Bhutan - getting ready

I love to go trekking - and like to be always planning my next adventure.  Having pored over maps and atlases since childhood - I have always been fascinated by the Himalaya region and Tibet.  This could be because I was born in Darjeeling to Christian missionary parents - but I don't have any conscious memory - so it must be subconscious linkage (collective unconsciousness and all that Mr Jung!).

I have decided that I would like to visit Bhutan - and then - when I can - the areas around Mustang on the Tibetan border with India.

In the months before I go on the next trek - I like to read as much as I can about the people and the place I am going to.  So I bought some books on Bhutan.  I have just finished reading Jamie Zeppa's "Beyond The Sky and the Earth".  Such powerful and honest writing - about a Canadian Masters graduate in English who goes to teach in Bhutan - and how it transformed her life.  It is a gritty, honest and beautiful read - and has sharpened my desire to go and see this Buddhist mountain kingdom.

Zeppa learns to understand how a culture based around material possession provides no lasting happiness, happiness is within.  Happiness  is driven by how we think.

I thoroughly recommend this book.