The Bhutanese town of Paro, famed for its cliffside Tiger’s Nest monastery, is also one of the most challenging places in the world to land a plane. Surrounded by 18,000-foot-high Himalayan peaks, the few pilots licensed to fly here rely entirely on manual manoeuvring during the steep descent, expertly zigzagging through narrow valleys before touching down on a short landing strip. It’s exactly as thrilling (and nerve-wracking) as it sounds.

Luckily I’m not a nervous flier, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a few butterflies in my stomach as I board an almost empty Drukair flight from Dubai long before dawn. Come sunrise, however, I’m greeted by the sight of Mount Everest poking through the clouds, glowing in fiery shades of orange, pink and gold, and the early start becomes more than worth it.

A few hours later, green hills and paddy fields come into view and it strikes me how few people have been privy to these sights. While Bhutan, a remote and still relatively untouched tiny Buddhist kingdom nestled between Tibet and India, opened up to tourism 50 years ago, it has remained largely inaccessible to the masses – but change is on the horizon.

A new international airport is being built as part of mega-project, the Gelephu Mindfulness City, which will connect Bhutan to South Asia and beyond. For the first time, foreign airlines will be allowed into the country, bringing an unprecedented number of tourists. How it will affect the nation’s well-preserved culture, with its focus on spirituality and absence of Western chains, remains to be seen – but I want to experience it as it is now, and explore its ancient wellness traditions while they remain intact.

I check into Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary, a boutique hotel designed in the traditional Bhutanese style in the hills above Paro. Its two dozen bedrooms all face the Eutok Goenpa monastery, a ‘temple of healing’, where young monks pray for peace and enlightenment. Also nearby is the 16th-century temple Mendrup, meaning ‘medicine making’, founded by Drubwang Rinchen Choedor, a Buddhist priest with a sideline in herbal remedies.

I spot his stone grinder on display and ask the temple keeper if there is still medicine production on site. He nods and fetches a basket full of cellophane bags containing what look like mini Maltesers. Atop them is a note, handwritten in the national language, Dzongkha, reading: “These pills will cure any kind of disease and expel any impure energy from the body.” Pretty good value for 80p a pop, my guide and I agree.

Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary

Back at the Sanctuary, the walls in the serene spa are lined with glass jars storing dried rhododendron, juniper, lavender, and the ubiquitous artemisia, to name just a few of the hundreds of medicinal plants found in Bhutan. This botanical bounty forms the basis of the traditional medicine system Sowa Rigpa (‘science of healing’), which originated a couple of millennia ago in Tibet and is now formally taught at medicine schools in the Himalayan region.

I sit down for a consultation with resident doctor Kelzang Dorji, who starts by checking my pulse. “Sowa Rigpa is based on three vital energies, just like Ayurveda is based on three doshas,” he explains. “We call them lung, khripa and bekan. Imbalance in these humours is what causes mental and physical sickness.”

To better balance mine, he gives me some dietary advice and prescribes a course of treatments: relaxing ku nye massage, sound baths, medicated oil compression, moxibustion (heat therapy using burning bundles of dried mugwort on the body’s energy points), and dotsho, the hot stone bath that is a national specialty.

Punakha. Image: Marcus Westberg

The Buddha Dordenma statue. Image: Alicia Warner

I’ve enjoyed some pretty spectacular baths in my time, but never one like this. Soaking in a wooden tub filled with steaming mountain water infused with freshly picked artemisia, I simply ring a bell whenever the water starts to cool, and a river rock that’s been heated in a furnace appears through a wall hatch and is dropped into the tub with a satisfyingly sizzling sound. (Don’t worry, it goes into a separate compartment so you don’t burn your toes).

The ritual works wonders on the aches induced by a five-hour hike to the country’s most famous landmark, Paro Taktsang, aka Tiger’s Nest. A must on any Bhutan trip, it’s a strenuous but not technically difficult trip, and the views along the pine forest path to the golden-roofed monastery are well worth it. The main draw for Buddhists who make the karma-cleansing pilgrimage here, however, is stepping inside its innermost sanctum, a temple built around Guru Rinpoche’s meditation cave.

As legend has it, in the 8th century, Paro valley was besieged by evil spirits and demons. Guru Rinpoche, the ‘second Buddha’, flew in on the back of a flaming tigress and meditated in the cave for three years, three months, three weeks, three days and three hours in order to bring peace. Whether you believe the tales or not, it’s hard not to sense a special energy in the tiny temple room.

There is plenty more to explore in Paro, especially during the spring festival season, but I want to visit a few more regions during my two-week trip. Wellness-focused Six Senses hotel group has five lodges in as many valleys and it’s not unusual for guests to visit them all, hopping between them by helicopter.

Its outpost in the hills above Thimphu, the capital, is nicknamed ‘the palace in the sky’, and overlooks a 52-metre-tall golden Buddha statue across the valley. Set against this ethereal backdrop, my days begin with sun salutations in a prayer pavilion that seems to float on water.

One morning I have the privilege of meditating with Buddhist scholar Khenpo Phuntsok Tashi, a former director of the National Museum of Bhutan, who despite being retired has graciously made time for a meeting. Wonderfully warm and wise, he patiently demonstrates the correct technique and advises me to make it a daily ritual.

Over breakfast, we talk about his culture’s wellness traditions and he explains how Bhutan became synonymous with herbal medicine. “In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Sowa Rigpa practitioners in Tibet had many different kinds of therapies, but not the abundance of healing plants that are found here,” he says. “Bhutan is essentially a 40,000-square kilometre meadow of medicinal plants, and we used to export them. That’s how Bhutan became known as Menjong, which literally means ‘medicine valley’.”

Keen to sample more of its curative benefits, my next stop – via the lush Royal Botanical Park of Lamperi – is the Bhutanese-owned Pemako Punakha, hidden away in the hills in the Punakha valley among rhododendrons, pine and jacaranda trees. Accessed via a footbridge over the Mo Chhu river, the sprawling retreat is both a celebration of cultural heritage and unapologetically opulent, with a lama offering blessings in an on-site temple and interiors by Bill Bensley. My tented pool villa comes with a buggy-driving butler who takes me straight to the spa. Here the in-house doctor, or drungtsho, prescribes a herbal foot bath followed by an exfoliating body scrub made with rice husk and honey, and a yak butter massage so divine I soon fall asleep.

After a few days in Punakha, during which I also hike hill trails, visit the Chorten Nyingpo monastery and art-filled Dzong, the 17th-century fortress where all of Bhutan’s kings are crowned, my journey continues east. Travelling by car in Bhutan turns out to be surprisingly enjoyable – nothing like the hair-raising experience in neighbouring countries. Here the roads are freshly surfaced and wide enough for both cars and free-roaming cattle.

However, it’s not a case of self-driving – international visitors to Bhutan must be accompanied by a government-licensed guide and driver. It’s easiest to entrust a tour operator with the logistics, including the visa application and payment of the daily US$100 Sustainable Development Fee. I opted for UK-based Asia specialist Experience Travel Group, who created a fully bespoke itinerary based on my wishes and took care of all local logistics and bureaucracy. 

Arriving in the high-altitude Phobjikha valley, home to cow and yak herders, I take endless photos of the Alpine-style rural landscape – a favourite with bird enthusiasts due to the hundreds of rare black-necked cranes that migrate here from Tibet every winter. I stay at Six Senses Gangtey, an intimate lodge with just eight suites and a two-bedroom villa with a private spa, all with panoramic views across the wetlands dotted with monasteries and temples. Equally captivating are evening prayers at the local shedra (monastic college). As the sun sets, some 300 monks gather in the colourful prayer hall to chant, creating a beautiful cacophony and almost hypnotising atmosphere. 

Six Senses Bumthang

My last stop is Bumthang, a pristine but lesser-visited valley due to its remoteness. Nestled among towering pines and a short walk from a river with clear, turquoise water, the Six Senses lodge here – the same bijou set-up as in Gangtey – enjoys complete stillness. It’s an ideal base for exploring what is often referred to as the spiritual heartland of Bhutan (Bumthang is the birthplace of Buddhism in the country and the location of its oldest and most sacred sites).

As my journey draws to a close, I’ve discovered I find a simple nature walk to the sound of birdsong as spiritually uplifting as a temple visit. On the last evening of my trip, as I soak in a hot stone bath, I notice how relaxed I am. For once, my mind isn’t racing with a million thoughts. A couple of weeks’ forest bathing seems to have instilled some of that inner balance I’ve been searching for.

Rooms at Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary from £740 per night, visit bhutanspiritsanctuary.com; Rooms at Six Senses Bhutan retreats from £1,760 per night, visit sixsenses.com; Rooms at Pemako Punakha from £1,325 per night, visit pemakohotels.com. Bespoke Bhutan itineraries from Experience Travel Group start at £7,500 per person, visit experiencetravelgroup.com.

Read more: Discovering Canada on a family road trip