Culture & Wellness Retreat: A 7-day wellness retreat of meditation, yoga and hot stone baths

Above Thimphu, the 169-foot Buddha Dordenma, one of the largest seated Buddha statues in the world, looks out over the city from Kuensel Phodrang Nature Park; inside, thousands of smaller Buddhas fill the hall.

Afterwards, settle into a guided meditation in the quiet of the pine forest beside it, prayer flags overhead and the valley below: an unhurried first lesson in Bhutanese stillness.

Descend to warm Punakha for Chimi Lhakhang, the fertility temple of the fifteenth-century saint Drukpa Kunley, the 'Divine Madman', and the hilltop Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup nunnery.

Then Punakha Dzong, the palace of great bliss, at the meeting of the Pho Chhu and Mo Chhu rivers. Built in 1637–38 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, it was the seat of Bhutan's government until the capital moved to Thimphu in the 1950s.

Above the valley floor stands Gangtey Goenpa, founded in 1613 by Gyalse Pema Thinley, grandson of the great treasure-revealer Pema Lingpa, and still the main seat of his tradition.

At the Crane Centre of the Royal Society for Protection of Nature, learn about the rare black-necked cranes that fly in from Tibet every winter, from late October to February, to feed in the wetlands below.

In the late afternoon, a traditional herbal hot stone bath, the dotsho: river stones are heated in a fire and lowered into a wooden tub of water scented with herbs, releasing their warmth slowly. Bhutanese families have used it for generations to ease aching muscles.

End the day with a cup of cordyceps tea by the stove, to release the week's tiredness.

You reach the Paro valley by evening: terraced paddies, farmhouses and some of the oldest temples in Bhutan, with a quiet night before the climb.

Walk it slowly, as a last meditation: a fitting close to a journey of body and mind.