Ogyen Choling Heritage Guest House

About this property

Ogyen Choling is a fortified manor house high above the Tang valley in Bumthang, founded in the fourteenth century and held by the same family ever since. Rather than sell it, the family turned the estate into a museum trust and opened a handful of guest rooms in the outbuildings around the courtyard, with the income supporting the upkeep of the buildings and a local scholarship fund.

The accommodation is simple and honest: wooden rooms with thick quilts, shared and en-suite bathrooms, home cooking eaten together at a long table, and a bukhari stove for the cold evenings. There is no minibar and no lift — the whole appeal is waking up inside a working piece of Bhutanese history.

The museum itself occupies the old family quarters and is one of the finest in the country: armour, thangkas, household implements, granaries and a shrine room, all left in place rather than assembled behind glass. Getting here is part of it — a rough road up the Tang valley from Jakar, then a short walk across the fields to the manor.