Additional information
by Mark Swinbank (Author)
It was after my last (fifth) visit to Bhutan that I felt compelled to express my thoughts about the country I had come to love. I knew that words would be inadequate to describe my precise feelings about this most special of places as such deep-seated feelings are almost impossible to express. In the expression, however, I knew that the emotion would come out and I make no apology for that, for this is, in so many ways, a love letter. I shall be forever grateful that I have been privileged beyond measure to travel to such a unique country, to mingle amongst its special people, to experience their smiles, to make friends and to see the mountain vistas that only the Himalayas can provide. It is a very personal journey, a diary of journeys in part, a drawstring for my life as a whole, and my exploration of how faraway places closer to home perhaps spring boarded the leap to the last Shangri-La. In sharing those experiences I hope to inspire in the reader's mind that final spur needed for them to make this journey themselves. A journey that needs to, and indeed should be taken: the eastern Himalayas are calling!
