Bhutan is beautiful, Bumthang is extraordinarily beautiful. Its four high valleys are covered in forests that embrace small monasteries, chortens, traditional stone houses, and markets. By looking closely at the Dragon Kingdom's crafts and textiles in the making, visiting world-class weavers and thangka painters, we find ourselves learning a tremendous lot about the broader culture.

Next to hospitality, Bhutan's greatest art forms are its traditional textiles and crafts. While many places produce fine examples of both, Bhutan's superlative wood carvings, masks, gold- and silverworks, paper, and religious paintings are near-unique, both in excellence and in the fact that they are made to be used by the people themselves, rather than snapped up by the busloads of tourists we're happy to avoid in this favored land.