Things to do
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Buddha Dordenma
Bronze and gilded, a seated Shakyamuni of about fifty metres looks down the valley from the Kuenselphodrang ridge, with thousands of smaller Buddha statues ranged inside the throne hall beneath. The statue was raised to fulfil a prophecy and funded largely from abroad. A nature park trail runs down to the city, and the platform is exposed to wind.
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Centenary Farmers' Market
Weekend trading fills a two level hall by the river, with chillies drying in heaps, datse cheese, dried yak, ferns in season and red rice. Traders come down from the valleys on Friday and stay until Sunday. A cantilever bridge crosses to a handicraft row on the far bank. Bargaining is gentle, and most of the produce comes down from farms in the valleys.
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Dochula Pass
One hundred and eight chortens stand on a knoll at the pass east of the capital, raised in memory of soldiers lost in a border operation. On a clear winter morning the eastern Himalaya lines up behind them, Gangkhar Puensum among the peaks. Cloud closes the view for much of the summer. A cafe and a temple sit across the road for the wait on a cloudy morning.
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Folk Heritage Museum
A rammed earth farmhouse of three storeys has been kept as it would have stood in the nineteenth century, with cattle below, storage in the middle and a shrine room on top. Guides explain the ara still, the millstones and the kitchen without a chimney. Traditional dishes are served in the garden restaurant, and an hour covers the three floors.
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Memorial Chorten
Thimphu residents circle this white stupa clockwise through the day, prayer beads in hand, and the bench of elders around it is part of the visit. Raised in the nineteen seventies in memory of the third king, it holds tantric murals and mandalas over three floors. Mornings and dusk are when the circling runs busiest.
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Motithang Takin Preserve
Takin, the national animal, look like a cross between a goat and a musk ox, and a fenced patch of forest above the city keeps a small herd that was released from a zoo and refused to leave. Feeding time in the morning brings them near the fence. Half an hour covers it, and the walk up is steep.
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Tashichho Dzong
Seat of the government and the central monk body, the fortress on the west bank carries whitewashed walls, red roofs and a wide courtyard of flagstones. It was rebuilt in the nineteen sixties without nails or drawings, in the traditional manner. Visitors are admitted after office hours on weekdays and during the day at weekends; the autumn tsechu is held here.