Raling Ngawang
Twenty years walking Bhutan's forests with a notebook. Pulls a leaf, tells you what it cures.
Raling Ngawang has spent twenty years walking Bhutan’s forests with a notebook. He worked with the National Biodiversity Centre on the country’s flora survey and trained at the Faculty of Traditional Medicine. On a journey, he stops at a tree most people walk past — pulls a leaf, tells you what it cures, what it harms, who learned to use it from whom.
Sowa Rigpa, Bhutan’s ancestral system of medicine, is not nostalgia for him. It is current and practised. He brings this practice into the journey when relevant — a botanical walk in the Bumthang valleys, a visit to a traditional doctor’s clinic in Paro, an afternoon learning to distinguish nettle from devil’s nettle.
He joins itineraries on request, by the half-day or by the day.
Journeys that feature Raling Ngawang
A few of our private journeys where Raling Ngawang walks part of the way with you.
Weave Raling Ngawang into your journey.
Tell us when you would like to come and roughly what you would like the days to feel like. We will see whether Raling Ngawang is free, and design the itinerary around the time you have together.
Plan your journey with our team