Click to play videoThimpu: Bhutan according to many is the last Shangri La on earth. It's also supposed to be the happiest nation in the world but in 2008 Bhutan is more than legends and landscapes.
Bhutan is a country where the King has abdicated his throne for elections and it's a country where the world would like to believe that democracy is coming.
With single-minded devotion Bhutan seems to be proceeding towards democracy. The first National Assembly election in Bhutan on March 24 ended 100 years of royal rule.
Nearly 3 lakh people voted the Druk Phunshyem Tsogpa to power. The party won a landslide victory with 44 of the 47 seats going in its kitty.
Yet as the country tries to change tracks and skip to the future not everyone is sure about the idea of democracy.
Deki Palden, a journalism graduate from Delhi University, is one of the women voters in Bhutan. She's happy there are more women voters but is apprehensive about the transformation to democracy.
"Even I am one of those people who wish that the King still rules but since the King has been very kind enough and wants the people to shape his own destiny. We are taking it as an opportunity and try and help the King build a new society," Palden says.
It's a view shared by Tshering Wangmo, an officer with the Royal Bhutanese government.
"I am all for monarchy. When I see democracies around the world, I just hope that our case will be different," Tshering Wangmo says.
"I am sad but we have to take the king's gift of democracy. Things will be same in five years. And if anything goes wrong there is the King," an old man predicts.
Nepal's experiment with democracy is fresh in the minds of many Bhutanese. The signs are all there and democracy is the new buzzword but at the end, His Majesty still rules the mind.
It seems not everyone is happy with the King giving up power and almost everyone is unsure as to where democracy is going to take Bhutan.
Yet, it's the King who wants Bhutan to vote, elect a government, so as you can see people are out in numbers to take part in this historic first election in the land of the thunder dragon.
It might be a government whose agenda in many senses is likely to be defined by the monarchy.
Many say that the nucleus of democracy was in the fourth King Jigme Singe Wangchuk's coronation speech.
Something he took forward now but both him and his son Jigme Keshar Namgyal Wangchuk will have an incredibly difficult task to convince people to believe in the power of vote.
"People are still devoted to his majesty the king but democracy has been passed on by the King to the public," Rinchen Jyertshen, member, PDP Party, says.
In the villages of Bhutan there are people who are hoping that democracy would produce results more concrete than Bhutan's so called USP of Gross National Happiness a unique index of measuring progress..
"There is unemployment and we hope that the election helps that problem," a villager says.
Interestingly their son, 25-year-old and a commerce graduate wants to make a career out of politics.
And in some other parts of Bhutan removed from media glare, these elections mean ignorance of their rights.
There are about 10,000 ethnic Nepalese in the country and the monarchy refuses to recognise them.
Interestingly 19 ethnic Nepalese were candidates in the first elections.
"This tiny Himalayan kingdom perceives this as a demographic threat," Kinley Dorji, Editor, Kuensel, says.
Above all there is tradition, something that's been proceeding in a time warp almost hidden from the world.
And there is faith everyday as hundreds chant their mantras and count the Astamala.
It seems democracy has a challenge it has never encountered
For now Bhutan with all its people, the old and the young, men and women, can hope that the new start will be as beautiful as the country.
Democracy will peacefully coexist with tradition and happiness that's identified with every Bhutanese will keep flowing like never before.
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