Bhutan’s novel approach to tourism: daily fees for travellers
The Himalayan nation has partly opened its carved doors to luxury travellers in the hope of avoiding the over-tourism of other alluring destinations. Will it work?
My guide, Tara, chuckled when I asked him when we’d reach the main road. “Chris, this is the highway!” We had been driving south from Jakar, a valley town in central Bhutan’s Bumthang district, for almost 30 minutes, but I had yet to clock any hallmarks of modern-day infrastructure. Towering fir trees and pines dwarfed the few wooden utility poles I spotted on the hillsides.
We dodged plump cows taking their sweet time crossing the road and, occasionally, we’d pass a lonely farm with intensely red chillies drying on its tin roof. Everywhere, thickets of wild marijuana lined the road. “It’s illegal to smoke it, so it’s used as pig food,” Tara said. “We have the happiest pigs in the world.”
After another half-hour on a bone-rattling dirt road along the folds of a mountain, we reached our destination of the day: Ogyen Choling, a 19th-century manor with noble pedigree converted into a museum. At its heart stands the utse, an ornate layer cake of whitewashed stone and timeworn woodwork stacked like Jenga blocks and swathed in jolts of ochre and electric blue.
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Impressive, absolutely. But I couldn’t shake the feeling I had seen it all before. In a country where even the humblest homes feature intricately carved windows and their every square inch is covered in kaleidoscopic paintwork of auspicious gemstones, coiling dragons and good-luck phalluses with swirling ribbons around their shafts, it had become increasingly challenging to be swept off my feet.
I had arrived in Bhutan 10 days prior, on the day of the country’s official reopening after more than two years of pandemic-induced hibernation. And while that was reason enough for the tarmac-side welcome ceremony with masked dancers and salty butter tea, that cloudy September morning also rang in a new era for Bhutan’s tourism industry. From that day on, tourists would have to shell out almost $300 per day – on top of hotel costs, food, and transportation – for the sheer privilege of being here.
It’s a forward-thinking move to prevent the country from, in a way, moving forward too fast. With the tourist-trampled hiking trails of nearby Nepal serving as a cautionary tale, Bhutan doubled down on the “high value, low volume” tourism strategy it launched in 1974, when the kingdom first put its doors ajar for international travellers.
“The fee is basically an investment in Bhutan’s people and future,” Carissa Nimah, the Brisbane-born chief marketing officer of Bhutan’s Department of Tourism, told me over drinks that first night in the pinecone-scented lobby of Amankora’s Thimphu Lodge. “It’s there to ensure a balance between economic returns and non-material gains, such as the preservation of the environment, culture, history, and resources for the Bhutanese people.”
The hermitic strategy seemed to have paid off. While it’s wedged between fast-moving powerhouses China and India, Bhutan still feels like a warp to simpler times (yet it’s far ahead of the curve in terms of clean energy and nature preservation).
Even in Thimphu, where the kingdom is as modern and international as it gets, newly built apartment blocks follow a strict construction code that dictates the use of age-old Bhutanese building styles – ornamental window heads, low-slung gabled roofs and timber trimmings. There’s no Starbucks or McDonald’s, and in 1995 the arrival of the first traffic lights was met with such resistance that they were promptly removed just 24 hours later. Today, a white-gloved officer still directs cars on the city’s main roundabout with zippy, voguing-like hand gestures.
Nimah is just one of the few dozen or so professional expats calling the kingdom home. “Every day I open my front door and see the Himalayas, prayer flags, the giant Buddha and a massive dzong fortress,” she said. “It’s like I’m living on the pages of a fairytale book.”
I felt similarly enchanted from the moment I touched down at Paro airport. In this age where seemingly every destination has been Instagrammed into oblivion, it’s a rare treat to arrive in a country still so shrouded in mystique. Bhutan’s prohibitive price tag has kept tourist numbers relatively low, and a strict no-photography policy at temples and the dzongs’ holiest chambers (a rule Tara attributed to an “Ocean’s Twelve-style temple heist” in the 1970s) leave their rich interiors as a goosebump-inducing revelation.
Nothing could’ve prepared me for that first peek inside one just outside Thimphu: a riot of ruffled Chinese silks suspended from the ceiling; walls covered in painted scenes depicting cloud-riding gurus and saints and dancing heavenly birds; towering, multi-headed Buddhas peering down on me with golden eyes; and between all this, the air gelatinous with sweet smoke wafting from dozens of flickering butter lamps.
Over the following days, Tara and my driver, Kinley, chaperoned me from Thimphu to Bumthang on a road trip covering the five valleys Amankora’s lodges are pitched up in – Paro, Thimphu, Punakha, Gangtey and Bumthang. As the first international luxury brand to be granted a business licence in the early 2000s, Aman Resorts had first dibs on some of the country’s most awe-inspiring sites.
At the Paro Lodge, for instance, the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lobby lounge overlook the recently renovated Drukgyel Dzong, backdropped by the snowy summit of Mount Chomolhari on clear days. And in Thimphu, Amankora’s monastic hideaway disappears from the city’s hubbub in a pine forest on the edge of town.
We stopped at waterfall-powered praying wheels spinning into a rainbow blur and spotted snow-capped Himalayan peaks from the stupa-studded Dochula Pass – an imposing tribute to the Bhutanese soldiers fallen during a battle with Assamese separatists in 2003. Tara also pointed out a signpost for the Trans-Bhutan Trail that cuts through the mist-shrouded mountains nearby.
Once part of the Silk Road-era network of paths connecting Bhutan’s dzongs and sacred sites, the trail was revived during the pandemic lull and now welcomes intrepid visitors for cross-country treks of up to 36 days. Personally, though, I preferred the comfort of our mini-van. Tara filled the long drives between stops with an endless stream of tales and anecdotes on everything from Buddhist mythology to rhino encounters near his hometown in Bhutan’s southern plains.
While the pandemic downtime had been rough on him, he used it to brush up his knowledge on the country’s geography, complex history, and flora and fauna. In anticipation of the return of an even more demanding crop of tourists, the Department of Tourism mandated new certifications and exams for all guides to ensure the highest quality of service.
In low-lying Punakha, Bhutan’s capital until 1955, the high-altitude fir forest that cloaked the landscapes I had seen so far had faded into a subtropical patchwork of ribbed rice paddies and orchards sweetened with the scent of ripe guava. In the heart of the valley, wedged between two gurgling rivers, the Punakha Dzong arose from a halo of jacaranda trees, some still frothy with their summery lilac blooms.
Like all dzongs dotted around the country, the Punakha Dzong serves as the district’s religious and administrative centre. I watched a coming-and-going of crimson-robed monks and merit-makers wearing kira (traditional Bhutanese garments), clutching wooden rosaries and rattling handheld praying wheels. While I shuffled through the higgledy-piggledy hallways that cut through the complex like secret tunnels, I only needed a pinch of imagination to envision what this dzong would’ve looked like during its heyday in the 18th century.
Further down the valley, Amankora Punakha played into this nostalgia by converting a traditional rice paddy-fringed farmhouse into the lodge’s central lounge and dining room. Upon my arrival, I received a string of rainbow-hued prayer flags to tie along the suspension bridge that marked the resort’s entrance – a way to let the wind carry peace and compassion around the country.
It rubbed off on me – while Punakha is a prime destination for outdoorsy activities such as mountain biking and whitewater rafting, its balmy climate and Amankora’s lounger-lined pool had a Zen-ish staying-put appeal. My room, too, made it hard to leave. Like the rooms at Amankora’s other outposts, all roughly similar in size and layout, the design draws on Aman’s signature hushed aesthetic with cloudlike beds, deep soaking tubs and walls crafted from honey-hued wood – a stark contrast with the rammed-earth and lime-washed stone of the lodges’ exteriors.
At the restaurants, set in the plushest spots of each resort, lunches and dinners draw on Bhutan’s bounty in dishes ranging from Mediterranean-tinged salads with roasted beetroot and goat’s cheese to Bhutanese spreads of pork-filled momo dumplings, local red rice and ema datshi (a spicy staple of green chilli and cheese). Around a crackling campfire in the courtyard that night, I had my pinky fingers linked with the lodge’s other guests – a troupe of retired Americans and a couple from Singapore, giddy and rosy-cheeked from the hot apple cider we were served. We danced around the pit to Bhutanese folk songs calling for good karma and happiness, sung by a choir of kira-clad women in lingering syllables delivered endearingly off-key.
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“We don’t expect material rewards for the offerings we make in our current life. If we take care of others and offer what we can with a good heart, we’ll reap the benefits in our next life.”
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Revived after a day of rest, our next stop was the Phobjikha Valley in the Gangtey district, which unfurled like a vast stream of marshy grassland bisected by a snaking river. We arrived too early in the season to spot its most notable wintertime residents, roosting black-necked cranes flying over from higher up on the Tibetan Plateau, but finding swathes of the valley covered in pink and yellow buckwheat fields made for a worthy trade-off.
Pricey it may be, but Bhutan is a country that deals in simple joys. Impromptu picnic lunches in the shade of a stupa. Watching novice monks play football on a dzong’s cobblestone courtyard. The very act of filling my lungs with crisp mountain air. Even at Amankora, which comes with a not-so-simple price tag of at least $2,000 per night, the experiences that stayed with me were the most humble ones.
The next night, with muscles screaming from a day hiking and horseriding through the moss-carpeted pine forests flanking the Phobjikha Valley, I found myself floundering through a muddy potato field behind Amankora’s Gangtey Lodge. I had only the faint beam of a lantern to help me dodge the pie-sized cow patties polka-dotting the mud, but reached the stonewalled shack unscathed.
Inside, dozens of candles threw a flickering glow over a wooden tub, a traditional hot-stone bath filled with wormwood leaves. As I slid into the herbal soup, a small hatch opened from where a hot football-sized stone dropped into the water with a steaming sizzle. Back in my room, with my mind hazy and my hair smelling of wood fire, I dozed off into one of the best sleeps I’d had in ages.
Our easternmost and final stop before our return to Paro was Bumthang where Amankora’s straight-lined lodge of white stuccoed stone and timber overlooked not only the imposing hilltop dzong of Jakar, but also the neighbouring late 19th-century Wangdicholing Palace. At Jambay Lhakhang, Bhutan’s oldest temple dating back to the arrival of Buddhism in the seventh century, Tara and I joined dozens of elderly worshippers who had come here from all over the country to pray.
As we circled the red-ribboned perimeter of the building (always clockwise, leaving a small pebble on the windowsill for every round), Tara explained the virtues of his religion. “We don’t expect material rewards for the offerings we make in our current life,” he said. “If we take care of others and offer what we can with a good heart, we’ll reap the benefits in our next life.”
It struck me as an apt allegory for the approach Bhutan has taken with its tourism industry. The high price tag wasn’t instated to give today’s travellers a vastly improved experience. Instead, it’s an investment in the happiness of Bhutan’s next generation. A pay-it-forward act to ensure the travellers of tomorrow will still be able to experience the unspoilt magic of the last Shangri-La.
The writer travelled as a guest of Amankora.
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