Pemako Punakha
Tented villas with private heated pools, on the floor of Punakha valley.
Twelve tented pool villas in Punakha — the most architecturally unusual stay in the valley, from Bhutan's most ambitious homegrown luxury group.
Pemako Punakha does not look like a Bhutanese property is supposed to look. The structures are tented — canvas and Bhutanese-design panels stretched across timber frames, with Serge Ferrari weather-resistant fabrics, copper fixtures, and private heated pools set into decks that extend from each villa toward the river. It is a very deliberate design statement: luxury camping filtered through a Bhutanese sensibility, closer to the land than the stone-and-timber properties, and entirely unlike them.
The Lotus Realm Spa runs the same Sowa-Rigpa programme as the sister property in Thimphu — traditional Tibetan medicine, medicinal herb treatments, hot stone therapy. Three dining venues serve across different registers: the Alchemy House, built inside a restored Bhutanese heritage farmhouse on the grounds, offers what may be the most thoughtfully presented traditional cuisine in Punakha; Soma is the all-day venue; Sura is a chef’s table format for personalised dinners. The tented format means the sounds of the valley — birds, the river, the wind — are close throughout the night.
This is the property in Punakha that guests who have seen other lodges in Bhutan find most surprising. It is the only one that would look at home in a different landscape entirely — the Okavango, perhaps, or the Serengeti — and yet it is here, and entirely Bhutanese in everything that matters.
This is for the guests who want something genuinely different from what Bhutan's other luxury properties offer — guests who have perhaps stayed at Amankora or COMO before and want to see another register. The private heated pool in each villa is the obvious feature, but what stays with guests is the Alchemy House: a meal in a restored farmhouse, lit by traditional fixtures, eating food made from ingredients the property grows or sources from farms in the valley. It is the kind of dining that rewards a slow evening.
Kinley, founder
Where it sits
On the floor of Punakha valley at approximately 1,300 metres. Fifteen minutes to Punakha Dzong. Warm valley climate year-round. The Alchemy House farmhouse is on the estate grounds.
Stay here on a private journey.
Tell us roughly when you would like to come and how many you are. We will weave Pemako Punakha into a journey designed entirely around you.
Plan your journey with our team