Bhutan's festival calendar, explained

Ask a Bhutanese when the Paro tshechu is and the answer will be "in the second month". Ask which dates and the answer is a smile: it depends. Bhutan's festivals follow the lunar calendar, and every year the Gregorian dates slide. Understanding why, and what you are actually watching once you arrive, turns a colourful morning into something far deeper.

The lunar calendar

The Bhutanese calendar is a lunisolar system of Tibetan origin, with twelve lunar months and an extra month inserted roughly every three years to keep the seasons aligned. Days are sometimes doubled or skipped on astrological advice, so a festival fixed to "the tenth day of the second month" can fall anywhere from mid-March to mid-April.

The Royal Government publishes the coming year's festival calendar in advance, usually in the autumn. We confirm every date against it before you book a flight, and we say the same thing on every page of this site: the dates are typical, not fixed. Verify yearly.

What a tshechu is

Tshechu means "tenth day". Guru Rinpoche, the eighth-century master who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, is said to have performed his great deeds on the tenth day of the month, and so most dzongs and many temples hold their annual festival on or around that date. The tradition was formalised in the seventeenth century by the Zhabdrung, who unified the country, and the great dzong tshechus of Paro, Thimphu and Punakha are still the grandest.

A tshechu is a religious event first; attending one is said to bring merit and cleanse sin. It is also the valley's great social occasion: families walk in from the villages in their finest kira and gho, picnics are laid out in the courtyard, and gossip is exchanged for three or four days.

The cham dances

The heart of a tshechu is the cham, the masked dances performed by monks and sometimes by trained laymen. Each has a story and a purpose. The Dance of the Black Hats subdues evil spirits and consecrates the ground. The Dance of the Lords of the Cremation Grounds, with its skeleton costumes, reminds the watcher of impermanence. The Dance of the Judgement of the Dead shows a sinner and a virtuous man before the Lord of Death.

The dances are slow, circling and precise, learned over years. Between them the atsara clowns, with their red masks and wooden phalluses, tease the crowd, mock the dancers and bless babies; they are the sacred fools of the festival, licensed to say what no one else may. Your guide will tell you what each dance means and when the important ones are scheduled.

The thongdrel

At the great tshechus, on the final morning, before the sun rises, an enormous silk appliqué thangka is unfurled down the face of the dzong. A thongdrel, which means "liberation on sight", depicts Guru Rinpoche in his eight manifestations and is so sacred that simply seeing it is believed to purify a lifetime of sin.

The crowd gathers in the dark. Monks chant, horns sound from the ramparts, and the thongdrel comes down in a slow roll. Families file past to touch its hem and receive a blessing. Before direct sunlight can reach the silk it is rolled up again for another year. If you can be there for one thing, be there for this. We arrange a 4 a.m. start and a place to stand.

The calendar, roughly

Punakha drubchen and tshechu come first, in February or March, with a re-enactment of a seventeenth-century battle against Tibetan invaders. Paro tshechu follows in March or April, in the dzong courtyard, with a thongdrel at dawn on the last day. Ura yakchoe in Bumthang comes in April or May. Haa holds a summer festival in July, a smaller, more pastoral affair with yak herders and local food.

Thimphu tshechu in September or October is the largest in the kingdom. Jambay Lhakhang drup in Bumthang, in October or November, has a midnight fire ceremony and a naked dance that very few outsiders see. The Black-necked Crane Festival at Gangtey Monastery falls on 11 November, timed for the birds' arrival. Trashigang tshechu in November or December is the great festival of the east.

All of these shift with the moon. Verify yearly.

Etiquette

A tshechu is a religious ceremony in a working fortress, and a few things matter.

Dress as you would for a temple: long sleeves, long trousers or skirts, no hats inside the dzong. Bhutanese wear national dress; an effort on your part is noticed.

Do not walk across the dance ground or in front of the dancers. Stay where your guide places you, and do not sit higher than the monks or point your feet at the dancers or the altar.

Photography of the dances from the courtyard is generally permitted without flash, but ask your guide first, and never photograph inside the temple rooms. Put the camera away for the thongdrel blessing itself.

Keep your voice down, accept the butter tea, and let the atsaras tease you. It is a blessing.

Planning around a festival

The grand tshechus fill lodges a year in advance, especially in Paro and Thimphu. Tell us early if a festival is the reason you are coming; we hold rooms before the dates are confirmed and adjust once they are. A festival is the best three days you can spend in Bhutan, and worth building the whole journey around.