Festival
Black-Necked Crane Festival Tour
A week timed for 11 November, when Phobjikha welcomes its cranes back from Tibet with a festival in the courtyard of Gangtey Goenpa.
Price on request
Western Bhutan
Phobjikha and Gangtey
A broad, quiet glacial valley at 3,000 m, where black-necked cranes arrive from Tibet each winter and a seventeenth-century monastery looks down from its ridge.
- Altitude
- About 3,000 m
- How long to stay
- One to two nights
- Region
- Western Bhutan
Phobjikha is unlike the valleys either side of it. Where Punakha and Trongsa are steep and river-cut, this is a wide, shallow bowl of marsh and dwarf bamboo ringed by pine forest, with a few villages around the edge and almost no traffic.
The marsh is why the cranes come. Black-necked cranes fly in from the Tibetan plateau around November and stay until about March, feeding on the valley floor by day. Gangtey Goenpa, the monastery on the ridge at the valley's head, holds a festival for them on 11 November each year.
Outside the crane months the reason to come is the stillness and the walking. The valley trail from the monastery down through the pines and across the marsh is one of the gentlest and loveliest short walks in Bhutan.
What to see and do in Phobjikha and Gangtey
- Gangtey Goenpa
- The monastery on the ridge above the valley, and the setting for the Black-Necked Crane Festival and the Gangtey Tshechu.
- Gangtey nature trail
- An easy walk of an hour and a half or so, downhill from the monastery through pine forest and out along the edge of the marsh.
- Black-Necked Crane Information Centre
- Run by the Royal Society for Protection of Nature, with telescopes trained on the marsh and displays on the birds and the valley.
- The cranes
- 640 were counted in the winter of 2024 to 2025. They are watched from the edge of the marsh at dawn and dusk; nobody walks out among them.
- Farmhouse visits
- Several families in the valley welcome guests for a meal or a night.
Planning your visit
- Best time to visit
November to March for the cranes, with cold nights and frost. April and May for rhododendrons on the way in. September and October for clear skies. The Gangtey Tshechu is in autumn (13 to 15 October 2027 on the official tentative list).
- Getting there
75 km from Punakha, about two hours, turning off the main road before Pele La. Trongsa and Bumthang are a long half-day further east.
Tours and treks
Trips that visit Phobjikha and Gangtey
Cultural
Western Bhutan in 7 Days
Four valleys in a week: the capital, the warm rice terraces of Punakha, the crane valley of Phobjikha, and Paro for the walk to the Tiger's Nest.
Price on request
Trekking
Gangtey Trek
Three days of village-to-village walking from the crane valley of Phobjikha, over forested passes that stay below about 3,500 m.
Price on request
Cultural
Western Bhutan with Haa in 8 Days
Five western valleys, two high passes and a day in quiet Haa, at a pace that leaves room to walk as well as drive.
Price on request
Cultural
Western Bhutan Unhurried, in 9 Days
Two nights each in Thimphu, Phobjikha, Punakha and Paro, so that every valley has a day with no packing in it.
Price on request
Festival
Jambay Lhakhang Drup Festival Tour
Ten days to Bumthang for the festival of fire at one of Bhutan's oldest temples, with cranes in Phobjikha on the way.
Price on request
Cultural
To Bumthang and Back in 10 Days
West to the centre by road through Trongsa, three nights among Bumthang's temples, and a flight back over the mountains to Paro.
Price on request
Cultural
Bumthang and the Haa Valley in 11 Days
By road to the temples of Bumthang and back, then over Chele La for a night in quiet Haa before the Tiger's Nest.
Price on request
Cultural
Across Bhutan, West to East
The whole width of the country in two weeks, from the Tiger's Nest to the weaving villages of the far east, leaving by road into India.
Price on request
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