Where to go for your autumn adventure
Autumn travel is for colour, culture and smaller crowds – as these six destinations prove. When Britain’s summertime ebbs away to autumn,
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Punakha served as the capital of Bhutan until 1955 and is still the winter seat of the Je Khenpo (Chief Abbot). The valley is favoured with a temperate climate and is fed by the Pho Chu (male) and Mo Chu (female) rivers, which is perhaps why Punakha is the most fertile valley in Bhutan.
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Punakha Dzong, or ‘the palace of great happiness or bliss’, is located strategically at the junction of the Pho Chu and Mo Chu rivers. It was built in 1637 by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal to serve as the religious and administrative centre of the region. Damaged over the centuries by four catastrophic fires and an earthquake, the dzong has been fully restored in recent years and is particularly inviting when the colours of the jacaranda trees surrounding it blossom during spring. The Punakha Dzong is particularly famous for housing a temple where the remains of the Terton, Pema Lingpa, and Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal are preserved in the Machey Lhakhang.
Take a walk through agricultural fields of mustard and rice to a hillock where the Temple of the Divine Madman, also known as Chimi Lhakhang monastery, is located. This serene temple is located on a hill in the middle of paddy fields and is dedicated to one of Bhutan's most popular saints, Lama Drukpa Kunley, who lived at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries. He was known as the mad saint or divine madman because he believed that the conventions of society prevented people from learning the true teachings of Buddha, and consequently took part in outrageous sexual antics in order to provoke people into discarding their preconceptions. Inside the temple there are phallus symbols, which many women pray to in the hope of being blessed with fertility.
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