Bhutan Honeymoon Tour

Your guide meets you as you come out of the terminal, and the drive to Thimphu takes about an hour. After a long journey the afternoon is yours to rest. Towards evening, if you feel like going out, we walk round the National Memorial Chorten, where people come at the end of the day to circle the shrine and turn the prayer wheels.

A gentle day in the capital. We go up to the Buddha Dordenma, the great bronze statue above the town, and then to Simply Bhutan, a small living museum where you can try on the national dress, the gho and the kira, shoot an arrow and taste butter tea. Many couples have their photograph taken there in Bhutanese dress.

After lunch you choose: the Takin Preserve and the craft bazaar, or time to yourselves. Tashichho Dzong opens to visitors in the late afternoon.

We leave after a relaxed breakfast and stop on Dochu La, at 3,100 m, for tea among the 108 chortens and, in clear weather, the view of the mountains along the northern border. The road then winds down to the Punakha valley, which is lower, warmer and greener than anywhere else on the trip.

In the afternoon we visit Punakha Dzong, built in 1637 where two rivers meet and reached by a covered wooden bridge. In late spring the jacaranda trees along the bank are in flower.

The morning walk leads across a footbridge and up through rice terraces to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, on a ridge above the Mo Chhu. We come down for lunch beside the river.

Later we walk through the fields to Chimi Lhakhang. The temple honours Drukpa Kunley, the saint known as the Divine Madman, and couples from all over Bhutan come here to be blessed and to ask for children. Visitors are welcome to receive the same blessing.

After a walk across the long suspension bridge near the dzong, we drive up into the hills. The road climbs more than 1,700 m in two to three hours, and the rice gives way to bamboo and rhododendron.

Phobjikha is a wide, quiet valley at 3,000 m, with a monastery on a ridge at its head. We visit Gangtey Goenpa and are at the hotel in time for tea. Nights here are cold, so bring something warm for the evening.

A day with almost no driving. In the morning we walk the Gangtey nature trail, about two hours and nearly all downhill, from the monastery through pine forest to the edge of the marsh. From November to March the black-necked cranes winter here, and the Crane Information Centre has telescopes trained on them.

The afternoon is free.

The one long drive of the trip, five to six hours, with a stop for lunch on the way and tea on Dochu La. We reach Paro in the late afternoon and leave you to settle in.

An easy day before the climb to Tiger's Nest. At Kyichu Lhakhang, one of the oldest temples in Bhutan, you can light butter lamps together.

We go on to the National Museum in its round watchtower, and walk down to Rinpung Dzong and the covered bridge below it. The afternoon is free for the craft shops in town, or for nothing at all.

The walk to Taktsang is what most visitors to Bhutan remember best, and doing it together on the last full day makes a good end to the trip. The trail climbs through blue pine to a teahouse, then to a viewpoint level with the monastery, and finally down and up a staircase cut into the cliff. We go at your pace.

Your guide and driver take you to the airport and stay until you are checked in.