Agricultural fields on the steep-ish slopes around Paro give way to rice fields and quaint Bhutanese architecture as one speeds out of the Paro valley for taking off from Bhutan's only airport. The plane's acceleration is strained to the maximum as the plane needs to accelerate out of a relatively short runway to labour out to far higher altitudes within a very short period of ascent.

Paro airport itself has got to rank among the quantiest and cutest airports in the world, at par with Nice's Cote D'Azur airport for the promise of even prettier landscapes beyond!

The descent into Paro airport in Bhutan is a precipitous affair for any pilot - he or she has to suddenly negotiate a steep descent into the relatively narrow valley, dropping altitude rapidly after crossing the steep ridges before.

In the distance, one can see the peaks of western Bhutan. Please help us identify them - are those peaks Chomolhari (7314 m), Gangkar Punsum (7570 m) or Jitchu Drake? The treks that range up to the bases of these peaks are the valleys of Lingshi, Laya and Lunana.

This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of tens of thousands of hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM 1080i High Definition, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Reach us at wfi @ vsnl.com and [email protected].