice made of human bones and recites ancient verses in a scratchy voice. He narrows his browless eyes, wrinkles his smooth, childlike forehead. Suddenly, he pulls a calculator out of his robe. Solar. Digital. He adds, multiplies, subtracts. Finally, he declares: "In total, five!"
The number five! Five shall be my number. Today, he tells me, is the fifth day of the week, an ideal day to set off on an extended journey. With my companion Lhawang and Pema, our driver, I want to follow the only paved road in Bhutan, a sinuous, 600-mile stretch that makes its way from west to east. Even if we are setting out under auspicious stars, the astrologer warns us, we may want to present the gods with prayer flags and butter lamps along the way. To be on the safe side. He then tosses his bone dice into a little pink plastic bag bearing the logo Supermodern XXL, and leaves the dragon-adorned tent.
Bhutan is a land performing a cultural balancing act. Within recent memory, television wasn't available here, nor any daily newspaper, nor telephone. News was carried by messengers over the mountain passes. It was only in the early 1960s, after centuries of self-imposed isolation, that Bhutan began to open itself to the outside world – cautiously, unnerved by the Chinese invasion of Tibet. The following decade, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck coined the idea of gross national happiness, to describe that which is to take precedence over the gross domestic product. In other words, no ruthless exploitation of the resources, least of all the vast Bhutanese forests. No unrestrained pursuit of prosperity and progress. No copy of the West. Instead: happiness! Because their king – who married four sisters, so that he, as his subjects joke, would only have to have one mother-in-law – has willed it. Thus, the Bhutanese are to lead fulfilled lives according to the values of Buddhism – egalitarian, prudently ruled, in harmony with nature. In this way, Bhutan will simultaneously open itself up and preserve its traditions. Squaring the circle?
We buy some prayer flags and butter lamps for the road gods, leave Paro and head off in the easterly direction. Always following the milky Pachu River, we pass by rice fields and houses with high, white walls and carved, colourful windows suggesting a mixture of Swiss chalet and Tudor castle. With shingled roofs, carpeted by drying red pepper pods. Lhawang, a delicate little black-haired man with a bowl cut and three months of schooling in guiding tours, is touchingly concerned about my well-being. If I so much as pluck at my scarf, he instructs Pema to close the window. If I clear my throat, he inquires as to my health. If I look too interestedly out the window, he lets me know again and again that I just have to say the word and we'll stop the car so I can have a look around.