A warm, lamplit lodge room where a hot stone bath waits outside

Wellness · Warmth

Hot stone baths

River stones, fire, artemisia and a wooden tub under the stars.

The dotsho, the Bhutanese hot stone bath, is the oldest wellness ritual in the kingdom and still the best. River stones are heated in a fire for hours, then dropped into a wooden tub of water scattered with artemisia leaves; the stones hiss, release their minerals and bring the water to a deep, slow heat.

Farmhouses have always offered them to guests and travellers after a long walk; the lodges have simply made the shed more beautiful. The best are outdoors, after dark, with the valley gone quiet and a thermos of tea or a glass of something stronger within reach.

Bhutanese say the baths ease joint pain, cold and exhaustion. We say that after the Tiger's Nest or a day on the Druk Path there is nothing finer, and that an hour is never enough.

The ritual

How it unfolds.

01
Stones are gathered from the river and heated in a wood fire from mid-afternoon.
02
The tub is filled, artemisia is scattered, and the first stones go in with a roar of steam.
03
You soak for an hour, calling for more stones through a hatch as the water cools.
04
Wrap up, sit by the bukhari stove and eat slowly. Sleep follows without effort.