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We’d met before dawn at the Druk Air check-in line at the edge of the vast departure area in Bangkok’s brand-new billion-dollar Suvarnabhumi Airport. Both of us were crossing our fingers that our baggage didn’t exceed the allotted thirty pounds each. When Beda’s did tip the scales, we pretended to be traveling together and I took up her slack. Between that and the cappuccinos I bought us with the little bit of Thai currency I had in my purse, my first attempt at Bhutanese-American relations proved a resounding success. Together we kept each other company in the gleaming glass-enclosed terminal D. The airport was so new that the water fountains and televisions in the waiting area still bore labels. We picked at the free lukewarm Burger King sandwiches the airline had provided as an apology for the inconvenience. And we used my laptop to check for more information about the weather. Since I had no idea how long it would be before I got online again, I fired off an email to my nervous family, too. Almost there, I wrote.

Though the longest leg of the journey was over, I didn’t realize the most dangerous part of it was ahead.

THE RICKETY WHITE Kuzoo van was making its way onto the “highway.” This thoroughfare was the automotive equivalent of the approach to the airport: simply treacherous. The difference was that the pilot took great care to steady the plane as it wobbled in the wind; the drivers here seemed to fancy themselves participants in a demolition derby. Immediately, the need for widening the road became obvious. Instead of two lanes there was a slightly wider-than-average one-lane sliver of bumpy pavement. Making it all the more precarious was the fact that every other vehicle was a giant brightly colored truck that looked like it had driven out of a Bollywood-style cartoon. Hand-lettered words on the fronts ironically proclaimed, LONG LIFE; the bumpers admonished BLOW HORN. Blowing a horn wasn’t going to do a thing to facilitate passing, since the oncoming vehicles were obscured from sight. Still, Kesang impatiently—but expertly—barreled past every vehicle in our path. Cars precipitously hugged the road’s edge. And that edge was unprotected by guardrails to keep you from careening off and dropping hundreds of feet, straight into the valley. Just when it seemed the road might go straight for a bit of a reprieve, on came the snakiest S curve. Without exception, all the vehicles were traveling at high speeds. No ride on the autobahn could match this. I was happy the passenger-side safety belt worked. But as we kept moving, it hit me that even being straitjacketed to the seat wouldn’t help a bit were the van to slip.

I fought the urge to bite my nails; I wanted nothing to dwarf my absorption of the scenery and the feeling that I’d landed on another planet. Bhutan’s tourism industry sold the place as the last Shangri-la, and it became clear from what I saw out the van windows that this was indeed a land that time and rampant development had forgotten. Rolling hills punctuated by spectacular mountains, vast expanses of meticulously terraced land and the clearest river rushing through, interrupted only occasionally by a cluster of unusual-looking houses. Within the array, a tiny store, marked by a simple blue sign bearing white hand-drawn letters, provided a hint of commerce: KUENGA WANGMO GENERAL SHOP CUM BAR.

All the signs were in English, topped with the squiggles of Dzongkha letters, painted in royal blue with white, and they all looked the same. The buildings themselves, too; every structure had sloping roofs and ornately carved orange wooden frames around the windows. They weren’t ugly in their uniformity, nothing like a Levittown suburb or subprime development might be, but rustic and charming—like Asian-infused Swiss chalets. The view repeated itself over and over again so that it began to feel like a driving scene from a Flintstones episode, in which an occasional variation pops up every tenth frame to remind you there is indeed forward motion.

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