SKY DRAGONEXPEDITIONS
All ten journeysCultural, trekking, festival, wildlife
Fourteen days from Paro to Trashigang and back out by air — Bumthang, the Thrumshing La, the weaving villages of Khoma, and a part of the country that sees very few visitors.
This is the long one. It crosses Bhutan end to end, over the Thrumshing La at 3,780 metres — the highest road pass in the country — into dzongkhags where a foreign face is still unusual and the weaving is the finest in the Himalaya.
The itinerary below is what we would run as written. Every day of it is adjustable — add a night, drop a drive, change a valley. Read when to travel if you are still choosing dates, and entry and fees for what a quotation covers.
Travellers who have seen western Bhutan, or who would rather cover ground than linger. There is a lot of driving and the hotels east of Bumthang are simple. In exchange you get a country almost nobody photographs.
Private departure, any date. We reply with a written itinerary and a full quotation.
Overnight stops in order. Read more about each valley on the valleys page.
Driving times are realistic for Bhutanese mountain roads. Everything here is adjustable.
Arrival, and a deliberately quiet afternoon. There is a great deal of road ahead and nothing is gained by starting tired.
If the flight is early, Kyichu Lhakhang and a walk by the river.
We take Thimphu at a brisk pace — Buddha Dordenma, the Memorial Chorten, a look at Tashichho Dzong from outside — then cross Dochu La in the afternoon and drop into Punakha.
It is a long day, but it puts you two valleys east on day two, which is what makes the rest of the route possible in fourteen days.
Punakha Dzong in the morning — 1637–38, the second oldest in the country, and the winter seat of the Je Khenpo — then the suspension footbridge over the Po Chhu.
In the afternoon, the walk up to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, about forty-five minutes uphill through the rice terraces.
Past Wangdue Phodrang and up to the Pele La at about 3,420 metres, the divide between western and central Bhutan, then down past Chendebji Chorten to the Mangde Chhu.
Trongsa Dzong, built in 1648, is the largest in Bhutan and controlled the only east–west route through the country. It is the reason the road you are on exists.
The Tower of Trongsa museum first, in the old watchtower above the dzong, then east over the Yotong La into the Chhume valley and the yathra weaving houses at Zungney.
Jakar in the afternoon, at about 2,600 metres.
Jambay Lhakhang, traditionally counted among the seventh-century foundations attributed to Songtsen Gampo; Kurjey Lhakhang, built around a cave holding what is held to be Guru Padmasambhava's body imprint; and Tamshing, founded in 1501 by Pema Lingpa.
Jakar Dzong in the afternoon, and a walk down through the fields. This is the last day before the road turns genuinely remote.
The defining day. The road climbs to the Thrumshing La at about 3,780 metres — the highest pass on Bhutan's road network — through Thrumshing La National Park, then makes one of the most dramatic descents in the Himalaya: roughly 3,200 metres of altitude lost in a single afternoon, through fir, then broadleaf, then sub-tropical scrub, on a road cut into cliff faces above the Kuri Chhu.
Mongar sits at around 1,600 metres. Its dzong is one of the newest in the country, built in the 1930s, and it demonstrates that the traditional techniques are still in use — no nails, no written plans.
A day trip north up the Kuri Chhu into Lhuentse — the ancestral home of the royal family and the most isolated dzongkhag in Bhutan. Lhuentse Dzong, built in 1654, stands on a bluff above the river with almost nothing around it.
Khoma village is the reason to come. Nearly every household here weaves kishuthara, the silk brocade kira that is the most valued textile in the country; an intricate piece can occupy a weaver for the better part of a year. You will be invited to sit and watch, and you should.
Over the Kori La at about 2,450 metres, past the chorten at the top and down through Yadi's long series of switchbacks to the Drangme Chhu.
Trashigang is the largest dzongkhag in Bhutan and the commercial centre of the east. Its dzong, founded in 1659, hangs above the river on a spur so narrow the buildings seem to be holding on. The town below it is a single sloping street where everyone eventually passes through.
North to Gom Kora, a small temple beside the river built around a black rock where Guru Padmasambhava is said to have meditated, and then to Trashiyangtse.
Chorten Kora, completed in 1740, is modelled on Boudhanath in Kathmandu — a white dome beside the Kulong Chhu that draws pilgrims from Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh. Trashiyangtse is also where wooden bowls and containers are turned; the craft school in the town teaches the thirteen traditional arts.
Radhi is known across Bhutan for bura, raw silk woven on backstrap looms, and the village works at it in the open. Rangjung, nearby, has a large and active monastery founded in the late 1970s.
This is a day for going slowly and talking to people, which is what the east is for. Your guide will find you a household to sit in.
Yonphula is about an hour above Trashigang on a ridge at roughly 2,500 metres. The flight to Paro takes a little over an hour and gives you back the two and a half days the drive would have cost.
Afternoon in Paro — Rinpung Dzong, built in 1644, and the National Museum in the watchtower above it.
The climb to Taktsang, four to five hours return with roughly 900 metres of ascent, finishing at the monastery at around 3,120 metres. Built in 1692 around Guru Padmasambhava's meditation cave, damaged by fire in 1998 and rebuilt.
It is an odd and rather good way to end this particular journey — the most photographed place in Bhutan, after two weeks in places that are not photographed at all.
Transfer to Paro International for your flight home.
Altitude range on this journey is 1,100–3,780 m. Sleeping heights matter more than the passes you drive over — see travel questions on altitude.
One figure covers everything on the left, the Sustainable Development Fee and the visa fee included. There are no compulsory extras added later.
More general questions are answered on travel questions.
We do not publish prices, because a private trip priced honestly depends on your dates, your group and the hotels you want. Tell us those three things and you will have a real figure.
No call centre and no automated quote. A person in our Thimphu office reads what you have written and replies with a plan built around it.
Private departure on any date you choose. We reply with a written itinerary and a full quotation.
Cultural
8 days · 7 nightsParo, Thimphu and Punakha at a pace that leaves room for the Taktsang climb, an afternoon in the Punakha rice terraces and a drive over Chele La.
Cultural
11 days · 10 nightsEast from Punakha over the Pele La to Trongsa, then into the four valleys of Bumthang — the oldest temples in the country and the quietest roads.
Cultural
7 days · 6 nightsOver Chele La into the quietest of the western valleys, with village walks, two old temples and a night away from the main circuit.