Royal Highland Festival

Land at Paro International Airport on the morning flight. We drive to Thimphu, one hour. Check in to the hotel and spend the afternoon walking above the city — a gentle acclimatisation start at 2,300 metres before the serious altitude in three days. Gear check with the trekking guide over dinner.

Meals

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We drive over the Dochu La pass at 3,116 metres — a walk of 90 minutes among the 108 chortens and the arboreal rhododendron forest, good for altitude calibration and good for itself. Then descend into the Punakha valley. Lunch in the valley, afternoon free. The jacaranda trees around Punakha Dzong are not yet in flower in October but the dzong itself in the autumn light is worth an hour.

Meals

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We drive north from Punakha up the Mochu valley to the roadhead at Tashithang and begin on foot. The trail follows the river through a gorge of mixed temperate forest — oak, rhododendron, and fir at increasing altitude — for four hours before descending to the Gasa Tshachu hot springs at 1,900 metres. The springs sit in a clearing by the river: a cluster of natural thermal pools at different temperatures, used by locals for generations. We camp nearby. The altitude drops on the final descent to the springs, which is intentional — we sleep low before climbing to Laya.

Meals

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The long day. We climb from the river gorge through the forest zone, then into the alpine scrub above the treeline, and finally up onto the Laya plateau at 3,820 metres. The last hour is in open country with the Himalayan range visible north and the valley invisible below. Laya village appears from above — a cluster of wooden houses with stone walls, yaks on the high pasture, the conical bamboo hats of the Layap women moving between the buildings. We make camp on the meadow above the village. The festival begins tomorrow.

Meals

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The festival opens on the high meadow above the village. Yak racing across the plateau. Traditional archery with bamboo bows, the Layap archers in full dress, the targets at distances that make you recalibrate your idea of what a bow can do. A livestock parade of yaks and the distinctive highland cattle that differ from the valley breeds. The Layap women's dances in the conical hats. The Himalayan range north of the meadow — Jomolhari, Jichu Drake, Gangkhar Puensum — visible on a clear October morning at exactly the same level as the festival. Spend the day moving slowly between the events. There is no programme to keep.

Meals

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The second morning of the festival is quieter than the first — fewer formal events, more time to move through the village itself. Our guide has a connection in Laya; we are invited to walk through the upper village and, if the family is willing, to step inside one of the traditional stone houses. The construction, the food storage, the relationship between the house and the yak pen above it — these things are not explained at the festival. They are legible only from inside. Afternoon free on the meadow.

Meals

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We descend the way we came — back through the alpine zone, into the forest, down to the river. The descent takes five to six hours and feels different from the ascent: Laya is behind you and the valley is ahead and the scale of what you have just done becomes clearer on the way down. A second night at the Gasa hot springs is a reasonable reward. We camp in the same place as Day 3.

Meals

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A shorter final trekking day back to the Tashithang roadhead. Our vehicle meets us. We drive back to Punakha for a final night in the valley — a deliberately unhurried return. Lunch by the Mochu river. Afternoon free at the hotel. Dinner in Punakha.

Meals

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We drive over the Dochu La and through Thimphu to Paro, arriving in time for the afternoon or evening flight. Our team sees you to the airport. The October light on the Paro valley on the way in is, in retrospect, the light you were in before everything above the treeline began.

Meals

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