Bhutan Photography Tour

Your guide meets you at the airport and we drive to Thimphu, an hour away. The first afternoon is kept short, to let you get used to the altitude. We visit Changangkha Lhakhang, where families bring newborn babies to be blessed and the prayer wheels along the wall are rarely still.

At dusk we walk round the National Memorial Chorten. People come here at the end of the day to circle the shrine with prayer beads and hand-held prayer wheels, and the butter lamps are lit as the light goes.

We are at the Buddha Dordenma first thing, while the wide stone terrace around the statue is still empty. The rest of the morning is for people at work: the students of the National Institute for Zorig Chusum, who learn painting, wood carving, embroidery and the other traditional arts, and are used to visitors watching them. If your dates include a weekend, the farmers' market by the river is the most colourful place in town.

Tashichho Dzong opens to visitors in the late afternoon, once the offices inside have closed, and its courtyard is at its best in the last of the light. We end at the Sangaygang viewpoint above the town as the lamps come on below.

We leave the hotel in the dark, to be on Dochu La as the sun comes up. The pass is 45 minutes from Thimphu, at 3,100 m. In clear weather the mountains along the northern border stand in a line behind the 108 chortens, and the first light reaches the peaks before it reaches the pass. Cloud often builds by the middle of the morning, which is why we come early. Nobody can promise the view: on some mornings the pass is in cloud, and the chortens in mist make a different picture.

The road then drops more than 1,800 m to Punakha. After lunch and a rest we go to Punakha Dzong, built in 1637 where two rivers meet. We photograph it first from the far bank, with the covered bridge in front of it, and then go into the courtyards. The light is warmest in the last hour before the dzong closes.

With no drive to make, the day follows the light. We start early with the walk to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten: across a footbridge, up through rice terraces, to a ridge that looks down the Mo Chhu valley. The terraces are flooded and bright when the rice is planted in early summer, green through the rains, and gold in October before the harvest.

We rest through the middle of the day, when the light is flat and the valley is hot. Later we cross the suspension bridge upstream of the dzong, about 160 m from bank to bank and hung with prayer flags, and walk through the fields to Chimi Lhakhang. Farmers, schoolchildren and pilgrims use the same path, and the late afternoon is the time to be on it.

We drive south past Wangdue Phodrang and then climb for two hours through forest that changes with every few hundred metres of height. Phobjikha opens out suddenly at the top: a wide valley floor at 3,000 m, with farmhouses along its edges.

We visit Gangtey Goenpa, the monastery on the ridge, and walk part of the valley trail towards dusk. From November to March the black-necked cranes winter here, and in the evening they fly in from the fields to roost. A long lens helps, because nobody may go near the birds.

The valley is at its best in the first hour of the day, when mist lies on the marsh and, in the colder months, frost on the fields. We are out before breakfast and come back to the hotel to warm up.

Then comes the one long drive of the trip, five to six hours back over Dochu La to Paro, with a second chance at the mountain view on the way. We reach Paro in the late afternoon. After dark Rinpung Dzong is lit, and the view of it from across the river is worth staying out for.

Most walkers set out for Taktsang at first light. We do not, because in the morning the sun is behind the cliff and the monastery is in shade. We spend the first hours at Kyichu Lhakhang, one of the oldest temples in the country, where elderly pilgrims sit turning the prayer wheels, and start the climb in the middle of the morning.

The trail rises through blue pine to a teahouse, and then to the viewpoint level with the monastery, which we reach when the light has come round onto its walls. Cameras and phones are left at the gate before you go into the temples themselves. We are back down by late afternoon.

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