Led by women. Shaped by encounters found nowhere else.
The Journey · 7 Days · May / June
A journey through the living traditions kept by Bhutanese women: in the paddy fields, the nunneries, the forests, the kitchens, the studios, and the gardens. Led by women. Shaped by encounters that are not available anywhere else.
Arrive into the valley at the height of rice transplantation season. Jointhe women of the fields in work that has been done this way for centuries, your feet in the mud, your hands learning the rhythm. Afternoon: a blessing ceremony conducted by a nun at a 15th-century temple. Evening: dinner cooked and explained by a local woman in her home.
Cross a high mountain pass into a hidden valley. Descend to Bhutan's oldest nunnery, carved into a cliff face, with time for an unhurried conversation with the resident nuns about their practice and their lives. Evening: join the elderly women of the valley for one of its oldest traditional songs. Fewer than ten women still carry it. You are welcomed into the circle, taught the refrains, and invited to sing with them, sharing the evening meal together afterwards.
A full day in the valley, given over to its seasons. Spend the morning with a local woman who knows the hillsides and forests by heart: foraging for wild mushrooms when the forests are damp, or working beside her in the fields preparing for the turnip season, drying spinach, stringing chillies in the sun, or making a speciality particular to the district. This day is deeply seasonal, and the valley decides what it offers. Evening: learn to make the region's signature dumpling by hand with the lady of the house, and eat what you have made together, hot from the steamer.
Drive to the capital. Afternoon in the showroom of a woman whose work centres on natural dye, sourced through rural communities across the country, with a focus on the sacred art of thangka. Learn where the colours come from, plant by plant, and how this knowledge moves between village hands and the painter's studio. Continue to the home of much of Bhutan's textile display, where the weaving traditions of every region hang side by side, and walk the farmers market where produce arrives in the hands of the women who grew it. Evening: tea in a riverside garden designed, planted, and fully cared for by one woman, a horticulturist who will walk you through it herself, with Bhutanese snacks from her small eatery by the water.
Begin the morning in a local restaurant as it prepares to open, watching the women of the kitchen pleat the day's momos at speed, then sit down to a sumptuous momo meal. Afternoon at a foundation devoted to the education and empowerment of Bhutan's nuns, in conversation with the scholar who leads it. The energy of this place is different, and you are welcome to take part in the daily goings-on of the nuns' time here. Evening: return to the first valley.
Morning: hike to the cliff-face monastery through blue pine forest, 2 to 3hours up, with time inside for prayer. Afternoon: arrive at a heritage home of more than five hundred years. Sound healing on the grounds, with the monastery visible across the valley. As the light fades, move inside to a kitchen where the woman of the house cooks dinner over a mud stove: traditional food, explained as it is made, in a room that has held this fire for generations.
After breakfast, transfer to the airport for your onward journey.
