It was a disturbing scene. Three half-naked men, all wearing hideous carved masks, were running towards me, brandishing wooden phalluses the size of monkey wrenches. On my right, a shaven-headed monk mumbled a monotone mantra while striking a pair of discordant cymbals.

Overhead circled a large flock of ravens, getting closer with every lap. From the ancient monastery to my left came another man, wearing what appeared to be a welder’s mask, a sheen of oil and not much else.

Unravelling a bundle of cloth from behind his back, he gave a muffled shout and threw a large handful of buckwheat directly into my face. An old chap seated next to me smiled encouragingly as I choked on the dust. “This is very good news indeed,” he explained.

Unbeknown to me, I had received an auspicious blessing – one so powerful that it could cancel out the black marks accumulated by my life of materialistic self-gratification.

Gone fishing. In Bhutan

Bhutan may be a new tourist destination but Scottish trout discovered its charms years ago - plus, the world's best fishing

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The irony of it all almost made me blush. I had hiked in silence for three hours to reach this sacred festival in Ngang Lhakhang, but I was also staying in a hotel of such casual opulence that it shared its grounds with a royal palace.

My bed alone was so immense that it almost required its own Ordnance Survey map. Not for me the more wearisome aspects of Himalayan trekking – lentils for breakfast, stinking sleeping bags and typhoidal toilets. My circular journey around the Land of the Thunder Dragon would see me nestle each night in the luxurious lap of one of Aman Resorts’s five exclusive Amankora lodges. If my soul’s celestial share price took a hammering as a result, then so be it.

The long walk back helped to clear away any residual guilt. After the screams and yells of the festival had faded into the distance, the only sound came from the tinkling of the prayer bells in the trees and the flapping of the cream-coloured prayer flags that fluttered in the wind like tattered sails.

Far below, I could make out the turquoise river barrelling along the valley floor like a foaming rollercoaster. High above were the tops of snowy peaks, cut sharp against a deep blue sky. It was so unremittingly mountainous that I could almost see the tectonic plates creating fresh folds in front of my eyes. The occasional yak wandered out of the rhododendron bushes, watched me with unblinking patience and strolled off again. Trees so strangely shaped they could have been drawn by Dr Seuss sprouted as far as the eye could see.

There was absolutely nobody else around. So otherworldly was the landscape that when a white horse cantered out from a forest glade, I half-expected it to be a unicorn. It was almost a relief to stumble across an old woman, weaving together opened-out strips of bamboo in a clearing.

The atmosphere was equally tranquil at the Aman lodge in Gangte. There was an air of reverential calm about the place. Waiters in traditional Bhutanese dress glided silently along the stone corridors, while guests whispered to each other like students in the world’s most luxurious library. There were no televisions, no internet connections.

A brace of costumed musicians stood awkwardly in the echoing halls and plucked hopefully at lutes. Feeling like conversation, I sat down for dinner with an ageing Italian fashion designer and his younger French girlfriend. I mentioned my two favourite Bhutan facts: that the government measures progress in terms of Gross National Happiness, and that in a recent survey, 96% of the population declared themselves happy.

“Ah, but it’s not like Verbier,” she said. “There’s nothing to do, and the forts all look the same.”

By 9pm, everyone had gone to bed. I almost began to feel sorry for her. Instead, I took a walk outside and watched the moon slowly creep over the clifftop monastery on the other side of the frozen Phobjikha Valley. I had my own Bhutanese issues to deal with.

A personal consultation with the country’s top-rated astrologer at the start of the trip had yielded distressing news. Instead of the tantric tip-offs I’d hoped for – the one-two-three at next year’s Grand National, for example, or the name of my future wife – the clairvoyant had told me that I was to be reincarnated as a mountain goat. After getting over the initial shock, I had been trying to work out how I could get myself reborn as a human again the next time round. The opportunities for good deeds as a goat seemed limited.

Would I be allowed to enter a charity fun run? The odds had to be stacked against it. Perhaps Penjor, my guide, sensed my disquiet. The next morning he woke me early and led me bleary-eyed into the frosty dawn. Out on the icy marshes in front of the lodge, the morning sun gleaming on their busy beaks, pairs of giant black-necked cranes were splashing around in a contented fashion, hooting occasionally like agitated motorists. “When we hear the echo of their calls, it is a sign of spiritual happiness,” said Penjor.

We stood in silence and took turns with the binoculars. Cranes have been wintering in Phobjikha for more than 10m years, and their arrival in autumn inspires songs and dances throughout Bhutan. When they depart in spring, they perform a neat flyby of the Gangte monastery, circling three times before heading off to Tibet for the summer. Mating involves an elaborate dance – jumping, bowing and tossing grass around.

Today, they were merely breakfasting, but their prehistoric pecking kept us gawping, while discreet members of the lodge staff brought out blankets and ginger tea. Penjor had another treat up his sleeve. “You like archery in England? Surely! You are related to Robin Hood?” Only if he had a cousin from Essex called Barry, I thought, who did battle with the Sheriff of Chelmsford. Either way, I was about to make my international debut in Bhutan’s national sport.

With an interested audience of three local children, all of whom had stalactites of snot hanging from their nostrils, Penjor paced out the pitch and planted a painted wooden target at each end.

Disconcerted by the flinty stares of the kids, I let fly with my first arrow, sending it into a bush 10ft away. The kids hit the deck and screamed with laughter. Even Penjor performed a little jig of joy until he saw the look on my face. Apparently, putting your opponent off with whoops and rude gestures was more than just fair tactics. It was an integral part of the game.

Thus it came to pass that I spent four hours in a field with the four of them, firing arrows at targets of every description, only stopping when I noticed that the inside of my left forearm was dripping with blood from the bowstring’s stings.

My scores were mixed. Sure, I failed to top the rankings, but I finished ahead of one of the lads, and he was at least five years old, if not five and a half.

I had also bonded with Penjor. As we journeyed on towards Punakha, the trail clinging to precipitous mountain slopes like a creeper to a tree trunk, he told me colourful tales of Bhutan’s favourite Buddhist saints.

At Chimi Lhakhang we walked across the rice fields to the temple of Lama Drukpa Kunley, a 16th-century holy man, also known as the Divine Madman, who would refuse to preach until a beautiful woman and a flagon of wine were brought to him.

They were venerating his memory in style. Teenage monks bashed drums with a Keith Moon fervour, other red-cheeked rascals parped flatulent trumpets and the abbot blessed us twice on the forehead with Kunley’s own favourite preaching implement, an outsize wooden penis.

Even more impressive was the spiritual home of Guru Rinpoche, a thunderbolt-throwing legend who vanquished evil spirits for breakfast and travelled about the country on the back of a tigress.

Taktshang monastery teeters 900 metres above the floor of the Paro Valley. It was on this spot that the guru subdued the local demon, Singey Samdrup, and then meditated in a cave for three months. Legend has it that the building is attached to the vertical cliff face by the hairs of the angels themselves.

Penjor and I hiked up at dawn on my final day, glugging down fresh apple juice from the Aman orchards as we climbed. Two hours of breathlessness took us to an entrance arch hung with primary-coloured prayer flags. We slipped off our shoes and were beckoned in by a burgundy-cloaked monk.

Inside the cramped main room stood a shining statue of the guru, perched on a plinth adorned with elephant tusks and intricate carvings of grimacing dragons. The monk led me to its feet and began my blessing, pouring a few drops of holy water into my palm from a bronze jug decorated with peacock feathers.

I sipped a little and, as instructed, dribbled the remainder across my scalp.

The French girl had been right. It was nothing at all like Verbier.

Tom Fordyce travelled as a guest of Amankora and Cazenove & Loyd

Bhutan: smart guide

A visit to Bhutan is best organised by a specialist UK tour operator. Cazenove & Loyd (020 7384 2332, www.cazloyd.com), for example, has seven nights from £4,232pp, with one night in Delhi, and six nights, full-board, at any of the five Amankora lodges around the country, including flights from Heathrow to Paro with British Airways and Druk Air (via Delhi), a private car, driver and guide, the visa-processing fee and one wellness spa treatment.

Double suites at Amankora (00 800 2255 2626, www.amanresorts.com ) start from £517 per night, including all meals and house beverages, laundry, airport transfers to and from Amankora Paro or Amankora Thimphu and visa processing. Blue Poppy Tours and Treks (020 7700 3084, www. bluepoppybhutan.com) has a 10-night package to the Ura tsechu (festival) for £1,460pp, which includes return flights from Delhi to Paro, all food and accommodation in three-star hotels.

Amankora lodges can be organised for £300pp per night extra. Ebookers (0871 223 5000, www.ebookers.com) has fares from Heathrow to Delhi from £375 with Jet Airways. Alternatively, try Himalayan Kingdoms (0845 330 8579, www.himalayankingdoms.com) or Cox & Kings (020 7873 5000, www.coxandkings.co.uk).

When to go: while visitor numbers peak in September and October, the months from November to March see clear skies and pleasant daytime temperatures. In the spring (April and May), the rhododendrons are in full bloom and the weather is warm, if occasionally wet.

During the monsoon season (June to August), you’ll be reaching for an umbrella pretty much every day. For trekking, the best periods are September to December (clear skies, wonderful views) and March to April (warm, with countless flowers in full bloom).

Bhutan’s ancient tsechus are one of the country’s most distinctive attractions. Featuring traditional dances, masked morality plays and bizarre clowns, these religious festivals celebrate the life of Bhutan’s patron saint, Guru Rinpoche, and are the focal point of each community’s year. You’ll find one being staged somewhere almost every month (see www.tourism.gov.bt for full details), but here are five of the best.

Paro Tsechu, March 17-21
Bhutan’s biggest, most colourful and busiest tsechu, it climaxes with the unfurling of a giant thangka (woven banner) of Guru Rinpoche.

Ura Tsechu, Bumthang, April 16-20
Less crowded than Paro’s festival, it features three days of masked dances. Dates can change at the last minute, so leave yourself a few days’ leeway either side.

Kurjey Tsechu, July 12
Held in a monastery that houses an imprint of Guru Rinpoche’s body on rock, highlights include a dance symbolising the guru’s 8th-century defeat of local villain Shelging Karpo.

Thimphu Tsechu, October 9-11
Generally blessed with blue skies and warm weather, Thimphu’s tsechumarks the annual migration of its monks to their winter residence in Punakha.

Black-necked crane festival, Phobjikha, November 12
Held the day after the king’s birthday, the festival highlights the plight of Bhutan’s “heavenly birds”, which arrive each autumn from Tibet for the winter months.