Bhutan counts down to royal wedding

Bhutan's king Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck AFP FILE PHOTO

THIMPHU – Bhutan’s king, an Oxford graduate and “prince charming of the Himalayas”, is set to marry on Thursday at what promises to be an emotional moment for the 700,000 adoring subjects of his isolated nation.

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, 31, a mountain-biking fanatic and Elvis fan crowned in 2008, will wed a photogenic student 10 years his junior called Jetsun Pema, the daughter of an airline pilot.

The main wedding ceremony takes place on Thursday in a stunning 17th-century fortress surrounded by mountains and built at the confluence of two fast-running rivers in the ancient capital Punakha.

The newlyweds appear in public for the first time on Saturday at a sports stadium in the sleepy present-day capital Thimphu, where thousands of Bhutanese are expected to turn out in colourful national dress.

The announcement of the nuptials in May broke the hearts of the king’s many admirers — he was once mobbed on a trip to Thailand by weeping teenagers — but it has brought joy to his people, who idolise the royal family.

Cheerfulness abounds on the streets of the country that invented “Gross National Happiness” — a development philosophy that sees the government measure the mental well-being of citizens, not their material wealth.

“I have no words to describe it… I just feel wonderful,” 21-year-old student Chencho Dorji told AFP in Thimphu. “They are the perfect match.”

News of two small bomb blasts in a town on the border with India late on Monday, injuring two people, brought the only sour note to proceedings. They were the first attacks since the run-up to elections in 2008.

A government spokeswoman said police were unable to say who was suspected of planting the home-made explosives. Ethnic Nepalese groups angry about persecution in the 1990s have been blamed in the past.

Wangchuck is the fifth king from a line of hereditary rulers who have reigned for the last 100 years in the inward-looking country sandwiched between India and China.

They are credited with bringing stability to the formerly war-wracked nation and ensuring its independence despite giant neighbours to the north and south, while also preserving the country’s culture and fragile environment.

The biggest recent change came in 2006, when the former king abdicated voluntarily to usher in democracy and hand over power to his son, who now rules as a constitutional monarch at the head of an elected government.

Democracy has brought independent media and a new critical attitude towards public servants and the government, but the king remains a figure of almost universal admiration.

Tempa Gyeltshen, who is overseeing a team of 40 people preparing the sports ground for Saturday’s festivities, said the marriage was an assurance for Bhutanese people of the continuity of the institution.

“If anything happened to our king, then who would take over the throne?” he told AFP as his team erected tents for VIPs and decorated the elaborately carved wooden structure where the couple will sit.

“What we are all hoping for is children.”

Organisers of the wedding and celebrations have promised the style will be “simple and traditional”.

No heads of state or other royals have been invited, and even Bhutanese ministers have been asked not to bring their wives to the private ceremony on Thursday because of the lack of seating.

Modesty and a “common touch” are seen as part of the core appeal of the royal family and the present king in particular, who lives in a cottage in Thimphu rather than a palace.

The monarch, who shares a passion for basketball with his wife-to-be, is also famed for inviting his subjects in for tea to discuss their problems.

But his taste for American sport and his education in the United States and Britain is also a reminder that Bhutan is changing after centuries of self-imposed isolation.

The country had no roads or currency until the 1960s and allowed television only in 1999.

In another nod to modernity, Wangchuck will be limited to only one wife under rules laid down in the new constitution. His father married four sisters.