Traveling to the Happiest Country in the World!!

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imagine a country tucked away from the

rest of the world

hidden in the himalayas left to its own

devices to develop in unique and

incredible ways

that made sense for not only its own

culture but also for its entire

ecosystem some people claim that this

country is the happiest

in the world the last shangri-la and is

in fact the only country in the world

to be carbon negative meaning it's

producing three times more oxygen

than it consumes meet the country of

bhutan

so what makes this place so special are

the people there

truly the happiest and what have they

understood about the environment the

rest of us haven't

well after a recent trip to india for an

upcoming episode i went on my second

solo trip this month to visit the small

country

squeezed between the two most populated

countries on the planet the place is

phased with lots of ceronic pressure

and so with an open mind and loss of

questions let my 72-hour trip to the

magical country of bhutan

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begin

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uh

welcome to bhutan oh all right

this has got to be the most beautiful

airport i've ever seen in my life

what and even the freaking conveyor belt

for our luggage

is beautiful so the thing

about bhutan is that you're not allowed

to come here without an official tour

guide assigned to you and they hook you

up with hotels visas

transportation which means that i have a

guide waiting for me out here hi

how are you how are you fine yes great

to meet you man this is beautiful

i like it what was your name

so welcome this car for you thank you so

much great

wow awesome once again welcome to bhutan

thank you so much

i'm super excited to explore and and

learn about how

bhutan is apparently the happiest

country in the world right

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he's freaking huge the main goal for

today

is to turn lp into the first bhutanese

vlogger here you go

it's your turn but first what are we

doing right now we're going in the

buddha statue

it's one of the largest sitting buddha

in the world so 210 feet

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wow

after exploring a few more iconic places

in bhutan i felt amazed by the scenery

yet i still had so many unanswered

questions why do some

call this place the happiest country how

does their society differ from any other

place in the world and just as these

questions came to mind

my friend kevin we had met in thailand

last year heard that i was in bhutan

and had a connection to the perfect man

to answer all of this the ex-prime

minister

of bhutan and so funnily enough before

beginning the hour-long drive over to

his house to interview him

i was walking over to go get him a gift

and i noticed

something strange i just went on a quick

little walk

and as i'm walking around i'm slowly

starting to notice that this country has

a weird

obsession with penises

there's penises on a lot

of different buildings i've been like

kind of seeing it and i was like oh that

guy's got a penis on his house and they

kind of like not really think about it

and now as i've been walking around i'm

noticing this is not a coincidence or a

one-off situation

people in bhutan really like penises

okay so i have to ask you because i want

to make sure i get that

story on camera what's the deal with all

the penises on all the houses

yeah to protect to protect from the evil

and the coast does anybody find it funny

or is it always

just seen that it's part of the culture

yeah it's part of culture for us it's

usually the original touristy tech means

they feel shy

yeah so that's why i don't talk much

about that yeah

oh my god well you learn something every

day so we are about to go meet

the ex-prime minister of bhutan and we

need to bring him a gift i can't believe

these

freaking penises it feels like such a

juxtaposition next to

all of these religious buddha statues

and then there's just

a whole bunch of cooks what do you think

that one

i don't know if i'm confident enough to

bring a penis as a gift you know what

i'm saying

which one would you recommend uh that

one yeah this one and those are the four

doorways to heaven that's pretty nice

yeah

yeah we'll do that thank you so much

all right now we gotta run and so after

getting the gift so we drove an hour to

finally sit down

with the ex-prime minister thank you so

much for agreeing to do this on such a

last-second notice i just want to start

by asking you for somebody who doesn't

know

the basics of the girl's happiness

income

gross wrestling girl's national

happiness yeah i know i really don't

know

but gross national happiness is

basically a development philosophy

that acknowledges that economic growth

is important

but that economic growth must not be

mindless

it should also be sustainable

environmentally sustainable

and it also should be equally spread

throughout

society until recently bhutan was the

only country in the world that's carbon

neutral

okay and now suriname is also carbon

neutral so

the two countries but i mean we have 195

countries in the world today

and to have two countries and that to

two small countries just two countries

that are carbon neutral is not

acceptable

in bhutan we sequester about three times

more carbon dioxide than we emit as a

nation

traditional economist would have advised

his majesty the king to

harvest the forest yet he didn't and all

i can say is that he was way ahead of

his times

so some people say bhutan is one of the

happiest countries

in the world do you feel like that's

just like something outsiders say about

bhutan or do you agree with that

statement

or yes and no yes or no yeah it's

something that outsiders say

because they've heard about the

development philosophy of cross national

happiness

and there's a misunderstanding people

have just

concluded that this must be the happiest

country in the world

and yes you may have noticed that we

smile a lot and when we smile we

smile from the depths of our soul you

know who's to say that we are the

happiest people

there are many societies and some

societies may be happier

yet we should ought to be happy also

because

the conditions of happiness are

available in bhutan

free health care free education clean

air natural environment

is the rule of law justice these are all

in place

what does bhutan do that you think other

countries could easily implement

if there is something that we can share

is the importance of leadership

the world knows the importance of

leadership absolutely no doubt

but we have enjoyed the blessings of

enlightened leaders

whether it is our monasteries or whether

it's a wildlife

whether it is a hot tall mountains that

are still

unclimbed yeah all of them ultimately is

because of enlightened leadership

so we are a small country tucked away in

the himalayas

sandwiched between two huge giants yet

our culture is intact our spirituality

is intact

economy is growing gradually but

sustainably and all of this because

of enlightened kings there's a lot of

young people in the world

that are anxious are depressed what do

you think the world can learn about

bhutan's

happiness i guess making happiness a

priority firstly

youth all over the world are anxious

bhutanese yuta anxious

i am anxious but what makes it worse is

because we are so connected now

earlier you are isolated in your own

village

urbanization came and then the internet

and now like

you're not in your cocoon no too much

information

too much emotions we're trying to create

a platform

for people to be able to connect because

i think connection is the big reason too

because we think we're connected because

we're on our phone

yeah but we're not actually having the

real connection in real life yeah our

goal soon is to build

an app that can allow people to just go

out and connect and

find activities to do together tinder

does that right yeah

our society is too small you

well anyways thank you so much for

taking the time i really appreciate it

i think the world will learn a lot from

your wisdom and and i'm so grateful to

have had time in bhutan i'm so grateful

that your wisdom thomas

thank you very much thank you and and a

big hi from bhutan to all your followers

there you go that was so good

i'm so nervous anyway thanks you got a

picture

yeah thank you very much of course thank

you

look at my face

man he was such a kind and wise and

generous human being

i'm blown away

wow so we're going all the way up there

we're hiking straight

up like a mountain pretty much yes on

the hill

okay we are beginning the hike to tigers

nest which is apparently one of the most

holy places in all of bhutan but also

apparently in all of buddhism the second

buddha who's the one that popularized

and spread buddhism all over asia

spent three years three months and three

days

meditating in the cave that's built

right next to the temple

i'm out of breath we barely started

we're super high up in elevation and

we're about to go even higher

is that it wow

are you climbing what 2 100 meter wow

hi buddy

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where's this guy coming from someone

lost a horse or oh there he is

that's pretty funny that horse was

trying to do the hike on its own today

we're about to peek over the hill we're

going to get a solid first glimpse

it's beautiful

apparently in buddhism culture when you

go hiking you wash away your sins good

for the health good for the body good

for the soul

ah we're getting so close

look at this thing there's just

something

in the air it's like very hard to

describe but all of a sudden my heart

just dropped

ah what a view

oh my god this place is magical for the

last little stretch

you cannot bring any technology with us

you know a lot to film inside

they consider them very holy places and

they want to preserve them you have to

put on pants you have to put on

a shirt to cover your arms i'm so

freaking excited

to go see what this place looks like

we just got out of tiger's nest and i

just had one of the most

intense spiritual moments i've ever

experienced

um at a moment where i closed my eyes

and my grandpa passed away

around this time of the year about four

years ago

i just had a moment where i felt like he

was

and here felt like he would have loved

experiencing this moment with me

but i know that somewhere around here

he did there's just something about this

place that just leaves me

so um uncontrollably emotional

i felt like the sound was muffled around

me i was just so in

awe and taken by the scenery and the

beauty of this place

i feel um grateful right now to

experience this moment

after spending three days in bhutan i

was blown away by what i had learned

but i also think it's safe to say that i

only scratched the surface of

understanding how this country truly

operates there's a surprising

combination of cultural political and

ecological factors

that allows bhutan to exist the way it

does are people there truly the happiest

well i'm not sure but what has given

them that reputation in the past is this

dedication to value the populations and

the environment's overall well-being

over blindly chasing financial gain and

that's the main learning lesson that i

took away

from this trip that bhutan's harmonious

strategy between business and nature

and unwillingness to compromise the

health of this environment is what's

allowed them to flourish the way they

have

and so as we think of our nature moving

forward maybe we should all keep a

little bit of bhutan

in our hearts we'll see you next week

i just want to end this video by giving

a shout out to our friends in beautiful

destinations who provided us with some

of the drone footage and b-roll for this

video

click on the video right here to check

out what they made in bhutan it's

absolutely incredible and 100 percent

worth watching