Thimphu

The Thimphu valley was farmland and monastic land long before it was a capital. Its dzong is traditionally traced to 1216, when the lama Gyalwa Lhanangpa built a fortress on the ridge above the present dzong, and in 1629 the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal raised Simtokha Dzong at the valley's southern entrance, one of the first buildings of the unified state. By the 1640s his government had taken over the Thimphu dzong, which became the summer seat of the ruling hierarchy while Punakha, lower and warmer, served as the winter capital.

For three centuries Thimphu remained a scatter of farmhouses, temples and a market below the dzong. The change came under the third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, who moved the permanent seat of government here in the 1950s and made it the capital in the early 1960s, as Bhutan opened to the outside world, abolished serfdom and joined the United Nations. Tashichho Dzong was rebuilt between 1962 and 1968, largely in traditional technique and without architectural drawings, to hold the new ministries.

Roads, schools, a hospital and the first shops followed. The National Assembly met here, and in 2008 the coronation of the fifth king and the country's first general election under the new constitution both took place in the capital. Since then the valley has filled steadily with concrete apartment blocks built to a building code that requires Bhutanese windows, cornices and roofs, and the city has spread south towards Simtokha and north towards Dechencholing.

Thimphu is where national culture is defined and taught. The National Institute for Zorig Chusum trains students in the thirteen traditional arts, the Royal Academy of Performing Arts keeps the dance and song repertoire, and the textile and folk museums present weaving and rural life as heritage. Civil servants wear the gho and kira to work, and a formal scarf — the white kabney for men, the rachu for women — is required in the dzong.

The religious year gives the city its biggest occasions. The Thimphu Drubchen and the Thimphu Tshechu fill the dzong and its grounds in autumn with masked dances, atsara clowns and families picnicking in their finest cloth. Circuits of the Memorial Chorten are part of many residents' daily routine, particularly for older people, who walk and tell their beads there from early morning.

Archery is the national sport and the loudest one: teams at Changlimithang and the valley's ranges shoot at a distant target, dancing and singing mocking songs when they hit. Football is followed closely, and the stadium also stages national ceremonies. Alongside this runs a young urban culture of cafés, karaoke, film and hip hop — Bhutanese cinema is made here — and the constant fact of emigration, with large numbers of young Thimphu residents now working in Australia.

Thimphu's population was about 91,000 in 2011 and has grown steadily since, making it easily the largest city in a country of roughly 800,000, and it has grown mainly by migration from the villages. The economy is built on government: ministries, the judiciary, the armed forces and the monk body, with construction, retail, hotels, banking and a small technology sector alongside. Many households keep ties to family farms and return for harvests and funerals.

The day starts early. Offices open in the morning and close in the late afternoon; students in school uniform and monks in maroon are part of the street scene; shops on Norzin Lam stay open into the evening. Life is lived along the valley floor, with the newer districts of Babesa and Olakha in the south taking most of the population growth, and older neighbourhoods on the slopes above the centre. Weekends centre on the farmers' market, archery matches, temple visits and, for those with vehicles, picnics up the valley.

The pressures are those of a fast-growing small capital: rents and food prices, traffic on a few narrow roads, waste and water supply, and youth unemployment that has pushed thousands abroad in recent years. Policy debates about how to keep people in the country, and about the Gelephu economic zone in the south, are followed closely here.

Thimphu eats the national dishes, with more choice than anywhere else in Bhutan. Ema datshi — green chillies stewed with soft local cheese — is the staple, eaten with red rice from the Paro valley, and its variations run through kewa datshi with potatoes and shamu datshi with mushrooms. Dried beef and jasha maru, a spiced chicken stew, are common on a family table, and phaksha paa pairs dried pork with chillies, radish or turnip.

Momos, steamed dumplings filled with beef, cheese or vegetables, are the snack of the city, sold from small rooms and stalls and eaten with fiery ezay relish. Hoentay, the buckwheat dumplings of the Haa valley, and puta, Bumthang's buckwheat noodles, appear on Thimphu menus as regional specialities. Suja, tea churned with butter and salt, is offered at any hour, alongside sweet milk tea; ara, the home-distilled grain spirit, belongs to festivals and hospitality rather than to restaurants.

The Centenary Farmers' Market is the best single view of the local diet: chillies fresh, dried and powdered, datshi cheese, strings of rock-hard chugo made from yak milk, ferns and wild greens, buckwheat, oranges and butter. Indian and Nepali canteens are everywhere, reflecting the workforce and the trade with the plains, and cafés serving espresso, cakes and Bhutanese red rice salads have multiplied in the centre.