A lovely agro-tourism property run by a local writer and his family

One of the joys of life is running into an old friend who’s made their dreams come true. After a hit-and-miss of some 10 years while he’s been working steadily at those dreams, we were finally, delightfully reunited at his beautiful model agrotourism property Dhumra. The name means “Garden.” And a garden it is, in the literal and the metaphorical.

Most everything served in the restaurant is grown on the property or nearby farms, which the lodge supports, and inspires. From the self composting sewage system to the share-holding ownership that redistributes the profits—all staff receive 19% of the take—this is an exemplary lodge whose profits return to the community, and nourish the roots and strengthen the backbone of the truly authentic Bhutanese economy. This is the stuff that “feet-firmly-planted-on-the-ground” dreams are made of. It’s not the kind of shiny, glittery, emulative vaulting ambitions that are gaining voice from a quadrant of the Bhutanese economy, driven by transient “experts” and “consultants” who have neither the foresight, nor the maturity, the loyalty or the long term investment needed to learn and operate from the deeply-rooted and communal Bhutanese ways, and who seem, instead, to discard native wisdom that has sustained us for centuries as either stupidity or sloth. The sooner we wake up and celebrate such places and such people, and stop listening to the new carpetbaggers, the better off every truly Bhutanese person will be.