Amankora Gangtey
On a forested rise above Phobjikha, where hundreds of cranes spend the winter in the fields below.
Eight suites above the Phobjikha valley, in a forest the black necked cranes fly over every winter on their way down from Tibet.
Amankora Gangtey stands above the Phobjikha valley, reached by a track that winds down through the forest before the trees open onto the valley itself. At 2,900 metres it is one of the higher lodges in the Amankora circuit, and the approach through the pine forest before the view opens is deliberate, part of how the lodge introduces the valley to a guest rather than simply presenting it.
The eight suites are open plan, bedroom and bathing area together, finished in wood panelling and a chocolate brown palette that reads warmer and darker than the lighter timber of the other lodges. Each has the bukhari stove that runs through every Amankora suite, a terrazzo clad bath, shower and vanity, and a day bed set to face the valley through the window. Suites are individually heated for the cold months, since Gangtey holds winter longer and harder than the valleys to the west.
Below the lodge, a wooden hut houses the hot stone bath, river stones heated over a fire and lowered into water carrying khempa herbs, the same treatment used across the Amankora lodges but taken here with unusual seriousness. A small yoga and meditation room sits on the ground floor, and two treatment rooms handle the rest of the spa programme.
Gangtey is the reason I build crane season into a journey whenever I can. From October through March, several hundred black necked cranes arrive from the Tibetan plateau and spend the winter in the fields below the lodge, and there is no view in Bhutan that says more about what this country protects and why. Eight suites means the lodge holds very few guests at a time, and those who stay here in crane season describe it afterward as the single evening of the trip they think about most.
Kinley, founder
Around the property
Where it sits
On a forested knoll above the Phobjikha valley at 2,900 metres. Gangtey Goemba monastery is a short walk below the lodge. Black necked cranes winter in the valley from October through March. Roughly four hours from Paro or Thimphu by road through mountain passes.
Stay here on a private journey.
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