Bhutan Journal: Chant, Read, Sleep

‘With silence comes peace; with peace comes freedom’. Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi recounts halcyon days in dragon country

- Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi

Reached after crossing a suspension bridge, over an undulant Mo Chhu River, the flat clearing in the ridge overlooks neighbouring hills, tiered fields, and the valley between Dochu La Pass and Punakha Dzong. The Aman’s stone and timber farmhouse, originally built for the Bhutanese royal family, follows a long rectangular spit of land, evened for 16 rooms to inhabit the landscape artfully, silently, as if they’d always existed. In the third and final floor of their dining room, lodge manager, David Steyn, told me of an altar. A faint, pensive reverberation of drums steered me into an attic: a neat, square prayer room, a sonic chamber, wooden floor. Much like the rest of this stunning property, the altar room so elegantly rejects a culture of rapidity that its heroic stillness, and how it honours waiting and serenity, becomes a primary motive for travel.