The Best Way to See Bhutan? Through the Eyes of These Locally Owned Hotels

Now, Bhutan isn’t exactly virgin territory for travelers of a certain cachet. Since Aman’s arrival in 2004, a number of the world’s distinguished hospitality brands have followed in their wake, to Punakha in particular—Six Senses, andBeyond, and Como among them. Pemako is the latest to take up residence along this heavenly stretch of lush nature, and surely not the last. What sets it apart, however, is its origin story and its intent: Pemako is the first Bhutanese-owned and operated luxury hotel brand, run by the Tashi Group, the country’s largest private conglomerate. Rather than an aestheticised, seen-from-the-outside impression of Bhutan, it commits to offering an experience rooted in the country’s spiritually-anchored customs and traditions—with no compromise on the exacting caliber of its offer.

Its flagship—the property here in Punakha, which opened in early 2024 after a seven-year build—is a retreat in the truest sense. Set across a 60-acre sprawl of riverside meadow and hill-climbing, silver pine forest, its setting is truly otherworldly—a truth acknowledged in Pemako’s very name, the same as that of a legendary beyul, a sacred Himalayan valley where the veil between the material and spiritual realms is at its thinnest.

The Five Nectars Bar at Pemako Punakha.

Photo: Courtesy of Pemako Hotels

Even a belligerent antitheist would be hard-pressed not to sense the heightened energy of the place. It colors everything from your wobble across the bridge, fluttering with a rainbow of prayer flags, to your arrival at the marigold-walled reception courtyard, where Tshering, Pemako’s resident monk, swathed in burgundy woollen robes, awaits you with a white satin scarf and a chanted blessing. A stroll through a timber-framed corridor, past busts of dragons, snow lions, tigers, and garuda birds—the four guardians of Bhutan, integral to the national mythology—and you emerge onto a vast, stained pine terrace that gazes over the heavenly sanctuary that Pemako calls home.

At this point, I was convinced that I was experiencing a delirium brought on by sleep deprivation and decided to turn in for a nap. Dechen, my assigned butler for my stay, insisted on driving me up to my tented villa—a phrase that, on first hearing, visibly raised my brow. But camping (or glamping, even), this sure ain’t.