The reopened Trans Bhutan Trail, where sustainability meets off-grid adventure
Known as one of the great walks of the world, this ancient pilgrimage route is welcoming hikers for the first time in 60 years. Damien Gabet grabs his walking boots and checks it out
My first taste of booze in Bhutan felt like a massage in a cup. It remains customary to serve guests Ara, a homebrew of fermented barley and precious red sandalwood. Now slouching on the back wall of the farmer’s living room, I warmed my aching feet by the Bukhari stove as my guide, Tashi, started translating the remarkable story of my host’s young son, Nyinda.
“He’s the reincarnation of their old neighbour,” she said. When he was very young, Nyinda made it clear he used to live next door. He knew the names of the dead man’s children. When Nyinda’s great uncle later shacked up with his widow, he called him a traitor.
Tashi asked if I’d like to see how Ara was made. My eyes lit up. We fetched a bucket of fermented grain from the pantry and took it outside to a wood-fired pot still, already simmering.
Dusk poured its way into the bowl-shaped valley that the village sits in. Ura’s drystone walls, prayer flags and intricately painted farmhouses offer up a mythical vision of pastoral life – a scene so bucolic, my modern mind struggled to believe it. We’d arrived here, exhausted from running, at the end of my seventh day on the new not-for-profit Trans Bhutan Trail (TBT).
Once the only means of travelling across the south Asian country of Bhutan, this historic path fell to disuse in the 1960s with the introduction of the country’s first roads. Three years of restoration, powered by 1,000 furloughed workers – who quarried and placed over 10,000 stepping stones – has brought it back, in sync with Bhutan reopening its borders in September 2022.
Some 403km long, with a total elevation of over 35,000m (that’s four Everests), it spans almost the entire width of the world’s most mountainous country. This is hiker heaven – if you can afford it.
Nature is everywhere; it’s impossible to be unhappy in nature
Mention Bhutan to people and two subjects tend to arise. First is the recently increased tourism tax: $200 (£160) a day. While that’ll be prohibitive to many, the low-volume, high-value model makes sense to a country committed to “holistic development”.
“The benefit of tourism flows to these sorts of local communities,” says Sam Blyth, chair of the Bhutan Canada Foundation. “They’ve changed the rules so that you can book local guides directly through the TBT website – rather than a tour operator.”
The second is its philosophy of Gross National Happiness, underpinned by a Buddhist-rooted view of sustainability. Indeed, it’s one of only three carbon-negative countries on earth. I asked my guide if she was happy.
“We are not wealthy, but there is no poverty. Our King acts in our best interests. Nature is everywhere; it’s impossible to be unhappy in nature.” she replied.
I was happy, too. In less than a week, I’d seen the Himalayas, belted down the trail on a mountain bike, driven one of the world’s most dangerous mountain roads, performed prostrations at the famous Tiger’s Nest, milked a cow, ridden a mule, sung karaoke with locals, laid naked in a farmer’s hot-stone bath, drunk butter tea with a shepherd and been blessed by a teenage monk with a wooden phallus.
But that night in Ura, Bhutan hit its happiest high note: I stayed in a farmhouse with a young family of TBT ambassadors. As we waited for the booze to brew, I played tag with Nyinda and his three smiley siblings. Their mother, Tshering, pulled carrots from the ground nearby.
We went inside to prepare a meal that I already think about with teary nostalgia. The buckwheat noodles – green skeins of pure health – formed by sitting on a wooden press; the bowls of beef in a spicy, buttery sauce, full of reparative warmth. All of us, cat included, sat around the stove.
We began the day in Bumthang, one of Bhutan’s most sacred spots. Temples abound, as do their myths. In the 15th-century Tamzhing monastery, Unesco-protected frescos tell the story of Guru Rinpoche, “the second Buddha”, coming here to subdue an unruly deity.
Nearby, I saw a group of men practising archery, the country’s national sport. We stopped to say hello and they let me fire an arrow in the direction of the target, 145m away (no one was injured). The less obvious benefit of so few tourists was made clear here: a certain warm curiosity between me, the traveller, and them felt mutual, allowing for more sincere exchanges.
The less obvious benefit of so few tourists was made clear here: a certain warm curiosity between me, the traveller, and them
That afternoon on the TBT was eventful. We passed the Burning Lake – a gorge where Guru Rinpoche once hid a special treasure – and found three young nuns coyly lighting palm butter votives. From there, I tried to jog uphill, but my sea-level lungs (this was 2,677m) wouldn’t sustain me for long. The heavy-cotton gho – male national dress – I was in wasn’t helping, but it felt right and the nuns seemed to approve.
In a village full of crumbling stupas and wild-growing cannabis, I asked a farmer in his eighties for the secret to a long life. “Buckwheat,” he replied, assuredly. A cordyceps (anti-ageing fungi) dealer showed us his bag of loot before we took to running again. Subtle splodges of white paint on stumps and rocks led the way.
As I stopped to catch my breath, Tashi silently pointed to a family of wild boar scudding past. There are bears and wolves in these mountains, too, though sightings are rare. Blue pine resin and petrichor were dense in the air; autumnal needles covered the ground and gnarled oaks unfurled over boulders like sea monsters.
Across Bhutan, fir, conifer, hardwood and tropical lowland forests (where I spotted a great horned bill) bleed into each other without you noticing. There are sweeping, glacier-made wetlands, too, the likes of which I saw during my stay at the superlative Gangtey Lodge. A little luxury to break up the action.
From its balcony, I could have been gazing at Conan Doyle’s Lost World, were it not for the imposing Gangtey Monastery lending a profound sense of place. With my gho on again, Tashi and I paid it a visit on festival day: dancing monks beckoned the arrival of the auspicious black-neck crane. Magically, they flew overhead. I thought back to something Blyth said before I left and now wholly agreed: “It’s an easy country to embrace.”
Travel essentials
Damien was hosted by Trans Bhutan Trail, the Tourism Council of Bhutan and Gangtey Lodge.
Trans Bhutan Trail can be booked at transbhutantrail.com; itineraries with prices at transbhutantrail.com/holidays#/holidays; visit bhutan.travel for general information
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