Bhutan: Land of the Thunder Dragon By John Berthold (2005)

Posted on 2025-09-10 by thelittleman

Foreword by His Excellency Lyonpo Thinley Gyamtsho

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Earlier this year, I visited India for the first time, just outside the border of Bhutan. I didn’t have a visa to enter Bhutan at the time, but I could see her hills rising across the border, a vast and mysterious land of mountains and valleys. Although predominantly nature, Bhutan is also peopled in villages and hamlets with folks who love their heritage and cling to their Buddhism.

I’m excited that I’ll have the opportunity to tour Bhutan for 9 whole days this Fall, so in preparation, I’m trying to learn all I can about her. I’ve been shocked, honestly, at how few substantive books I’ve been able to find about this, the oldest Himalayan Kingdom! At least in English. Thankfully, I came across this informative little travelogue from 20 years ago.

The Book and Make-up

I own a Kindle Paperwhite, the one that’s backlit and great for reading at night. I love this device, though I’ve discovered with this book that it’s definitely not the right format for reading photo-journals! I’m confident that I missed out on so much color and detail on my little 6″ black-and-white screen. So as a side note: if I you ever decide to buy the Kindle version of this book, do so only if you’ve got a colorful tablet on which to read it.

Following all his frontmatter—including the Foreword and official stamp of approval from His Excellency Lyonpo Thinley Gyamtsho—photojournalist John Berthold breaks his book down into the following chapters:

  • Buddhism and Monastic Life
  • Tsechu and Dromche Fetivals
  • Northern Frontier
  • Brokpas of Sakteng
  • Lhotshampas
  • Central Highlands

Each chapter contains a 2-4-page description of the topic or region at hand and is then followed by 10-15 annotated photographs, photos that I’m sure look stunning on anything but the aforementioned Paperwhite.

This book is informative and yet also quite simple. I found myself thinking at one point, “This is a book I could easily make about life in China.” And yet I haven’t. And I probably won’t. So don’t let the apparent simplicity of this book fool you. It took a lot of time, travel, energy, and discipline to create, and Berthold created it. Good for him.

The following review will run through some of the important things I learned from this book. I’ll touch on three topics briefly: the country, the people, and the Buddhism.

Bhutan: A Country Worth Visiting

Bhutan is an incredible land of mystery that’s only recently (in the grand scheme of things) been opened for tourism. John Berthold developed this book through eight visits to Bhutan, sometimes on the normal tourist routes and sometimes in more restricted areas.

History

What excites me about this country is that it’s the oldest Himalayan kingdom and the only one never to have been controlled by either China or India. That in itself is a declaration of the purity of land and culture that must exist there, so it’s no wonder her people still dress the way they do!

Berthold mentions one possible reason why we know so little about this ancient land, and it also helps explain why so few books have been written about her:

Unfortunately, many precious texts on Bhutan’s history were lost in disastrous fires early in the seventeenth century. The majority of what is known today comes from the records of early British explorers, folklore, and a few books that survived. (5)

Nature

As for the purity of land, I’ve read elsewhere that the forests are so dense and the valleys so remote, that Bhutan is the last possible location of the actual Yeti—if there really is one. Slawomir Rawicz suggests there is. I’ve also met a few folks who’ve sworn they’ve seen his brown cousin in the Appalachian mountains, though I highly doubt the existence of Big Foot. But the Yeti? I guess like Fox Mulder, “I want to believe.”

Name

In English, we know the country by its Western name, Bhutan, which Berthold notes means either “the end of Tibet” or “Tibetan people.” He also informs us that “the Bhutanese know their home as Drukyul, ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon.’ In turn, they refer to themselves as Drukpas.” (4)

The People of Bhutan

These Drukpas actually make up just 80% of the population of Bhutan (or at least they did in 2005), the rest being Nepali imigrants (known as Lhotshampa) who settled in southern Bhutan in the 1960s-70s. (30) The Drukpas themselves are made up of two broadly-defined groups:

  • Those in the West who are descended from Tibetans (known as Ngalops)
  • Those in the East who are considered the original inhabitants of the land, possibly from Mongolia and India (known as Sharchops) (31)

Berthold briefly describes Bhutan’s government in 2005 this way:

The central monk body, known as the Dratshang, oversees all religious activity in the country and is led by the highest-ranking lama in the country, His Holiness the Je Khenpo. (9)

The Buddhism of Bhutan

Many of Berthold’s photos represent the people of Bhutan and their traditional festivals and religious rites. The most impressive for him were the tsechu, annual festivals that honor Padmasambhava, the Tibetan monk who brought Buddhism to Bhutan. This fella (repeating his name might force you try and pronounce it) was a bodhissatva, that is, someone who attained enlightenment but chose to give it up in order to remain on earth and help others find it too.

A Quick Lesson in Buddhism

Since all of these words are foreign to our eyes and ears, it’s easy to get confused. I’m guilty of just skimming over them myself too! But it may help to view the different schools of Buddhism as denominations. Two major denominations are the Hinayana (“Lesser Vehicle”) and Mahayana (“Greater Vehicle”). What’s the difference? That foreign word bodhissatva sets them apart.

  • The Mahayana consider the Hinayana “lesser,” accusing them of being individualistic and selfish—anyone can become enlightened, so once a person attains it, he can go to Nirvana and cease to exist! This is the form of Buddhism that made its way into China. A very personal religion.
  • The Mahayana, in turn, consider themselves “greater,” because they’re more selfless—their bodhissatvas forego Nirvana for the sake of others, remaining in this spiral of suffering in order to help others attain enlightenment. It’s a far more systematic and ritualistic religion.

Thus we can understand why the bodhissatva (a Mahayana) who long ago entered Bhutan and selflessly taught others the way to Enlightenment is worthy (in their minds) of honor akin to worship. Padmasambhava’s style of Buddhism (known as Drukpa Kagyu) remained sequestered inside hard-to-access Bhutan for centuries, and it thus remains unique among the various schools of Buddhism today.

Drukpa Kagyu is not an “easy” form of Buddhism, yet giving one’s life to its study is an incredible honor. About this Berthold writes:

Due to the tremendous complexity of the Drukpa Kagyu beliefs and practices, decades of study are required to master the diverse and extensive teachings. One of the most daunting challenges for monks is a retreat that takes three years, three months, three weeks, and three days during which they do not come into contact with anyone. Once completed, monks will often take a short break and then continue on for an additional two retreats, totaling ten years of isolated meditation. (9)

Nearly all Buddhist parents in Bhutan aspire to continue the ancient tradition of sending one of their sons to a monastery to become a monk for life. (13)

Buddhist Rites and Rituals

He goes on to describe many of the traditions and beliefs of Drukpa Kagyu, and there’s really too many to name. I’ll relate just three of my favorites here, because they remind me so much of what I learned from Mahayana Buddhism while traveling in Tibet:

Prayer flags…are ubiquitous in Bhutan. They are created in five symbolic colors: blue for water, green for wood, red for fire, yellow for earth, and white for iron. Most flags are erected on a hill overlooking a river, enabling the prayers imprinted on them to float with the wind to the river for a long journey onward. (14)

Three days before the Paro tsechu begins, a monk delicately places colored sand a few grains at a time to create a colorful circular design known as a mandala. After his painstaking work is complete, the mandala will be destroyed to symbolize the impermanence of life and the inevitability of death. (17)

During the first rite [of a Brokpa funeral], the body is submerged under rocks in a nearby river for three to six days. After the body is removed, it is cut into 108 pieces and then returned to the icy water to feed the river fish. In the second funeral rite, known as sky burial, the body is left in an open space far away from the village to be consumed by vultures. Both rites are based on Buddhist beliefs that this final act of providing a selfless meal to fish and birds creates merit and brings good fortune to the dead. (27)

A Prayerful Conclusion

Although this was a short book whose pictures I couldn’t fully enjoy, I learned a lot from it about the Bhutan I’m soon going to see. I look forward to meeting people whose religion I’m learning about bit by bit. Knowing what they believe and why is an important step in understanding them as a people—and it then allows me better to pray for them.

It’s important for me as a Christian not to look at people like this as intentionally antagonistic to God or as willful enemies of the Lord Jesus. Instead, I must see them as folks who genuinely believe their religion (as false as it is) and who faithfully follow the traditions they’ve been taught. I must recognize that it’s all they’ve ever known!

I will likely never get a chance to share the Gospel with a Bhutanese person in Bhutan (that’s not why I visit as a tourist, after all), but I can chat with them and befriend them. I can begin to understand them and their beliefs. I can look for sparks of interest or doubt that I can then turn over to the Lord and to Christians I might know in the area who do understand their faith and culture. It’s a different style of ministry than I’m used to, but that’s OK.

God is already preparing hearts to seek Him, and He’s also already preparing missionaries from that very culture to go and share the Gospel with them. When it comes to ministry in the far-flung corners of the world, I can’t do everything. But I can do something, and that’s pray. Praying with firsthand experience on the ground and with knowledge I can get from books like this always helps.

©2025 E.T.

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