andBeyond Opens Punakha River Lodge, Its First in Asia
The African safari company opened a lodge of six tented suites and two villas on the Mo Chhu river in September 2023, in Bhutan's warm and fertile Punakha valley.
andBeyond opened Punakha River Lodge in September 2023 on the bank of the Mo Chhu river in Bhutan. The company was founded in South Africa in 1991 and runs some thirty safari lodges and camps, mainly in Africa. This is the first lodge it has owned and operated in Asia.
The valley
Punakha lies at about 1,200 metres, far lower than Paro or Thimphu, and is warm enough for rice, bananas and oranges. It was the winter capital of Bhutan until the 1950s. Its dzong, built in 1637 at the meeting of the Mo Chhu and Pho Chhu rivers, is the most beautiful fortress in the country and the winter seat of the monastic body. In spring, jacaranda trees flower purple against its white walls.
The lodge stands upstream, among rice terraces, a short walk from the suspension bridge that leads to the Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten, a hilltop temple with a wide view of the valley.
The lodge
There are six tented suites and two villas. The suites follow the safari model: canvas walls and ceilings beneath a timber frame and roof built in the Bhutanese manner, with carved and painted details, a wood stove, a deep bath and a deck facing the river. The one-bedroom villa has a plunge pool and the two-bedroom villa a private swimming pool. The main house, built like a farmhouse of the valley, holds the dining room and bar, and there is a pool, a small spa and a riverside deck where meals and evening fires are set up.
The interiors, by the South African studio Fox Browne Creative, mix the company’s safari style with Bhutanese textiles, hand-woven in the east of the country.
What guests do
The safari habit of going out early applies. Guides take guests to Punakha Dzong and to the nunnery of Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup before the day’s visitors arrive. On the river there is rafting and kayaking, and the valley has gentle cycling and walks through villages and fields. Birdwatchers come for the white-bellied heron, among the rarest birds in the world, which feeds on these rivers.
Where it fits
Bhutan’s leading lodges have been built as circuits, by Aman and by Six Senses, with a property in each main valley. andBeyond chose a single valley and a smaller scale, and combines the lodge with other hotels for the rest of an itinerary. Punakha is three hours by road from Paro airport, over the Dochula pass.
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