Punakha Dzong

Listen first. Beneath the voices and the footsteps there is water, two rivers meeting just below you. One runs clear and fast from the north. The other arrives slower and wider. Here, at the point where they join, a long white fortress rises from the riverbank. Its walls are whitewashed and sloped. Its upper floors are dark timber, painted in deep red, gold and green. In the right season, lavender jacaranda petals drift down onto the stone paths. This is Punakha Dzong.

The two rivers have names that matter here. The Pho Chhu is called the male river. The Mo Chhu is called the female river. Bhutanese tradition sees their meeting as a union, and the fortress stands exactly where they become one. Its formal name is Pungthang Dewachen Phodrang, which translates roughly as the Palace of Great Happiness. Standing on this narrow spit of land, with water on both sides, you can see why the builders chose it. It is both beautiful and very hard to attack.

A dzong is a building with no exact match in English. It is a fortress, a monastery and a government office, all inside one set of walls. One side traditionally belongs to the monks. The other side holds civil administration. Dzongs were built across Bhutan to guard valleys and to anchor both religious and political life. Many still work this way today. When you walk inside, you are not entering a museum. You are entering a working institution.

This dzong was founded in the 1630s by a figure Bhutanese people call the Zhabdrung, Ngawang Namgyal. He was a Tibetan lama who came south and unified the scattered valleys into a single state. In many ways, he is the founder of Bhutan as a nation. Punakha Dzong is the second oldest dzong in the country, and one of the largest. It was one of his most important projects, and it became his base.

There is a legend about this spot. According to a popular tale, Guru Rinpoche — the teacher credited with bringing Buddhism to the Himalayas — made a prophecy centuries earlier. He said that a man named Namgyal would one day come to a hill shaped like an elephant. Look at the ridge behind the dzong. Locals say the fortress sits at the tip of the elephant's trunk, where it reaches down to the water.

For about three hundred years, Punakha was the capital of Bhutan. The government met here, and the valley's mild winters made it a comfortable seat of power. In 1955 the capital moved to Thimphu, higher up and cooler. But Punakha kept its importance. Even now, the central monk body moves here for the winter months, led by the Je Khenpo, the chief abbot of Bhutan. In spring they return to Thimphu in a long procession.

Here is something many visitors miss. Bhutan's monarchy was born in this building. In 1907 Ugyen Wangchuck was crowned here as the first King of Bhutan. The dzong is still tied to royal ceremony. In 2011 the current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, married Queen Jetsun Pema inside these walls. So this is not only an old fortress. It is the place where the modern kingdom keeps its most important moments.

The second surprise is hidden deep inside. The dzong holds the preserved remains of the Zhabdrung himself. They rest in a sacred chamber called the Machen. Very few people may enter it. The dzong also guards a revered relic known as the Rangjung Kharsapani, an image of a compassionate Buddhist deity. Bhutanese tradition says it was self-formed. Its presence is one reason Tibet once tried to take this fortress by force.

Those attacks became a story the valley still tells. In the seventeenth century, Tibetan armies came to seize the relic. They were driven back. Every spring, Punakha marks that victory at a festival called the Drubchen. Men dressed as old militia warriors, called pazaps, reenact the battle in the courtyards. The festival is followed by a tshechu, a celebration of sacred masked dances. If your visit falls in that season, the courtyards fill with colour, drums and crowds in their finest clothes.

Now look at the walls and the woodwork around you. Traditional dzong builders worked largely by eye and experience. It is often said they used no written plans and no iron nails, fitting timber together with joints. The whitewashed lower walls lean slightly inward as they rise, which gives the building its solid, grounded look. Above, the windows are framed in carved and painted wood. Every colour and pattern carries meaning, from lotus flowers to clouds.

This building has also survived a great deal. Over the centuries, fires damaged it several times. Earthquakes shook it. In 1994 a glacial lake far upstream burst, and a flood surged down the river, causing serious damage nearby. Each time, the dzong was repaired and restored. What you see today is old in its design and spirit, but much of its surface is the careful work of recent generations of Bhutanese craftsmen.

You probably arrived by the covered wooden bridge over the Mo Chhu. It is a cantilever bridge, a traditional design where beams reach out from each bank toward the middle. The original bridge was lost to floods long ago. The one you crossed was rebuilt in recent years in the old style. Pause on it on your way out. From the middle, you can see the whole long face of the fortress reflected in the moving water.

As you move through the courtyards, you will notice the dzong is laid out in sections, one after another. Each courtyard leads deeper into the building, and toward more sacred space. The central tower, called the utse, rises between them. Inside the main temple, the light is low, the air smells of butter lamps and incense, and the walls are covered with painted scenes. Speak quietly here, and follow the flow of monks and pilgrims, clockwise.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment. Listen again for the two rivers. Watch a monk in maroon robes cross a courtyard, or a family in traditional dress walk slowly toward the temple. This fortress has been a capital, a battlefield, a coronation hall and a home for monks. Today it is all of these at once. As you cross back over the bridge, the water keeps running below, joining here as it has for centuries.