Paro Tshechu Festival Tour

Your guide meets you at Paro airport. We drive to Thimphu, leaving the festival crowds behind for now, and spend the afternoon at the National Memorial Chorten and the Buddha Dordenma.

A day in the capital. At the National Institute for Zorig Chusum you can watch students carving and painting the kind of masks you will see worn in Paro later in the week. We also visit the Textile Museum, Changangkha Lhakhang and the Takin Preserve, and end at Tashichho Dzong.

March mornings are often clear at Dochu La, and the rhododendrons on the pass are coming into flower. We descend to Punakha, walk through the fields to Chimi Lhakhang and spend the afternoon at Punakha Dzong.

After the morning walk to Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten we drive back over Dochu La to Paro. The town is full and in holiday mood. In the late afternoon we walk down to the festival ground beside Rinpung Dzong to get our bearings for tomorrow.

We reach the ground early for a good place. The dances run through the day: monks in brocade and carved masks, laymen in the costumes of stags, hounds and wrathful deities, and groups of women singing between the dances. The atsaras, masked jesters, work the crowd, teasing people and collecting small donations.

Your guide explains what each dance means as it happens. Families bring picnics and stay all day, and you are welcome to come and go as you please.

We leave the hotel in the dark. The thongdrel is unrolled before first light, and people file past to touch their foreheads to its lower edge. As day breaks the monks perform a last sequence of dances in front of it, and it is rolled up again before the sun reaches it.

After a late breakfast and a rest we visit the National Museum in Ta Dzong and Kyichu Lhakhang.

With the festival over, the valley is quiet again. We walk up through the pines to the monastery at 3,120 m and come down for lunch. The afternoon is free, or we can arrange tea at a farmhouse in the valley.

Your guide and driver take you to the airport after breakfast.