Remote & eastern Bhutan

Laya

The highland village of the conical hats.

Overview

Laya is a village of yak herders at around 3,800 metres on the northern frontier, reached on foot from the road end beyond Gasa. The Layap women wear a conical bamboo hat found nowhere else in the world, and the houses, of stone and shingle, sit on a shelf of pasture beneath Masang Gang and the great ridge of the Tibetan border.

The village is the gateway to the Snowman Trek and the end of the Jomolhari-Laya route, so most who reach it have walked for a week among the highest mountains in Bhutan. Each October the Royal Highland Festival brings herders, yaks, mastiffs and horse races to the meadow above the village.

Laya is remote in the way few places still are. Mobile signal comes and goes, the hot springs at Gasa are the last bath for days, and the welcome in a Layap kitchen, with butter tea and dried yak, is the memory our trekkers keep longest.

Altitude: 3,800 m
From Paro: About 6 hours by road to Gasa via Punakha, then one to two days on foot.
Best months: April, May, September, October
Region: Remote & eastern Bhutan

Best time to visit

Four seasons, two of them famous.

Spring and autumn are peak. Monsoon is green and quiet. Winter is cold, clear and empty.

Spring

March to May

Snow retreats from the trail in April; rhododendrons and primulas follow. The Jomolhari-Laya trek runs from late April once the passes clear.

Monsoon

June to August

Rain, leeches on the lower trail and cloud on the peaks. The herders are up at the summer pastures and treks pause until September.

Autumn

September to November

The trekking season proper: clear skies, frosty mornings and the Royal Highland Festival in October. The passes close with the first heavy snow, usually in November.

Winter

December to February

Snowbound and closed to trekking. The village turns inward and the yaks come down to the lower pastures.

Highlights

What Laya does better than anywhere.

The high pasture above Laya beneath snow peaks

The Royal Highland Festival

Held each October on the meadow at Langothang above the village, with yak beauty contests, highland dances, mastiff shows and horse racing. A festival of the herders, by the herders, at nearly 4,000 metres.

Gasa hot springs

The tsachu at Gasa, in the gorge below the dzong, is the most famous hot spring in Bhutan. Soak before you walk up, and dream of it on the way down.

A trekker on a misty ridge above the Mo Chhu

Walking in from Gasa

The trail follows the Mo Chhu upstream through forest and across suspension bridges, climbing steadily to Koina and then to the village. Two days of walking, each better than the last.

Dzongs & temples

Whitewashed walls, red roofs, and the people still inside them.

Laya village

Some forty stone houses on a sloping meadow, each with its yak enclosure and prayer flags. The Layap keep their own dialect, dress and festivals, and the village has its small temple above the houses where the whole community gathers.

Long sleeves and trousers in the dzong; no photography inside shrine rooms.

A round-walled fortress beneath the peaks

Gasa Dzong

The Fortress of the Eleven Lamas, built in the seventeenth century to guard the northern approach from Tibet, round-walled and set below the peak of Gangbu La. The last dzong before the high country, and the starting point for Laya.

Long sleeves and trousers in the dzong; no photography inside shrine rooms.

Journeys

Journeys that pass through Laya.

All journeys

Western valleys · 10 nights

Jomolhari trek

To the foot of the sacred mountain, and over two high passes to Thimphu.

From $4,200 per person

SDF included · Visa fee included

View trek

The Lunana peaks above cloud from Gangla Karchung La

Western valleys · Remote & eastern Bhutan · Central heartland · 28 nights

Snowman trek

Twenty-five days through Laya and Lunana, the hardest walk in the Himalaya.

From $11,900 per person

SDF included · Visa fee included

View trek

Questions

Before you go.

Not comfortably. A rough road now reaches towards Koina from Gasa, but the final stretch is on foot and conditions change season to season. We treat Laya as a trekking destination with a licensed trekking guide and support team, as regulations require. Verify against https://www.bhutan.travel before launch.

Verify against bhutan.travel before travelling. Fees verified as of 2026-10-14.

The village is around 3,800 metres and the passes above it rise past 4,900. We build acclimatisation days into every itinerary and our guides carry oxygen and a satellite phone.

Usually over two days in late October at Langothang above Laya. Dates are announced each year; verify yearly.