January 15, 2008

Asia | Bhutan

Taj Tashi: Fit for a Kingdom

By Nicole Cotroneo

Achieve enlightenment at the Himalayas’ most exclusive resort — if they actually let you in.

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The remote Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan is harder to get into than a South Beach nightclub: just 10,000 visitors are welcome each year thanks to a “low volume, high quality” tourism policy (that’s fewer people than even Antarctica attracts). But what you’re guaranteed are the choicest of lodgings, including the new Taj Tashi, which opens today in the country’s capital, Thimphu. Though the 66-room luxury hotel sits in the heart of Bhutan’s busiest city, you won’t find a traffic light blinking through your window — there aren’t any. But there is a golf course (the only public links in Bhutan) as well as the kingdom’s largest monastery.

For a country so isolated for so long, Bhutan’s hospitality industry has gone from virtually non-existent to ultra-luxe in less than a decade. In 2004, Christina Ong opened the COMO Shambhala retreat, Uma Paro, while Amanresorts opened their first Bhutanese lodge, Amankora. Since then, the boutique resort specialists have opened four more, the most recent of which was just unveiled in Bumthang. Sharing its grounds with Bhutan’s first royal palace, this outpost boasts a library, a spa and 16 suites featuring terrazzo baths. But if you want a real insider’s look at Himalayan culture (at the dawn of democracy, no less), then Boundless Journeys’ nine-day “Bhutan Festivals” trip sets out March 14. After hiking to clifftop fortresses and visiting temples around Thimphu and Punakha, you’ll spend two days at Paro Tsechu, the most celebrated Buddhist festival in the land.