We were heroes until moments ago: visitors from India, insane enough to ride their 99cc bike all the way to Bhutan. The duo who wore sore limbs and sensitive bottoms — a product of their 800km journey from Calcutta — as epaulettes, and were gung-ho about hazarding the rest of the 850km through the switchbacks of this mountain grit land.

Word spread swiftly through Phuentsholing that Sunday morning and we drew admiring nods from the crowd that had gathered. We’d been through much in the past two days, we told our new-found fans, almost locked up for photographing a bridge, almost taking the wrong route at the fork of a road on a moonless night, almost crushed under the wheels of a bus and almost giving up out of exhaustion. Nothing could stop us now.

The “now” had, however, turned “then” a moment ago. Now, as the waiter placed the Ema Datse on the table, we realise we may have celebrated too soon. For Ema Datse is the culinary allegory for hell; a main course in which chillies — red, yellow and green — are the main, nay, only ingredient, if you discount the benign coating of cheese hiding the fiery vegetable. It makes the eyes water, burns its way to the stomach and stages an equally excruciating exit the next morning. It’s an experience that makes us want to run faster than our poor noses.

And run we would have; run the gauntlet of maniacal bus drivers, drunk truck drivers and cratered roads all the way back through the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Malda, North Dinajpur and back home, where chillies were still considered a spice. But the enigma of this erstwhile Himalayan kingdom made us decide otherwise. So, after requesting some sugar and lots of tissue, we kickstarted our bike and headed to Thimphu, the capital, 130km away.

At 20kmph, it was 20 minutes before Phuentsholing dropped away behind the fold of a hill. We would not be heading this way again unless officials at Thimphu refused us the permit required to head beyond the capital and to Samdrup Jonkhar, where Bhutan meets Assam.

Kingdom of hospitality

Being denied that restricted area permit is a possibility because the king, we are told, refuses to suffer hippies and backpackers. One reason might be because Bhutan has one of the world’s largest wild marijuana crop. That’s why visitors are asked to make all bookings — hotels, vehicles and guides — with a certified travel agent before they enter His kingdom. We had none of that, dropping in without notice, on a whim and a seven-year-old bike.

That story, in a nutshell, goes like this. I was in between jobs and my brother had won a month-long leave. So we planned a road trip to the Northeast. The bike served us well on the 605km journey from Calcutta to Siliguri and, with time on our hands, we decided to cross countries instead of states. The road did the rest, and we found ourselves at Phuentsholing.

It was easy to get ourselves a permit to Thimphu even though it was a Sunday, given the interest and curiosity our appearance at the border town had generated. And being Indian gave us the privilege of entering a foreign country by just showing our voter ID cards as proof of our nationality.

On roads more twisted than many minds, we could progress only 65km to Chimakothi, the solitary human settlement on the way to Thimphu, where we were overtaken by the second debacle. Without budget tourists, hotels are rare, and cheap hotels unheard of. Thankfully, the Bhutanese are a warm and hospitable lot and opened their doors to us. That was, in part, because we requested them to, but mostly because they considered us a novelty. And to show how much they appreciated the adventurous streak in us, they treated us to Ema Datse and rice!

Pork and beef, too, are consumed with great relish, they told us, to our great relief. Our hosts at Chimakothi also told us that pigs are fed copious quantities of marijuana to keep them happy and because they grow big and fat and their meat fetches a better price.

This, we understood, made their owners happy. And since the meat tastes better, the people who eat it, which I take to be the whole of Bhutan, are happy. We tried pork over Ema Datse that night, and were happy. It all made sense, I thought as we headed to bed, for this kingdom to measure its wealth in gross national happiness.

We woke up stiff and brittle the next morning, but stretched swiftly when we realised we had to reach Thimphu early, and after paying the house owner Rs 100 as a token of our appreciation, set out on our way.

After Chimakothi, Thimphu seemed state-of-the-art with neatly stacked multi-storeyed houses, broad streets, prim policemen guiding traffic on the lone road that looped twice around the capital, and a mini-market with two cybercafés. Thimphu also boasts the only cinema hall in the kingdom and, in keeping with the theme of gross national happiness, was screening Norbu, My Favourite Yak.

We took in the sights and sounds while locating the immigration office, and once there, placed our application. “No guide?” the officer asked. “No bookings? Then, no permit.” But then, after hearing about our travels and realising that we did not look like people who were here to make trouble or raid the pigs’ rations, she signed the necessary papers.

Ride through the wild

There are many things wild and wonderful about riding through Bhutan — streams thunder down hills, insomniac cicadas scream themselves hoarse, painted phalluses on walls of houses keep demons at bay, and gods are appeased with beer and Maggi. We saw them all on our way to Samdrup Jonkhar, packed into the 850km that took us through eight of the 20 districts in Bhutan. We rolled and rested, passing below the imposing Wangdi Dzong and over the Punakha Chu and Tang Chu (chu is river) to Wangdi Phodrang, the last town in central Bhutan. Then we sipped on Suja at a hotel reeking of rum and betel nut and got lucky and found ourselves a host for the night.

The deeper we went, the more overwhelmed we were. That floating phallus, ornate, and ready, was one such sight. It belonged to a monk, Drupka Kinley, who sometime in the 15th century subdued many an errant demon by striking them on their heads with his penis. So scared were the demons, that even a mural of the phallus scares them nowadays. As we moved further east, the symbol gained prominence. Walls, flags and, even looming large on the wall of an outhouse in Trashigang, though, given the message under it scrawled by the artist, it seemed to have nothing to do with saints or demons.

The vistas, the winding roads and an average elevation of 11,000ft were a potent trance-inducing potion. But human habitation, or the lack of it, remained Bhutan’s most striking aspect. The kingdom is a massive swathe of forest. Towns are just a handful of houses hugging the solitary road. Looming dzongs watch over them.

Secret to happiness

At Bumthang we learnt the secret to happiness at a curio shop. Garuda, the eagle of Indian mythology, who stares down from above the main entrance of houses and dzongs in Bhutan, shreds all forms of evil that tries to enter. The cost of eternal happiness was 1,800 ngultrum. “It would have been 3,000 if you were non-Indians,” the shopkeeper tells us. You could put it down to good salesmanship, but it broke our hearts to think that way. This was, after all, the holiest site in Bhutan, where the sage Guru Padmasambhava meditated before taking on the daunting task of converting the pagan lot that were the Bhutanese to the Buddhists they are today.

We bought the souvenir. Call it superstition, but our journey from then on was a dream. The days were sunny, shepherds invited us for lunch, and we even managed the dekko of a monastery and chatted with monks. How else could our bike have sprinted up the toughest of inclines without complaint, up to Dochu La, Pele La and the many other passes, on the way to Mongar?

But Garuda’s powers seemed on the wane at Mongar, far from the Buddhist heartland where the king’s word was law. Tradition and friendliness were both in short supply. But we were still welcomed and for the first time, put up at a hotel. Warm water would cost us, the owner said, and so would extra quilts. Switching on the TV would set us back by an extra

Rs 100. Even the landscape here seemed different. On the 180km journey to Samdrup Jonkhar, forests have been replaced by ill-kept patches of road and, 8km from India, at the last army outpost on the Bhutan side, came the ultimate downer.

As the armymen checked our bags and Garuda popped out, we heard the word “smuggler” being thrown around. The commander entered, asked for the receipt. We didn’t have any, but remembered the name of the shop. A phone call later, we were free to go. But not before apologies were tendered and we were invited to tea.

“Come again,” the commander told us. “Once we are a democracy, we too will have only a gross national product to show.”

The point is driven home. “We will,” we promised. And it’s a promise we intend to keep.