New Delhi, April 1 -- As an eight-year-old, I recall having to convince another child I was playing with in Hubli, Karnataka, that I lived in Haa. Fiddlesticks and fairytales, he said, for there's no such place. I agreed with him about the fairytale aspect. Life in the quaint Bhutanese hamlet was idyllic: running in green meadows, climbing up small hills and loping along Haa Chu, the river that ran behind our house.

Haa, which translates to "the hidden valley of rice", is one of the 20 dzongkhag, or districts, of Bhutan. The second least populated dzongkhag in the country after Gasa, the isolated Haa district largely remains off the tourist map as travellers typically land in Paro and head to Thimphu, Punakha and lately, Bumthang.

My ch...