Things to do in Samtse

Samtse is Bhutan's far southwest — a border district in the western region, facing Sikkim and West Bengal, with Samtse town as its headquarters at about 380 metres. It is the country's third most populous dzongkhag and the last of the twenty to get a guide here, and there is one attraction on this page rather than ten.

No tour on our published list stops in Samtse — everything we run is private and built to order, so ask if you want it in.

The one thing to see

Samtse town — the district headquarters, on the plain at about 380 m, with a Buddhist monastery, a stupa and a Hindu mandir in the same few hundred metres of it and Samtse College of Education, one of the country's two colleges of education, on its edge.

We are going to be straight about the rest: this is a working border and farming district, not a sightseeing one, and nothing we could find published gives a visitor a second reason to stop. That is worth knowing before you ask us to build a day around it.

Entrance is included in every tour we run — no ticket window, no cash to carry.

Can you enter Bhutan here?

Bhutan runs a border post at Samtse — but whether you can use it depends on the passport you hold, and the answer is not the same for every nationality.

That question changes, so we keep it in one place rather than on twenty district pages. See entering Bhutan by road for which crossings work for which travellers, what opened recently and what has only been announced. If you are planning around a land crossing, ask us and we will check it against your nationality and your dates before you book anything.

The rest of the district

62,590 people at the 2017 census — third in the country, behind Thimphu and Chhukha — across fifteen gewogs in two dungkhags, Dorokha and Tashichhoeling. Most of those gewogs carry a second, older name alongside the Dzongkha one, which tells you most of what you need to know about who settled here and when. About 64 per cent of the district is under forest.

Samtse sits below Haa to the north and west of Chhukha, with India on the other two sides: Sikkim to the west and West Bengal to the south.

Part of the Jigme Khesar Strict Nature Reserve reaches into Samtse. You will read the opposite — that this is a district with no protected area — including on Wikipedia, which cites a source that has been dead since 2011. It is not right: the Department of Forests and Park Services says on its own pages that the reserve, Bhutan's only one in that category, spreads south into two of Samtse's fifteen gewogs, with 99 per cent of it in Haa. It is a strict reserve with no permanent settlements in it, so ask us before you assume anyone can go in — nothing published says what a visitor may do on this side.

Along Bhutan's southern border this is Lhotshamkha-speaking country as well as Dzongkha-speaking, and the district's own calendar has Diwali and Dasain on it beside the tshechu — see Bhutan's culture, language and people for how that fits together.

One more thing worth knowing if you are reading about Samtse anywhere else: Bhutan's first railway has been announced with India, and Samtse is named in it alongside Gelephu — see our post on the railway for what was actually agreed and when.

When to come

November to March. Samtse town sits at about 380 m, on the plain rather than in the hills, so this is border heat and humidity rather than valley weather — the same window we give for Gelephu, and for the same reason.

The monsoon runs June to August and it is heavy here even by Bhutanese standards: the national weather service's own Samtse record puts July close to a metre of rain, against under 25 mm in each of November, December, January and February.