Nepal and Bhutan Tour

Two airlines, and no third

Drukair and Bhutan Airlines are the only carriers certified to land at Paro. There is no alliance, no codeshare with a European or American airline, and no way to through-check a bag from London. Whatever gets you to Kathmandu is one ticket and Paro is a second one, which we hold for you as part of the trip.

The visa and the seat are a chicken and an egg

Drukair will not confirm a Paro seat without a visa clearance number, and the Bhutan visa is issued against a confirmed, paid itinerary. Those two are unwound in the right order by the operator, and it is a large part of what an operator is actually for on this particular border. It is also why we ask for passport scans six weeks out rather than a fortnight.

The approach into Paro

Paro sits at 2,235 m in a valley with mountains on both sides and the approach is flown visually, by hand, by a small number of specifically qualified pilots. It is one of the more dramatic landings in commercial aviation. It is also why the airport operates in daylight and good weather only, with no alternate, so a Paro flight can be delayed a day.

Which window seat

Left going Kathmandu to Paro, right coming back. On a clear morning that window has Everest, Makalu, Kanchenjunga and Chomolhari in it, one after another, and the cabin crew will name them. It is worth asking at check-in rather than hoping.

Build a spare day at the end

Everything on this itinerary is weather-dependent at one point or another: the Paro flight, the Nagarkot sunrise and the Bharatpur hop back from Chitwan. None of those will cost you three days the way a Lukla flight can, and a cheap international ticket leaving the morning after day 12 is still the wrong economy.

11 nights, and what each one is

Heat, hot water, power and signal

Heating

In the Bhutanese hotels, which need it in winter, and in Nagarkot. Kathmandu hotels have it rarely and December mornings there are colder indoors than out.

Hot shower

Everywhere on this trip, every night. It is a tour rather than a trek and nothing about it is rough.

Wifi

In every hotel, and it is decent in Bhutan. Nothing is blocked there, unlike in Tibet.

Phone signal

Ncell and NTC across Nepal. In Bhutan your guide can arrange a local SIM on arrival, and roaming works in the valleys.

Power

230V throughout. Nepal uses type C, D and M; Bhutan uses type D, F and G. One universal adaptor covers both.

Water

Filtered water provided in the vehicle in Bhutan and at the Chitwan lodge. Tap water is not drinkable in either country.

Laundry

Same-day in the Kathmandu and Paro hotels, charged by the piece.

Single rooms

Available throughout on this trip, unlike on our treks, at a supplement. Nothing here is dormitory or twin-share by necessity.

If you eat differently

Twelve weeks, and what to do in each of them

Written for somebody who walks a bit and does not train. If you already run or cycle regularly, start at the eight-week block. Nothing here needs a gym.

1. 1

   Six weeks out

   Walk uphill, once a week

   One walk a week with 300 m of real ascent in it, building to two hours. That is genuinely the whole preparation this trip needs, and it is aimed entirely at the Tiger's Nest on day 7.

2. 2

   Four weeks out

   Wear the shoes

   Do those walks in the shoes you will bring. You need proper walking shoes or light boots for one morning and comfortable shoes for eleven days, and people arrive with only the second kind.

3. 3

   Two weeks out

   Add a descent

   The way down from Taktsang is 900 m of stone steps and switchbacks and it is what people's knees remember, not the climb. One walk that goes down as much as it goes up, with poles if you use them.

4. 4

   The week before

   Paperwork, not fitness

   Check that your passport has six months on it and two blank pages, that your Bhutan clearance letter is printed, and that your insurance covers medical evacuation. Anything serious in Bhutan is flown to Bangkok or Delhi.

Who travels with you

Two separate teams, and they hand over at Paro airport. In Nepal, one of our own guides and a driver, both employed by us in Kathmandu. In Bhutan, a licensed Bhutanese guide and driver, because Bhutanese law requires that guiding be done by a Bhutanese national through a licensed local operator. We work with the same Paro partner on every departure and have done for years, which is the practical answer to what a foreign operator can promise about a country it cannot legally guide in.

What a Bhutanese guide is trained for

More than you expect. Bhutanese guides sit a national certification that covers history, Buddhist iconography, botany and etiquette, and they are re-tested. If you want to know what is painted on a dzong wall, which of the sixteen arhats you are looking at, or why there is a phallus painted on a farmhouse in Punakha, ask. This is the trip in our catalogue where the guiding makes the largest difference to what you actually see.

Tipping

Customary rather than compulsory, and expected of tour groups in both countries now. About $150 to $250 per traveller across the whole trip, split between the two teams, handed over at the end of each leg rather than at the very end. Your Bhutanese guide and driver are tipped together at Paro on day 8.

The fee is the policy

Bhutan's Sustainable Development Fee of $100 a night is not a tourist tax that gets absorbed into general revenue. It funds free healthcare and free education for Bhutanese citizens and the country's forest conservation programme, and it exists to hold visitor numbers down on purpose. Bhutan is the only country in the world that is carbon negative and one of very few with a constitutional requirement to keep 60 per cent forest cover. The quiet you will experience in the Punakha valley is bought by that fee, and it is the reason not to resent it.

Dzongs are working buildings

Every dzong on this itinerary is simultaneously a monastery and a district administrative headquarters, with monks on one side of the courtyard and civil servants on the other. They are not museums. Cover your shoulders and knees, take your hat off, take your shoes off where asked, and do not photograph inside the temple halls unless you are told you may. Walk clockwise around chortens and mani walls.

Chitwan, and how you see the park

This itinerary uses the jeep safari, the dugout canoe and the guided walk, which between them see more wildlife than anything else on offer and put you in the park at the hours the animals are moving. Elephant-back safaris are available at Chitwan and we will arrange one if you ask for it. If you would rather not, say so and nothing is lost: it is not part of the days above.

Where the money goes

A fair account rather than a flattering one. The Bhutan portion, which is around half the price, goes to the Bhutanese government as SDF and to a Bhutanese operator, hotels, guide and driver. The Nepal portion is ours and stays in Kathmandu, Nagarkot and Chitwan. Almost nothing on this trip is paid to anybody outside the two countries you are visiting.

How to start

Write to us or send a message on WhatsApp with your rough dates and how many of you there are. You will get a reply from somebody who has run this trip. Nothing is owed at that stage.

Bhutan is paid before it is applied for

This is the part that differs from every trek we sell. The Bhutan portion, which is the SDF, the visa fee and the ground arrangements, is paid in full before the visa application is submitted, because that is how the Bhutanese system works. The Nepal portion runs on our normal terms: thirty per cent to hold your dates and the balance on arrival in Kathmandu.

What we need, and when

Passport scans six weeks out, which is earlier than our treks ask for. The Bhutan visa is reviewed within five working days and Drukair will not confirm a Paro seat without the clearance number, so the whole chain starts with your passport page.

Paying

Bank transfer, or card through a secure link. Card payments carry the bank's fee of about 4 per cent, which we show you before you pay. The Nepal balance in Kathmandu can be US dollars, pounds, euros or Nepali rupees.

If you cancel

The Nepal portion follows our usual terms: more than 30 days out the deposit transfers to any other trip with no time limit, and inside 30 days it is retained. The Bhutan portion is different and we would rather be blunt about it. The $40 visa fee is never refunded, and SDF and ground costs already paid to Bhutan are subject to the Bhutanese operator's terms, which tighten sharply inside 30 days. Travel insurance with cancellation cover is worth more on this trip than on a trek.

How far ahead

Six weeks is comfortable and three is possible. A fortnight is not, and it is Bhutan rather than us: the visa takes five working days after a paid booking and the Paro seat comes after that. For October, or for either of the big festivals, three months.