Bhutanese New Year: Lomba

Lomba is the new year of Haa and Paro — and of nowhere else in Bhutan. It falls in late autumn, weeks before Losar, and it is not a public festival: it happens at home, over a few days, around food. The name is read as becoming one year older.

When it is

From the 29th day of the 10th Bhutanese month to the 3rd day of the 11th, per the Paro dzongkhag administration — which also gives three official holidays, the 1st to the 3rd. Haa’s own events list puts Haa Lomba on 9 December 2026.

It is not on the Department of Tourism’s festival schedule, and it should not be: it is a regional holiday and a household observance rather than a tshechu.

(Our own pages have long called it a two-day festival. Paro publishes three holidays inside a five-day span; we have corrected the pages rather than keep repeating the shorter figure.)

Why a second new year

Because the crops are in. Lomba sits at the close of the harvest and before the next cycle of work begins — the natural place to draw a line under a year if your year is made of fields rather than of months. Everyone in the house becomes a year older at once, which is how age was counted here.

Most of Bhutan keeps Losar, around the lunar new year. Haa and Paro keep this instead, and earlier. That two valleys can hold a different new year from the rest of the country is a fair summary of how Bhutan works.

What happens

On the 29th evening, a household rite called Lue drives out the year’s bad luck, with every member of the family taking part. You may also hear “Lolay, Lolay” going around the valley that night — thanks for the year gone, and wishes for the one coming.

Then the food. Hoentay — buckwheat dough folded around turnip greens and cheese, steamed — is the Haa dish, eaten on the night of Lomba and, by tradition, only then. Paro’s version is called jomju.

Then archery. Paro’s own account has the children playing in the harvested paddy fields while the adults take the proper ground, and feasting in between. Offices and schools close, and people who left the valley come back.

Can you see it?

Only if you are asked, and we will not pretend otherwise.

Lomba is indoors and it is a family occasion. Nobody stages it, there is no ground to stand at the edge of, and the honest answer is that most visitors read about it rather than attend it. Farm stays are the way it ever happens — Haa has them, and we have used them — so if your dates fall in early December, tell us and we will ask on your behalf. What we will not do is promise you a seat at somebody’s table on a page.

Around the same weeks

If you are in Haa in late autumn, the other date to know is the Ap Chundu offering, in the ninth Bhutanese month — the valley’s own deity, and its holiest day. The Haa Tshechu is earlier, in the Lhakhang Karpo courtyard.

More on Bhutan’s several new years in Bhutanese new year traditions, and see things to do in Haa for the valley itself.