Tsaluna Trek

Your guide meets you at the airport and takes you to your hotel. After lunch we go up to Ta Dzong, the old watchtower that houses the National Museum, and walk down from it to Rinpung Dzong. The hillside behind the museum is where the trek begins, the day after tomorrow.

A walk to Taktsang before a trek is time well spent. You climb to 3,120 m and come back down to sleep, which is how the body gets used to height. Back in Paro we look over your kit, and your guide explains how a day in camp runs.

The crew and the pack ponies are waiting above the National Museum. Today is the hardest of the four: a climb of more than 1,000 m, past farmhouses and orchards at first and then through blue pine and fir. We camp in a clearing just below Jele Dzong, a small fortress on the crest of the ridge. On a clear evening the Paro valley lies far below, with Jomolhari to the north.

If the caretaker is at home we look inside Jele Dzong before leaving. Then comes a short day along the ridge, rising and falling gently through rhododendron forest, which is in flower in April and May. Yak herders graze their animals in the clearings here, and pheasants may be seen near the path. Camp is on open pasture, with the afternoon to rest.

The path stays on the crest, and this is the day for mountains: in clear weather Jomolhari and Jichu Drake stand out to the north. The ridge rises to about 4,100 m, the highest ground of the trek, before the trail drops to Jimilang Tsho, a long, dark lake known for its large trout. The tents go up on the shore.

This is where we part from the Druk Path. The main trail climbs on towards Simkotra Tsho; ours turns downhill, into fir and rhododendron forest and then beside a stream, to the temple at Tsaluna and the farms of the village. The temple is known as Tsalu Ney and is held to be a place where Guru Rinpoche meditated. It is downhill almost all the way, which is harder on the knees than it sounds, and walking poles earn their place.

Your driver meets us at the road and takes us to Thimphu, a hotel and a hot shower. If you still have the legs for it, Tashichho Dzong opens to visitors once the government offices close for the day.

A day by road after four on foot. From Thimphu we climb to Dochu La at 3,100 m, with its 108 chortens and, on a clear morning, a long line of snow peaks, and come down into the warm valley of Punakha. We walk through the rice fields to Chimi Lhakhang and spend the afternoon at Punakha Dzong, which stands where two rivers meet.

The road back over Dochu La gives a second chance at the view if cloud hid it yesterday. We stop in Thimphu for lunch and for the Buddha Dordenma, the great seated Buddha above the town, and reach Paro in time to visit Kyichu Lhakhang and to have a last dinner together.

After breakfast your guide and driver see you to the airport.