Southern Bhutan

Pemagatshel

The Lotus Garden of Happiness — small, steep and devoted to its weaving and its songs.

Altitude 1,700 m Best season October to April Worth 1 night Getting there Between Trashigang and Samdrup Jongkhar

Pemagatshel means Lotus Garden of Happiness, and the district wears the name without irony — a small, steep, tightly knit corner of the southeast.

Its villages are known across the kingdom for weaving and for song: the local tradition of ausa, farewell songs performed when guests depart, belongs to these hills. Khar and its surrounding villages keep looms the way other places keep gardens.

Most travellers meet Pemagatshel as a bend in the road between Trashigang and the border. A night here, with an evening of song arranged in a village home, turns geography into memory.

While You Are Here

Things worth your time

01 Village looms at Khar The southeast's weaving tradition, worked in wool and raw silk.
02 Yongla Gompa The district's great hermitage, on a knife ridge with the plains far below.

Pema Gatshel Tshechu See festival dates

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