Getting of 'crazy wisdom'

Punakha Dzong was where the young king assumed the Raven Crown at his coronation in 2008. He did so after his father abdicated to allow the country's transition from absolute to constitutional monarchy.

I climb to a mezzanine within one of the dzong's buildings to see where these ceremonies have been held. The space is surprisngly small and unadorned - elsewhere in the dzong, bronze statues glint in the light of butter lamps, murals cover walls and ornate woodcarvings surround windows and doors, as they do in even the country's smaller temples.

"Come quickly," Karma, my guide, urges. "Come and get a blessing."

Karma directs me down the almost vertical steps - Bhutan is full of these - to a courtyard. Here, a group of locals wait in line, heads bowed, hands together. A bespectacled robed figure turns a corner into the courtyard with an entourage of about a dozen monks. It is the Je Khenpo, Bhutan's spiritual head and its most revered religious figure. He smiles and passes on quickly.

A few days earlier, I pass Bhutan's Queen Mother in a car along a potholed country road after she leaves a temple ceremony.

These fleeting brushes with Bhutan's spiritual and temporal leaders catch me by surprise, though the locals appear nonchalant.

Karma tells me he was walking through the capital recently when the king, who he had met previously, came by on his bicycle. Spotting Karma, the ruler hopped off his bike and stopped for a chat.

Karma relates the tale matter-of-factly, just as he does when he explains how Tiger's Nest, or Taktsang Monastery, was built after the sage who introduced Buddhism to Bhutan, Guru Rinpoche, flew there on the back of a tigress in the 8th century.

I take a more conventional route to the monastery that clings to a rockface nearly 1000 metres above the Paro Valley. The walk winds through pine forests hung with old man's beard, prayer wheels and a phallic-shaped water spout. (No, Dr Freud, I'm not inventing this.) After almost three hours' walk - I forgo the offer of a donkey - we stand in the small temple devoted to Guru Rinpoche.

On the left, behind a locked golden door, is the cave where he is said to have meditated. His image, in temple statues and paintings, is ubiquitous. But it is another ubiquitous image that becomes my favourite.

It's a Disneyesque depiction of an elephant standing before a banyan tree. On the elephant's back is a monkey on whose head sits a rabbit topped with a bird, like a column of acrobats. Known as the Four Friends, the image is a fable about respect and harmonious living - and no house is considered complete without one. Animals have a special place in Bhutanese hearts.

I ask a young man about the Bhutanese tolerance for dogs that sleep all day and bark all night. They're just doing their job, he tells me. And that is? To keep evil spirits away at night. Bhutanese believe dogs are close to becoming human, he says. "Next life, perhaps."

The tooth of a revered 17th-century lama's pet dog is the most unusual exhibit in the National Museum of Bhutan in Paro. Its director, Khenpo Phuntsok Tashi, cheerfully tells me he knew nothing about curating a museum when he was appointed. He is being modest. As a senior monk, he knows a great deal about sacred objects, which are the essence of the museum's collection, including masks and tangkas, or paintings.

Art has never been produced in Bhutan simply as decoration or for money, Khenpo explains. Its function is spiritual and making art traditionally involves undertaking ceremonial practices.

"But the advent of modernisation, this is changing," he says. "Sometimes now they paint for business." He and others are working to maintain Bhutan's culture, which only in recent years has opened to the West.

In the capital, Thimphu, a man sits before an array of blades and scalpels at the National Library of Bhutan. The delicate surgery Yeshe Namgyal performs is not on flesh. He carves tiny letters in Tibetan script on an oblong piece of wood. The woodblock, which takes about a week to finish, will be used to print scriptures, as has been the practice for centuries in this last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom.

The library might be the only one in the world with a woodblock-carver on the payroll.

At its entrance is a sign: "Respect this library as a sacred place and please leave your shoes outside." The building has been consecrated as a temple to house sacred books; the library is regarded as so sacred that people circumambulate it as they do other holy places.

Inside, I wander barefoot past rows of ancient woodblock-printed texts that fill glass-fronted cabinets. They are wrapped in silk and filed by colour rather than the Dewey decimal system. Each colour represents a different Tibetan Buddhist lineage.

At the nearby Trashi Chhoe Dzong, about 100 monks are rehearsing for a ceremonial dance performance. The boys shuffle and twist as awkwardly as teenage boys anywhere.

Suddenly, an older monk pirouettes before a line of novices. Long arms extended, he is as elegant as Nureyev. He appears weightless as he leaps and spins. As he does, the tale of the flying sage doesn't seem quite so improbable.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

Thai Airways has a fare to Bangkok (9hr) from Sydney and Melbourne for $1057 low-season return, including tax; see thaiairways.com. Drukair has a fare from Bangkok to Paro (4hr 40min) for about $US890 ($888) return including tax; see drukair.com.bt.

Touring there

Tours and visas must be arranged in advance. Tour costs are set by the government; minimum costs are $US200 a day, which includes accommodation, food, a guide and transport. The author travelled with Dr Karma Wangchuck, Vajra Guru Spritual Travels; see bhutanspiritual.com or email vajraguru@druknet.bt.

For a week or less, stay in the west of the country. Don't miss Tiger's Nest Monastery, Paro Dzong, Punakha Zong, the Divine Madman's temple and Thimpu's traditional arts centre, the National Institute of Zorig Chusum. If you have more than a week, venture east to Bumthang.

April, May and after the October and November monsoon are the most popular months to visit.