Buthan

I visited Bhutan for a couple weeks in the fall of 2008 (the time just leading up to the public coronation of the Fifth King; the private coronation was during our stay, saw some of it on Bhutanese TV ..... not that there is much programming there). That 2 lane mountain road that they are hitchhiking along in the movie is *THE* east - west traffic artery across the country. What you saw is pretty much what much of that road looks like; I recognized some of the crossroads and such from the latter parts of the movies (we never got as far east as the area where the movie begins).

Thimpu, the capital city that they are aiming for, is far and away the biggest city in the country at about 50000 people. Even in Thimpu there is not a single traffic light in the entire country. (For a while, Thimpu had one traffic light at the one central intersection. People thought it was too impersonal, so they got rid of it and brought back the traffic cop waving traffic through.) In off peak hours, like early evening, the traffic cop isn't even on duty any more; the intersection is fine without traffic control.

What they don't ever mention in the movie is that Thimpu won't be his final destination to catch a flight. Thimpu is the capital and biggest town, but it doesn't have an airport. There isn't a big enough patch of level ground for a runway in that area. So he'll have to go another few hours drive west to Paro to get to the country's only airport (one runway; nothing even tries to land after about 2:00 PM because as the afternoon goes on the mountain thermals create swirling crosswinds that are too dangerous). That should give you some idea of how rugged the terrain is and how isolated places can be from each other because of that terrain.