Trongsa

Trongsa's story begins with a hermitage. In 1543 the Drukpa lama Ngagi Wangchuck is said to have built a small temple on the spur above the Mangde Chhu, and a settlement grew around it — the name is usually explained as "new village". In 1644 the Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal's government began the fortress that became Trongsa Dzong, and successive rulers enlarged it into the largest dzong in the country, a chain of courtyards and temples following the shape of the ridge.

Position gave it power. Before modern roads, the east–west route across Bhutan ran past the dzong, which controlled the country's trade for centuries, so whoever held Trongsa held the traffic between the two halves of the kingdom. Its governors, the Trongsa Penlops, became the most powerful officials in the kingdom. In the 19th century Jigme Namgyal, the Penlop known as the Black Ruler, fought the British in the Duar War and rose to become Druk Desi, and his son Ugyen Wangchuck, also Penlop of Trongsa, was chosen as the first hereditary king of Bhutan in 1907. Each crown prince is still invested as Penlop of Trongsa before taking the throne.

The dzong has been damaged and rebuilt repeatedly, most seriously after an earthquake in 1897. The second king used Kuenga Rabten, south of the town, as a winter palace in the early 20th century. The lateral road, built from the 1960s, brought the modern town into being as a line of shops above the fortress, and the watchtower was converted into a museum of the monarchy which opened in 2008.

Trongsa is a place of national ceremony more than of local spectacle. The dzong holds the district administration and a large monk body, and its link to the royal family gives the town a formality that its size would not otherwise explain: investitures, state visits and the winter tshechu all take place within its walls. The Ta Dzong museum tells the same story, with the possessions of the first kings and the religious objects of the Penlops.

Daily culture is that of central Bhutan. National dress is worn to offices and into the dzong, with the kabney scarf for men and the rachu for women; the Bumthangkha and Khengkha languages of the neighbouring valleys are heard alongside Dzongkha; and the village calendar turns on local temple rituals, house consecrations and the annual choku ceremonies held by families. Archery is played on the flat ground that can be found, which in this landscape is scarce.

The town lives with the road. Almost every vehicle crossing Bhutan stops here, and Trongsa functions as a gate and a resting place, with the pace and the mixed company of a highway town — drivers, monks, officials, traders from the south and a steady trickle of visitors. Residents tend to be reserved and matter-of-fact, and the dzong remains the reference point for everything: directions, work, worship and the town's sense of itself.

Trongsa district holds only a small share of Bhutan's population, and the town itself a few thousand people, making it one of the smallest of Bhutan's district centres. The dzong provides much of the formal employment, with the district administration, courts, monk body and schools, and the rest comes from shops, guesthouses, road maintenance and transport.

Farming supports most families outside the town. On the higher ground it is potatoes, wheat, barley and vegetables with cattle for milk and butter; further down the slopes, where the valley falls towards Zhemgang, maize, rice, oranges and areca nut grow in a warmer climate. Households divide work between fields, livestock and, increasingly, a wage job in the town.

The rhythm is quiet. Shops open in the morning, the market handles the day's produce, and the street is dark and largely empty by early evening, when traffic on the highway drops away. Concerns are those of rural Bhutan: the cost of transport over two high passes, patchy mobile and internet coverage in the side valleys, young people leaving for Thimphu or abroad, and the effect of hydropower construction on the Mangde Chhu, which has brought work, traffic and change to the valley below the dzong.

Trongsa eats the cooking of central Bhutan, adjusted to what the steep land produces. Red or white rice is served with ema datshi, whole chillies stewed with soft local cheese, and its variations — kewa datshi with potatoes and shamu datshi with mushrooms — with dried beef or sikam, dried pork belly, cooked with chillies and radish when there is meat. Maize, grown on the lower slopes, appears as kharang, cracked maize cooked like rice, and as porridge in village kitchens.

Buckwheat dishes from Bumthang, puta noodles and khule pancakes, are common on menus here, since the valleys are only a pass apart. Wild foods matter in season: ferns and nakey shoots in spring, mushrooms after the monsoon, and bamboo shoots from the forests to the south, often cooked with cheese or dried pork. Oranges from the warmer land below the town are sold along the highway in winter.

Drinks follow the national pattern. Suja, tea churned with butter and salt, is offered at any hour, sweet milk tea is drunk with snacks, and ara, the home-brewed grain spirit, is made from rice, maize or wheat and served to guests and at festivals. Doma, areca nut with betel leaf and lime, is chewed widely. Eating out means the plain restaurants on the main street or a set meal in one of the guesthouses on the road towards the pass.