This mountain kingdom occupies an area of 18,000 sq. miles (roughly the size of Switzerland) with varied climatic conditions: ranging from the hot and humid southern foothills, to the temperate inner Himalaya, and finally to the nearly 7700m high snowcaps of the high Himalayas that define Bhutan's northern frontier. Bhutan has a population of about one million and its state religion is the Drukpa sect of Kargyupa, a school of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. In the eleventh centuries since it was introduced, Buddhism has shaped the nation's history and it still plays a very vital role in the daily life of its people. A British journalist is so right when he says that Bhutan is a country drenched in religion. For, this country known for its undiluted culture and unspoiled ecology, the past is still present and its religion still a way of life.