Only the other day, it was Cameron Diaz, cooing on a television channel, ‘‘My favourite thing about Bhutan is they measure their country’s wealth, not based on the dollar amount, but on gross national happiness.’’ She was not being cute, the mandate of the modern Bhutan state is: Gross National Happiness—economic development leads to happiness.

Last week, the fashion director of the London-based Daily Telegraph, Hilary Alexander, was in the country for a fashion shoot—the 17th century Rinpung Dzong fort, brimming with burgundy and yellow, the haute colours for Fall/Winter 2006, was the perfect backdrop for the gold taffeta Bruce Oldfield gown.

Mick Jagger has been there, so has Prince Charles. Richard Gere, Uma and Robert Thurman, Keanu Reeves, Vogue, National Geographic, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jennifer Lopez, Orlanda Bloom, Princes of Japan and Thailand, Donna Karan, Queens of Norway and Sweden, Kenneth Branagh—it is a list any tourism board would kill for.

Brad Pitt has planted trees to conserve Bhutan’s forests—it’s the latest hip trend for celebs: carbon neutrality. Brad is one of the thronging supporters of a UK conservation company which calculates a star’s total emissions of carbon dioxide (everyone is now petrified of global warming) for a year and plants the number of trees required to absorb the CO2, thus nullifying their effect on the atmosphere.

So, what lures the jet-setting global traveller to this country in the clouds, where Internet and cable television arrived only in 2002, where traffic jams are crowded with yaks and mules, where there aren’t any traffic lights and swimming pools, where Versace and D&G won’t open stores as its government has decreed that all citizens must wear the national dress, and where the whole state is a no-smoking zone?

Precisely this, says a beaming Sonam Dorji, general secretary of the Association of Bhutan Tour Operators, Bhutan is a hidden paradise, defying globalisation and homogenous lifestyles. ‘‘Bhutan is a bio-diversity, eco and cultural hotspot. Visitors come for its raw, natural beauty that range from sub-tropical jungles to dramatically rise up to the great northern glaciers, ideal for treks and drives. The country has 72 per cent forest cover, it is home to exotic wildlife. Our festivals are a big draw too, dances and chants that bless onlookers and exorcise evil, so are the hundreds of monasteries and chanting kid-monks.’’

For the New Age crystal-clutching spiritual junkies, ”Bhutan is a bio-diversity, eco and cultural hotspot. Vistors come for its raw, natural beauty, ranging from sub-tropical jungles to the great northern glaciers, ideal for treks and drives. The country has 72 per cent forest cover, and is home to exotic wildlife. Our festivals are a big draw — with dances and chants that bless onlookers and exorcise evil— and so are the hundreds of monasteries and chanting kid-monks.”

Adrian Zecha, the 70-year-old hotelier of the achingly trendy Aman group of resorts was the first to see Bhutan’s potential as a heavenly destination, and has opened the first of a six-resort chain in the country, the 24-room luxe hotel, Amankora, in 2003.

Zecha’s perseverance had finally paid off. After 13 years of pursuit, Bhutan’s monarch, always terrified of mass tourism, opened up the kingdom for foreign direct investment in 2001, to allow Zecha and other style gurus to open their resorts.

Hot on his heels came the East’s anointed Countess of Chic, the Singapore-based Christina Ong, owner of the Metropolitan hotels in London and Turks, to open Uma Paro, the first spa resort in the country.

Both Amankora and Uma Paro dedicatedly follow the country’s unique style—with rammed earth houses, nestling around centuries-old monastry-fortresses, luxe service, pine-wood floors, log-burning stoves, terrazzo bath tubs, roof to floor views of snow-capped mountains, and prices ranging from $800-$2000 a night.

The Taj Group will unveil its hotel in mid 2007, the Oberois are scouting for the perfect location.

Perhaps, the only other fortunate visitors to afford Bhutan are Indians, mostly from the neighbouring state of West Bengal. The government has capped a stiff $200-a night spending compulsory, but Indians are exempt from this royal decree.

Says Dorji, ‘‘Bhutan’s highest inbound tourism is a mere 14,000 visitors, though we get 25,000 Indian tourists a year. In fact, the Tourism Board is planning a mega promotion in India’s metro cities to bring its mega rich and fashionable crowd. We cannot rely on the West alone.’’

So, is there anything one can complain about in Bhutan? The food, says the candid Dorji, it is last on the traveller’s list. Even though the pork is tasty—the pigs are fed on marijuana which grows abundantly in the countryside—you cannot live on pork and yak burgers all the time. Perhaps the time for the March of the Tandoors has come?