Aether Bhutan Tours and Travel
Thimphu, Bhutan | +975 77391059 | sonamnamdrel000@gmail.com
Aether Bhutan Tours and Travel
Eight days around Paro Tshechu, Bhutan’s great spring festival
Paro Tshechu is the largest festival in western Bhutan and the easiest to reach — an hour from the airport, in a dzong courtyard that fills with several thousand people in their finest kira and gho. It runs for five days. We attend two of them, which is the right amount.
The journey is built around the final morning. Before sunrise on the last day the Guru Thongdrel is unfurled — a silk appliqué scroll several storeys high, shown in darkness and rolled away before the light touches it. Being there means a 4am start and standing in the cold. Nobody who has done it regrets it.
Around the festival we take the western valleys at an unhurried pace: the climb to Taktsang, Punakha Dzong at the river confluence, and enough unscheduled hours that the trip does not feel like a queue.
Your guide meets you in arrivals and the drive to the hotel takes twenty minutes. An easy afternoon — Rinpung Dzong, where the festival will be held, and the old cantilever bridge below it.
Into the courtyard early for the best position. The dances run through the day: the Black Hat dance, the dance of the judgement of the dead, and the atsaras — masked clowns who work the crowd between them. Leave when you have had enough; it is a long day and nobody minds.
A rest from the festival. We start at first light for the Tiger’s Nest — around 900 metres of ascent through pine, with the monastery appearing and disappearing as you climb. Afternoon free.
A 4am start. The Guru Thongdrel is unfurled in darkness and the crowd files past to receive its blessing; it is rolled away before sunlight reaches it. We are usually back at the hotel for a late breakfast, and the rest of the day is yours.
Over the Dochula pass at 3,100 m, where 108 chortens stand and the eastern Himalaya lines the horizon on a clear morning. Down into the warm Punakha valley, and Chimi Lhakhang in the afternoon across the rice fields.
Punakha Dzong in the morning light, at the confluence of the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu. Afterwards the walk up to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten — an hour uphill through paddy, and worth it for the view back down the valley.
Back west with a half day in the capital — the Buddha Dordenma above the valley and the National Memorial Chorten in the late afternoon. A hot stone bath in a Paro farmhouse to finish.
A last breakfast and the short drive to the airport.
No obligation, and no sales sequence afterwards.
Every one of these is a starting point, not a fixed package.
Jambay Lhakhang Drup in Bumthang — the fire ceremony and the midnight dance.
Weavers, painters and papermakers, and the valleys they work in.
The full traverse, Paro to Trashi Yangtse, with the Thrumshingla crossing.
Festival dates shift with the lunar calendar every year. Tell us which year you are thinking of and we will confirm the exact dates before you book flights.
