Damphu

Damphu is Tsirang’s district headquarters and its only town: a small ridge town at about 1,570 metres, on the Sarpang–Wangdue highway between the Indian border and the valleys north. It is a night on the way through rather than a destination, and the one thing here worth going out of your way for is a temple shared by two religions.

The temple with two doors

One building, two entrances — the Buddhist temple through the right-hand door and the Hindu temple through the left, in the middle of town. Tsirang Dzongkhag describes it that way in its own words, and adds that the two halves are run by two different bodies: the Hindu Dharma Foundation of Bhutan on one side and the Tsirang Dratshang on the other. A large statue of Guru Rinpoche stands near it.

Southern Bhutan is where Buddhist and Hindu practice sit closest together, and this is that fact built in stone rather than described. It takes ten minutes to look at and it is the clearest thing in the district.

Ask us before you plan around going inside — nothing published says what a visitor may enter, and we would rather find out for you than guess.

The dratshang, the dzong, and which one matters

Tsirang Namgyel Chholing Rabdey Dratshang is where the district’s religious life actually happens. It holds the rituals, and the annual Tsirang Tshechu — the biggest festival in this part of the south, ending with the Guru Rinpoche thongdrol unfurled on the last day. The dates move with the lunar calendar and our festival calendar does not carry this one yet, so ask us for the year you are travelling.

Tsirang Dzong is here as well, and we are not going to build it up. Nothing is published about when it was built or what a visitor can see inside it — not by the dzongkhag, not anywhere we could find. The dzongkhag’s own list of places to see in Tsirang does not include it, and the one time it mentions the building it is to point out that the rituals happen at the dratshang instead. So: it is there, it is worth a look from the road, and anything more specific would be invented.

There is also a town park, Rigsum Pemai Dumra — gazebos, a fountain, a mani dungkhor and an artificial lake with a bridge over it. It is where Damphu goes in the evening rather than a sight, and it is pleasant for exactly that reason.

What a stop here is worth

Honestly: one night, or one hour, depending on which trip you are on.

Our birding trip comes up 97 km and about three hours from Gelephu, stays the night in the district, and goes on 100 km and about three hours north the next morning. Our motorbike tour does not stay the night — Gelephu to Punakha is 195 km and six hours, Tsirang is the middle of the ride, and the dzong is on that day’s list.

Road works on the Punatsangchhu stretch have been moving the northbound times around, so ask us for the current one rather than planning to the hour.

Come between October and April. At this altitude the winter is comfortable rather than cold, and the monsoon runs June to August — heavy enough here to make the driving slow. See things to do in Tsirang for the rest of the district.