Trashiyangtse Dzong

Trashi Yangtse has two dzongs, and both still stand, which is unusual in Bhutan. The old one is a monastery, the new one an office. Allow an hour to an hour and a half for the pair.

What is there to see?

The old dzong — Dongdi Dzong, which the Yangtseps also call Dzong Manmo — is about three kilometres from the town, and it does not look like a fortress: it reads as a temple, and the dratshang, the district’s monastic body, lives in it. It was consecrated afresh by the Je Khenpo in 2005.

The new dzong was inaugurated in 1997, sits on flat ground near the town and near Chorten Kora, and is the dzongkhag administration’s working seat.

Neither publishes visiting hours, and one of them is somebody’s office. Whether you get inside, and how far, is a question for your guide on the day rather than something this page can promise.

Where the district’s name comes from

From this building. Terton Pema Lingpa came on the ruins of Dongdi Dzong in the 15th century, rebuilt it, and renamed it Trashiyangtse — “the fortress of auspicious fortune”. The district took the name from the dzong, not the other way round.

What “Dongdi” meant before that, nobody agrees on. Three accounts circulate and each has its adherents: that the dzong was named for the Dongdi Chhu, the river below it; that it was named for the Donglum, the people of the place; and that Dong-ti means “we shall meet” in the Yangtsep dialect. We would rather give you all three than pick the one that reads best.

The older history

The old dzong is traced to the 9th century and to Gonkar Gyal, of the line of Lhasey Tshangma — the Tibetan prince exiled south of the Himalaya who settled at Tshenkharla, in what is now Trashigang. Sources differ over whether Gonkar Gyal was his son or his grandson.

It was abandoned and ruined in Tibetan attacks, and the people of Donglum fled — which is the gap Pema Lingpa walked into some six centuries later.

In the 17th century it was renovated and extended by Chogyel Minjur Tenpa, the Trongsa Penlop who brought the east under the central government. You will meet him repeatedly on a trip through eastern Bhutan: he is also behind Kurjey Lhakhang’s oldest temple in 1652, Trashigang Dzong in 1659 and Lhuntse Dzong in 1665.

How it fits your day

Trashi Yangtse is about two hours from Trashigang, and almost everyone comes for the day. The dzongs are the third thing on that day, after Chorten Kora and the crafts college — worth the extra three kilometres if the day is going well, and easy to drop if it isn’t.

See things to do in Trashi Yangtse for how everything compares.