But most people don't travel to places like Bhutan for the sports -- they go because, at one level or another, they seek enlightenment. And the Carpenters have a secret that lies at the heart of their short book -- that the main benefit they acquired from getting to know the country was mental, a relaxation and re-adjustment of the mind.
There is much here about the life of monks, some of it similar to things readers will be familiar with from books about Tibet. More interesting, though, is what the authors have to say about the country's modern values, not to mention its future.
Bhutan, which its inhabitants like to describe as Asia's only under-populated state, does worry these authors in some matters. TV, allowed since 1999, is now very popular, and most popular of all are so-called professional wrestling programs. This taste is viewed, surely rightly, as seriously degrading to the traditional culture in which no sentient being may be harmed (arrows, unlike in Oregon, are never shot at living beings). Secondly, education is still largely by rote, with the result that logical thought is, so the authors claim, rare. No doubt as a result of this, reading isn't, they report, a popular pastime.
This would be a book to read before taking a trip to the landlocked kingdom. Two travel guides recommended by the authors are Bhutan by Francoise Pommaret (Contemporary Books) and Stan Armington's Lonely Planet Bhutan. Pommaret is a local specialist who began living in Bhutan in 1981, while Armington is a mountaineering expert and also author of Lonely Planet's Trekking in the Nepal Himalaya.
Nevertheless, the Carpenters openly adore Bhutan. As countries go, it is obviously one of a kind. Because its principles offer a system that could, if widely adopted, help save the world from its current slide towards ecological and social disaster, the preservation of its way of life and all that this entails is surely of real and serious importance.
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