All text and Photos Copyright Nathan Ward – No reprint without permission.

This is a multi-part story about a trip Andrea and I took to the eastern part of Bhutan. It takes six days of driving non-stop to get there and back, but we only went a few hundred miles because the roads are so thin and curvy. This story originally appeared in Lifestyle and Travel Magazine. Read on to learn all about it.

Beyond the World’s Last Corner - Flying Tigers, Wise Monks and Hairy Yetis, Nathan Ward explores the Hinterlands of the Last Himalayan Kingdom

A wrinkled brown hand pushes a wooden bowl toward me, a bowl filled with sweet saffron rice, a Himalayan delicacy. Using my fingers, I scoop the golden rice into my mouth and wash it down with a sip of thick butter tea. The host’s dark eyes crinkle with a smile as she hands me another drink, this one clear like a mountain stream but filled with the power of fire, laughter and warmth. I toss back the tangy rice wine and look at the demons dancing below me.

Two masked demons twist and spin their bright robes into fluid spheres of shimmering color, their wooden faces frozen in grimace and fear. Frantically, drum beats fill the air and fierce-faced warriors stream from the corners of the ancient palace, surrounding the demons. The warriors beat the drums with a roar that ebbs and flows as they chase the evil spirits back to the underworld.

Sacred Mask Dances at the Phobjika Valley Monastery

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The Great Himalayan Range runs along the northern border of the Kingdom of Bhutan, separating it from the mass of the Tibetan Plateau.  The highest unclimbed peak in the world, Gangkhar Puensum (24,836 ft/7,570 m), marks the high point of Bhutan and from there, the country drops over 24,000 feet to a low point of just 300 feet at the Indian border.  [Read more →]