Thimphu

Long before Thimphu was a city, its valley was a place of retreat. In the thirteenth century the lama Phajo Drugom Zhigpo, who brought the Drukpa school of Buddhism to Bhutan, is said to have seen the form of the horse-headed deity Tamdrin in the cliff at Tango and founded a hermitage there. Monks still study at Tango today, in a monastery rebuilt in 1688 that is now one of the country's leading schools of Buddhist philosophy.

In 1616 the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the lama who would unify Bhutan, arrived from Tibet and meditated at Tango. Four years later he founded Cheri on the opposite slope, and there in 1623 he ordained the first community of the monk body that still serves the state. In 1629 he built Simtokha Dzong at the southern mouth of the valley, the first fortress to join monastery and government under one roof and the oldest dzong in Bhutan to survive largely intact. It now houses a school of Dzongkha and Buddhist studies.

Through the first half of the twentieth century Bhutan was ruled from Punakha, and Thimphu was a scatter of hamlets and rice fields. The Third King moved the capital here in stages, completing the move in 1961, and from 1962 he had Tashichho Dzong rebuilt and greatly enlarged, using traditional methods with neither nails nor written plans. Consecrated in 1969, it now holds the throne room and the King's office alongside ministries, and in summer it is home to the Je Khenpo, the chief abbot, and the central monk body.

The modern city grew around it fast. The Memorial Chorten was raised in 1974 in memory of the Third King, and from dawn to dusk elderly residents walk circuits around it, spinning prayer wheels as they go. Bhutan's first parliament met here after the 2008 elections that made the kingdom a constitutional democracy. On the ridge above the southern entrance, Buddha Dordenma was consecrated in 2015, a seated figure 51.5 metres tall that holds 125,000 smaller Buddhas inside.

Thimphu is where Bhutan keeps its traditions working. At the Institute for Zorig Chusum, founded in 1971, students spend years learning the thirteen traditional arts, from thangka painting and woodcarving to embroidery and sculpture. The Royal Textile Academy displays and conserves the country's finest weaving, and weavers work in its studios. At weekends farmers fill the two storeys of the Centenary Farmers' Market with chillies, red rice and dried yak cheese, and archers trade songs and insults on the ground beside the stadium.

The city has grown quickly, from around 79,000 people in 2005 to well over 110,000 by 2017, and waste and traffic have grown with it. Yet a short drive north, the road ends at Dodena on the edge of Jigme Dorji National Park. A cantilever bridge crosses the river to the trail up to Cheri, the forest rings with laughingthrushes, and the city might as well be a hundred miles away.