Take a hot stone bath in a Bhutanese farmhouse

What the experience is

The hot stone bath is a household custom of Bhutan, practised in farmhouses across the country. The water is known as menchu, medicinal water. The tub is a long box of wood, set in a shed or outdoors, and divided near one end by a slatted partition. The bather lies in the larger part. The smaller part is for the stones.

The stones are rounded boulders from a river bed, roasted in a wood fire for several hours. An attendant carries them one at a time with tongs and lowers them into the end compartment, where they crack and hiss and bring the water close to the limit of what can be borne. Bunches of fresh wormwood are steeped in the water and give it a sharp green scent. When the bath cools, the bather knocks on the wall, and more stones are added.

Bhutanese families take the bath traditionally for aches and stiffness after work in the fields, and simply against the cold. OKYTO makes no claim for health effects, and there has been little scientific study. What a visitor will notice is what follows any long soak in very hot water after a day’s walking: deep relaxation and sound sleep.

Where to take it

The simplest version is the most memorable. Around Paro and in the Bumthang valleys, farming families heat a bath for guests in a lean-to beside the house and follow it with dinner. Licensed tour operators arrange it on request; visitors to Bhutan travel with a licensed operator in any case. The luxury lodges have built the bath into their spas; it is offered at the Amankora lodges and at the COMO Uma hotels in Paro and Punakha.

When to go

The bath is available all year and is at its best in the cold months and after exertion.

Good to know

A session lasts an hour to an hour and a half. The water is very hot at first, so enter slowly and ask for cold water if needed. People with heart conditions or high blood pressure, and pregnant women, should take advice first.

Why OKYTO recommends it

Much of what is sold as wellness in Asian hotels was imported from somewhere else. This is a household tradition of the country. It suits the end of a day on the Trans Bhutan Trail or the cold evenings of a tshechu festival.