Punakha

In 1637 the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal began a fortress on a spur of land where the two rivers meet, fulfilling a prophecy that a man named Namgyal would come to a hill shaped like a sleeping elephant. Pungthang Dewachen Phodrang, the Palace of Great Happiness, became the seat of the unified state. Its Machey Lhakhang still holds the Zhabdrung's embalmed body, a chapel only the King and the chief abbot enter, and the dzong guards the Rangjung Kharsapani, a self-created image of Chenrezig the Zhabdrung carried from Tibet.

In 1639 a Tibetan army marched on Punakha to seize the relic. The Zhabdrung staged a ceremony in which he appeared to throw it into the Mo Chhu, and the invaders went home empty-handed. Every February the Punakha Dromchoe re-enacts that day, with militiamen in battle dress and the chief abbot casting oranges into the river in place of the relic. Punakha remained the capital until the 1950s, saw Ugyen Wangchuck crowned the first king on 17 December 1907, and in 2011 hosted the wedding of the Fifth King.

The dzong has burned and been rebuilt several times, and the 1897 earthquake shook it badly. The gravest threat now comes from upstream. In October 1994 a glacial lake in Lunana burst and sent a wall of water down the Pho Chhu that killed more than twenty people and damaged the dzong. It was restored under the Fourth King by around 2004, the river channels were deepened and embanked, and today a line of monitoring stations and sirens runs down the Pho Chhu to give the valley hours of warning.

Half an hour south, Wangdue Phodrang Dzong tells a similar story. Founded by the Zhabdrung in 1638 on a ridge above the river, it burned almost to the ground in June 2012. Rebuilt by Royal Command with traditional craftsmanship and modern fire protection, it was reconsecrated on 11 November 2022. Much of what is still written about it describes a ruin, but the fortress stands again above the Punatsangchhu, and it makes a natural stop on the road to Phobjikha.

Punakha is Bhutan's rice bowl. Red and white rice grows on terraces around the valley, planted in early summer and harvested in October and November, when the fields turn gold. On a low hill above Lobesa stands Chimi Lhakhang, built in 1499 on the spot where the saint Drukpa Kunley, the Divine Madman, is said to have subdued a demoness. The village houses on the walk up are painted with protective phalluses, a reminder of his irreverent teaching, and couples hoping for children come here for his blessing.

The rivers were also where the white-bellied heron was first recorded in Bhutan, in 1976. One of the rarest birds on earth, it has since grown scarce on the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu themselves and now feeds mostly downstream, below Wangdue, where hydropower projects have reshaped the river. Bhutan counted 31 herons in 2026, the most in more than two decades of monitoring and over half of the world's known birds. With a good naturalist and patience, the search is part of the valley's story, though a sighting is never certain.