Last stop of our Bhutan trip, we have decided to stay three nights in Amankora Paro, that is suitably located at the outskirts of the famous Tiger Nest monastery. Hidden within the trees, this hotel has a magical view of a small dzong from its main dining area on a background of high (snowy) mountains. Having 24 rooms, the dining room can often get "crowded" for Aman, but quality of service maintains its standard. Must try spa and massage facilities, especially book in advance for a treatment on the afternoon of your Tiger Nest hike, which takes about 4-5 hours in total and definitely a challenge if you are not a hiker. Very friendly staff and management team, trying to make a memorable stay by making small gestures every day, which also acts as a tool in learning the Bhutanese culture. Our guide Tenzin was very knowledgable about the places visited and Buddhism; and fluent in English, made our whole Bhutan trip worthwhile!

Amankora Paro was our final stop on our week-long visit to Bhutan. It is the largest (24 rooms) of the Amankora lodges and also in one of the more touristy parts of the country so we were not sure what to expect. The rooms are spread across six buildings and there is also a large lodge building which has an expansive lounge and bar with views of the Drukgyel Dzong. Downstairs is a communal dining room, library and an outdoor space spread across a series of wooden and stone decks alongside firepits and bisected by a small stream that provides lovely background sounds. Amankora Paro has the largest spa of the five lodges with a beautiful yoga room, large sauna and steam room and several treatment areas for massages and hot stone baths. As per all the lodges, the food was stellar. The breakfast offers a continental spread (helpful for folks getting up early to do Tiger’s Nest) but then the same great Bhutanese and Western options for a slower, a la carte breakfast. For lunch and dinner, there is a lot of variety, and I found this lodge to have the best Western offerings and appreciated how flexible the kitchen was with requested dishes too (I wanted to try a lot of Bhutanese staples before we departed). One advantage of the lodges size is that they offer cultural programming basically every day, including calligraphy, prayer flag printing, yoga and live music. The main tourism focus in the area is definitely the Tiger’s Nest hike. We left the lodge before 7am in order to get to the monastery as it opened (and before a massive amount of other tourists appeared). Our guide and driver both did the hike with us and made sure we had water and some snacks throughout. Our guide’s advice to wake up early was exactly right as when I was departing the monastery I ran into a huge wave of tourists just arriving to the top. At that point the line for photos started to get quite long. The hike itself was pretty challenging (especially if you want to get to the top first), but you can take a donkey up 2/3rds of the way, there is a nice cafe halfway up the mountain and Aman actually leases a house in a grove nearby where they can offer meals and massages before or immediately after the hike. While in Paro we also did some souvenir shopping, visited the local Paro Tsechu festival and Dzong. Service was exceptionally strong here as well despite the higher room count. Housekeeping really shone with super-fast laundry service turnaround on our departure day. The little touches continued with turndown gifts, thoughtful notes and goodbye housemade brownies in lovely packaging as we headed to the airport. Our guide, Jamba, was really helpful throughout the entire stay, and especially around departure because Modi was flying out at the same time, so we shifted our schedule a few times in order to maximize time at the lodge while still getting to the airport before the roads were shut down. Paro is (as far as Bhutan goes) a relatively touristy area, and I think Amankora does a great job of keeping the quality and authenticity of the experiences high while offering the amenities of a larger hotel. I would recommend only two nights here (unless you want to avail yourself of the spa extensively or do additional hiking) as I think you can do all of the best activities here (including Tiger’s Nest) in a day with some recovery time, and the other regions (Punakha, Gangtey, Bumthang) offer much more in terms of culture and unique experiences. For what it is though — a strong ending to a visit in Bhutan near Tiger’s Nest and the airport — Amankora Paro is about as good as it could get!

When we arrived it was 5 degrees Celsius and the manager ask us if we wanted to have our room warmed up!!! So I was cold on my room which was not clean…. And the cleaning es of the room didn’t improve over my three days stay. The rooms are a bit old, there is only a shower head, and we could not close the door of the shower. The cooling/ heating system is under the sinks for the whole room. Their room design is the same all over Bhutan and have serious flows despite being very large and quite good looking. The property is far from the town and it’s all included however the choice of food is poor and does not wary over your stay. The communal table in the dining room was not clean either. There was absolutely no personal connection with the staff., we could have been in a big hotel in town and probably received a better service. Overall this property lives on the Aman reputation.

The only words to describe this place is Paradise. You will feel at one with nature! No TVs, no modern-day gadgets. The weather is always perfect around the resort, making it a very serene environment. The rooms are very well maintained and the staff makes sure your stay is pleasant, relaxing, leaving you rejuvenated and satisfied.

Aman is a well respected chain of resort hotels. Amankora has 5 excellent lodges in Bhutan. We were fortunate to have an excellent guide Tenzhin Wangchuk who looked after us right through our 11 days. The lodges have excellent facilities with great food and attentive staff. Given Bhutan’s requirements for a guide and the demanding infrastructure, we were lucky to travel with Amankora.