Bhutan measures itself in Gross National Happiness, bans tourism it doesn’t want, and hangs its most famous monastery — Tiger’s Nest — off a cliff 900 metres above the Paro valley. It is the last Himalayan Buddhist kingdom, and it is not a cheap country by design: the daily fee is the wall that keeps it intact.
Punakha Valley & Haa District » 8-Day Hidden Bhutan Tour is a 8-day private tour of Bhutan, run on your own dates with a private guide and driver. You stay in government-approved 3–4 star hotels on full board, with a licensed Bhutanese guide and driver — and the $100/night Sustainable Development Fee is included in your price.
Prices are per person and drop as your group grows — from $3510 per person for two travellers down to $2600 for a group of seven. Every departure is private: you never share the vehicle or the guide.
8-day Bhutan itinerary
Landing at Paro is an event in itself — the approach threads between mountains and only a handful of pilots in the world are certified to fly it. Paro sits at 2,200 metres in a broad green valley of terraced rice and traditional painted houses. An easy first afternoon on foot: Bhutan measures itself in Gross National Happiness rather than GDP, which sounds like a slogan until you spend a day here.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
Back over the pass to Paro. Ta Dzong was the watchtower guarding the fortress below and is now the National Museum, a round building you spiral upwards through. Rinpung Dzong — 'fortress on a heap of jewels' — is the best-looking dzong in Bhutan; you cross to it on a covered cantilever bridge, and its courtyard is where the spring festival masked dances are held.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
The Memorial Chorten was built for the third king and is where Thimphu's older residents circumambulate all day, turning prayer wheels. Tashichho Dzong is government and monastery in one building, which tells you most of what you need to know about Bhutan. The National Library holds the world's largest published book. And the Buddha Dordenma seats 125,000 smaller Buddhas inside it.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
Over the Dochula Pass at 3,100 metres, where 108 chortens stand in concentric rings and, on a clear morning, the eastern Himalaya fills the entire skyline. Down into the warm Punakha valley to Chimi Lhakhang, the fertility temple of the 'Divine Madman' — a 15th-century saint who taught through obscenity and drink, and whose emblem is painted on the houses all around, which you will notice. Punakha Dzong stands at the confluence of the Mother and Father rivers and is the most beautiful building in the country.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
West to Haa, which was closed to foreigners until 2002 and still sees almost none. The White Temple and the Black Temple were both founded in the 7th century by the Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo, who built 108 temples in a single day to pin down a demoness — two of them are here. The valley is high, narrow, forested and quiet, and yak herders still work the pastures above it.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
Over Chele La at 3,988 metres — the highest road in Bhutan, with prayer flags in their thousands and Jomolhari, 7,326 metres, on the horizon — and down into Paro for the walk up to the Tiger's Nest: four hours round trip, 900 metres of cliff below it, and one of the great sights of the Himalaya.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
The Tiger's Nest clings to a granite cliff 900 metres above the valley floor, and it is a four-hour round trip on foot to reach it — the walk is the pilgrimage. Guru Rinpoche is said to have flown here on the back of a tigress in the 8th century and meditated in the cave for three years, three months, three weeks and three days. Then Chele La, at 3,988 metres the highest road pass in Bhutan, and Kyichu Lhakhang, built in 659 AD and one of the oldest temples in the Himalaya.
Overnight: 3-star hotel / tented camp on trek.
A transfer to Paro airport for your flight out. End of our services.
