The Czar has been a big supporter of Bhutan since he first thought about it, around five minutes ago. Bhutan is a large country just to the right of Turkey, or at least that’s how it looked on Google Maps when we zoomed into it. It could be smaller.

Bhutan is funny because it’s actually pronounced འབྲུག་ཡུལ, and not “Bhutan” at all. Its nickname is the Thunder Dragon Kingdom, which you have to admit is pretty awesome. There’s even a dragon on the flag, in case you forget. That’s way better than Nepal, which suffers under the nickname of the Fungus Kingdom, but when you show up late, you get what’s left. Bhutan is tucked away in a mountainous part of the world, so probably has fantastic skiing.

Bhutan isn’t really a nice place, and insists its various minorities and religions all look and dress and talk the same way, so we suppose they’re liberals. Wikipedia informs us that Bhutan is divided into dzongkhags, whcih may or may not be subdivided into thromdes or geos. Thromdes elect Thrompons, whereas Geos elect gaps, mangmis, and various tshokde members. Gewogs are subdivided into chiwogs, and frankly we’re sick of the whole thing. It’s like reading some Tolkien bullshit.

The Bhutanese people are divided into Ngalops and Sharchops, but also some Lhotshampa can be found. They’re probably subdivided as well because this is Bhutan we’re talking about.

There are lots of animals in Bhutan, like langurs, dholes, and hispids, who are in turn subdivided into sambars, bingpos, and thronkhus, unless an electoral muftig is convened. That’s just the fauna; the plants are even worse.

Actually, there isn’t much about Bhutan that isn’t ridiculously over-complicated. It’s the Byzantium of the Himalayas.

The Bhutanese people will happily tell you about their rich and varied cultures, their wonderful food and customs, and a whole bunch of other stuff that’s impossible to verify, but every country says stuff like that. Can you imagine if there was an honest country? You know, one that said something like “Our national food is the yuzmit, which is a root vegetable paste that tastes like a combination of glue and hobo ass, and frankly everyone hates it.” Because that would be something.

But Bhutan lists its favorite dish as ema datshi, which sounds a lot like chili con queso. Maybe that’s not so bad as the Klingon photo here would have you believe. The Czar wonders where that is in the picture. Perhaps the bowl of pig bile.

The Czar also, just now, looked up some traditional Bhutanese customs and festivals on some tourism website, but he couldn’t read any of the words so he stopped bothering. Look, let’s not kid ourselves, here. Bhutan is not a place you’re probably ever going to go.