Why this Asian hotspot should be on everyone's bucket list

Timeless traditions unveil the beauty of Bhutan and its people.

Pututo!" a Bhutanese woman with a basin-bowl hairdo and a saucer-sized smile shouts at me, laughing. "What!?" I yell back, after just being invited into a lean-to by locals preparing for a festival. I'm unable to hear across the makeshift kitchen where a dozen people are stirring food in huge stock pots.

"Pututo, pututo!" she rapidly fires back. She disappears through billowing steam, returning with a massive bowl.

"Oh, potato!" The whole room is in stitches. She points to another bowl. "Rice, rice!" She says. The joke is not lost as she tosses its contents in boiling water. She fetches a tray laden with betel nuts and rice wine. It's 10am. But "when in Bhutan" - the world's happy Himalayan kingdom - it's a smile-and-partake experience. Chencho, my guide, wraps the nut in a leaf. It's bitter, woody, pungent, and I rinse the aftertaste away with the wine. It's used as a euphoric stimulant, but I wonder how locals can chew a nut that tastes like timber.

It's day three of an eight-day journey, and I'm immersing myself in the many traditions the tiny landlocked country, with a population of just 770,000, offers up.

To protect its culture and pristine environment the government prohibited visitors from the outside world until 1974. For a country that first experienced electricity in the 1960s, its first highway in 1968, television and Internet services in 1999, it's not surprising they still live a traditional lifestyle. I feel I'm in a time capsule, looking back to a time when life was simpler.

We're in Bumthang, the Buddhist heartland of Bhutan, to visit one of the country's oldest temples, Jambay Lhakhang. Steeped in Buddhist lore, the temple is purported to be one of 108 built in a day in the year of 659 by Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo. Legend claims he built the temples to trap a meddling ogress who was stopping the flow of Buddhism across Bhutan.

Stepping inside all but freezes time. Chanting worshippers are counting prayer beads - 108 of them, the number of desires Buddhists must overcome to reach nirvana. Flames bounce over butter lamps lit for prayers. Baskets laden with offerings of fruit, biscuits and small Ngultrum notes (Bhutan's currency) lay at the feet of golden Buddha statues. It's another world. Eastern to my Western lifestyle, one I'm here to grasp. Chencho drops beside me, chanting, performing three prostrate bows along the cold timber floor. "What did you pray for?" I ask. "I appealed to the gods to forgive humans for wrongdoings, to forgive me for greed, talking about others and for stepping on insects," she says.

It's quiet as sleep outside. An unseasonal snowfall has begun to lay as we head to Lhodrak Kharchu Monastery for the Drubchen ritual. Coming from the parched flat landscape of Western Australia, I'm childlike, mesmerised, as the mountains turn from green to white to winter wonderland as we drive up steep inclines. Held once a year, the Drubchen ceremony is an intensive group practice where worshippers pray for purification for all sentient beings. We enter to a sea of more than 700 monks wearing sail-shaped hats the colour of sunflowers. Sitting cross-legged on large cushions they recite prayers in unison, chanting, harmonising, repeating mantras over and over until a powerful vibration is felt around the prayer hall. It's soul-shifting stuff.

The following morning we're up with the doves for a six-hour drive to Punakha to attend the more-than-300-year-old Talo Tshechu festival, held to celebrate the springtime harvest. Enroute we stop at Dochula Pass - the highest motorable road in Bhutan, where yesterday's snow has melted into mud-speckled splotches.

At an altitude of 3100 metres, ice-cold air adds to the fact I'm wandering around 108 stupas built in memory of Bhutanese soldiers who died in combat when Indian rebels invaded southern Bhutan in 2003. Known as the Two-Day War, the Bhutanese claimed victory, restoring peace. Afterwards, there were no victory parades; butter lamps were lit in every monastery to remember those who gave their lives.

The festival is in full flow when we arrive. Masked monks are dancing barefoot across a grass arena flicking their false manes back and forth to ward off evil spirits. A group of women dressed in their festive finery invite us inside their tent. "Come, come and sit with us, we're so happy to see you in Bhutan, help yourself to lunch!" Pots of traditional stews made with datshi (Bhutanese cheese), bowls of red and white rice, fruit and buckwheat bread line a long table. "I'm really happy to be here," I tell them, and slide into a ringside seat, sit back and watch the show.

It's an afternoon of colour, celebration and comedy as atsara (Bhutanese clowns) joke around with Bhutan's good luck charm - red wooden phalluses. As the emcees, the clowns' task is to help crowds forget their woes by performing pranks and telling stories using wit and humour.

Leaving urban life behind, we head down the mountains driving deeper into Punakha Valley, following bend after switchback bend until we arrive at Ama Om Homestay. Overlooking a terraced rice valley, the 500-year-old farmhouse is run and owned by Ama Om.

She greets me like a returning family member, and I feel I've come home to a place I've never been.

The three-storey home has all the trimmings associated with being passed down over six generations. Sepia-toned and recent colour family photographs line the walls, aged pots and pans hang from wooden rafters in a kitchen heated by an old wood burner. Upstairs, a cosy retreat is filled with floor cushions, books and a chaise lounge.

I want to curl into the haven, while away the afternoon until the forest disappears under nightfall. Instead, Ama has prepared a hot stone bath by the freshwater creek, where, sans clothes, I slip into water topped with muscle soothing artemisia leaves. An off-grid lifestyle wraps around me. Buckwheat, mandarins, turmeric, papaya, passionfruit and more mesh together perfuming the air with nature's earthy scent. I soak it all in - the peace, the tranquillity. It's euphoric. No bark-tasting betel nut required.

Getting there: Several international airlines fly from Australia to Bangkok and Singapore, from there Drukair has scheduled weekly flights to Paro, Bhutan. See drukair.com.bt

Getting around: Self-drive touring is not permitted; rather, independent travellers can hire a car and driver from a rental company or tourism service provider. Travel companies including Explore Worldwide, Intrepid and G Adventures offer small-group tours to Bhutan.

Staying there: An extensive range of accommodation is available, from luxury hotels to homestays to campsites.

Explore more: bhutan.travel

The writer was supported by Bhutan Tourism.