New Air India-Drukair pact opens easier, deeper journeys into Bhutan

For decades, Bhutan has cultivated the art of being difficult to rush. Roads curl slowly around mountains, monasteries cling to cliffs, valleys appear only after passes have been crossed, and tourism itself has been deliberately managed rather than allowed to become a numbers game. Getting there has often demanded some planning too. That changes, at least a little, with a new aviation partnership announced on August 26. Air India and Bhutan's national carrier Drukair have entered an interline agreement that allows travellers to combine flights operated by the two airlines on a single ticket. The practical significance is greater than the aviation jargon suggests: passengers can now travel through Delhi with coordinated transfers and baggage checked through to their final destination rather than stitching together separate bookings.

For Indian travellers, particularly those living outside the handful of cities with direct Bhutan flights, this removes one of the small but persistent frictions of planning the country. Drukair currently flies daily between Delhi and Paro, four times weekly from Kolkata and twice weekly from Guwahati, while also serving Bagdogra. Under the partnership, someone starting in Mumbai, Bengaluru or Kochi can use Air India's domestic network to connect into Drukair services. The arrangement works in the opposite direction too, linking Bhutanese passengers through Delhi, Kolkata and Guwahati with Air India's wider network. More interestingly for travellers who want to see a different Bhutan, the through-ticket arrangement extends beyond Paro to Drukair's domestic points at Bumthang, Gelephu and Yonphula.

But easier access presents a useful opportunity to reconsider the way Indians travel through Bhutan. The standard first visit has become almost formulaic: land at Paro, drive to Thimphu, proceed to Punakha, return to Paro and climb to Tiger's Nest. There is good reason for that itinerary. Few airports announce a country as dramatically as Paro, and few monuments can compete with Taktsang monastery seemingly suspended against a sheer Himalayan cliff. Thimphu, meanwhile, is the rare national capital where wooded hills remain part of the skyline and traditional architecture still shapes the visual language of the city. Yet treating these two places as Bhutan itself is rather like visiting Delhi and Agra and believing one has understood India.

The road beyond Thimphu

Punakha is where the familiar Bhutan circuit begins to loosen. The journey from Thimphu climbs towards Dochula, where 108 chortens stand against a Himalayan panorama on clear days, before dropping into a warmer, greener valley. Punakha's great dzong occupies an extraordinary position where the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu rivers meet. Jacaranda trees soften its formidable walls in spring, while rice fields and traditional houses spread through the surrounding countryside.

Punakha rewards an extra night precisely because its pleasures are not confined to the dzong. Walk through villages and terraced fields, cross the long suspension bridge over the Pho Chhu, or follow the trail towards Khamsum Yulley Namgyal Chorten. The difference between seeing Punakha and staying in Punakha is the difference between ticking off a monument and beginning to understand a valley.

Then there is Haa.

Barely a few hours from Paro, Haa Valley remains surprisingly absent from many first-time itineraries. The road can be taken across Chele La, among Bhutan's highest motorable passes, before descending into a landscape of forest, pasture, scattered villages and traditional farmhouses. On a clear morning, the journey itself becomes the attraction.

Haa offers very little of what conventional tourism usually sells. There is no concentration of souvenir shops, no parade of major monuments demanding to be photographed and relatively little nightlife. That absence is precisely its appeal. It is a place for walking through villages, eating in a farmhouse, watching clouds move across forested slopes and discovering how powerful silence can become once a traveller stops trying to fill it.

For someone with six or seven nights, adding Haa instead of another day in Thimphu can completely change the character of a Bhutan holiday.

Where the cranes return

If Haa is Bhutan stripped of urban distraction, Phobjikha feels like geography taking command.

The broad glacial valley lies several hours beyond Punakha and is surrounded by forested mountains. Unlike the steep valleys that define much of Bhutan, Phobjikha opens suddenly into an enormous bowl of grassland and wetlands. It is also one of the country's most important winter habitats for the black-necked crane, which migrates here from the Tibetan Plateau.

The birds generally arrive in the colder months, making late autumn and winter particularly rewarding, but Phobjikha does not require cranes to justify the journey. Gangtey Monastery overlooks the valley, walking trails pass through forests and villages, and evenings can become almost completely silent.

This is where Bhutan's much-discussed philosophy of “high value, low impact” tourism becomes tangible. The attraction is not an attraction in the conventional sense. It is space.

That philosophy also explains why travelling in Bhutan remains different from taking an inexpensive Himalayan road trip elsewhere. Indian nationals do not require a visa, but they do require an entry permit. A valid Indian passport or voter ID is accepted; travellers under 18 can use a passport or birth certificate when accompanied by a legal guardian. Permits can be obtained on arrival, although Bhutan's tourism authorities recommend applying beforehand to avoid potentially lengthy waits. Route permits are no longer required for ordinary tourists travelling around the country.

Indian visitors currently pay a Sustainable Development Fee of Nu/INR 1,200 per person per night. Children aged six to under 12 pay half, while those below six are exempt. The fee supports areas including environmental conservation, infrastructure, healthcare, education and cultural preservation.

It means Bhutan is rarely the cheapest international holiday available to an Indian traveller. It isn't trying to be.

A different Bhutan in the south

The most intriguing addition to the Bhutan map, however, is not an ancient monastery or remote Himalayan valley. It is Gelephu.

Situated in subtropical southern Bhutan close to Assam, Gelephu feels geographically and climatically removed from the postcard landscapes of Paro. And it is now at the centre of perhaps the most ambitious experiment in Bhutan's modern history.

The planned Gelephu Mindfulness City is being developed as a Special Administrative Region covering more than 2,500 sq km. Conceived under King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, it is intended to combine economic development with Bhutan's ideas of sustainability, well-being and Buddhist cultural values. Plans envisage green spaces, wellness and healthcare facilities, education, technology, finance, tourism and environmentally conscious businesses. Development is expected to unfold over decades rather than years.

For travellers, Gelephu is fascinating precisely because it is unfinished. It should not yet be approached as Bhutan's next polished tourist destination. Instead, it offers a glimpse of a country attempting to reconcile two competing pressures: protecting the identity that makes Bhutan unusual while creating the jobs, infrastructure and international connections necessary to prevent younger Bhutanese from seeking their futures elsewhere.

Connectivity is central to that ambition. Drukair currently operates a weekly Paro-Gelephu domestic flight and twice-weekly nonstop services between Gelephu and Kolkata. The larger vision includes a new international airport as part of the Mindfulness City project.

For travellers from Northeast India, southern Bhutan could eventually transform the traditional geography of a Bhutan holiday. Instead of thinking exclusively in terms of flying into Paro or entering overland through Phuentsholing, Gelephu offers another gateway immediately north of Assam. It could ultimately encourage journeys that move vertically through Bhutan rather than simply circulating around the familiar western triangle.

How to build the trip

For a first visit of five nights, Paro-Thimphu-Punakha remains sensible. Trying to force more destinations into that period defeats Bhutan's greatest advantage: its ability to slow a traveller down.

With seven nights, add Haa. A route such as Paro-Thimphu-Punakha-Haa-Paro provides remarkably different landscapes without turning every day into a long-distance transfer.

With eight to nine nights, push east from Punakha to Phobjikha and spend two nights there. That additional time matters. Bhutanese roads may cover modest distances on a map, but mountain driving means kilometres are a poor measure of travel time.

At 10 days or more, the possibilities become much richer. Bumthang can be incorporated using Drukair's domestic service from Paro, currently operated five times a week, rather than surrendering entire days to road travel. The new interline arrangement makes precisely this sort of itinerary easier to construct because Paro need no longer be regarded merely as the end of the international flight. It can function as the interchange for a deeper journey through the kingdom.

And that may ultimately be the most useful consequence of the Air India-Drukair partnership. It does not suddenly make Bhutan mass tourism territory, nor should it. It simply removes some of the logistical friction surrounding a country that has always asked visitors to make an effort.

The paradox is appealing. Bhutan is becoming easier to reach without necessarily becoming easier to consume.

You may arrive on one ticket now. But the best way to experience the country remains to forget, for a while, about getting anywhere quickly.