Gangtey Lodge

Run a bath at Gangtey Lodge and the Phobjikha valley is your view. From the freestanding roll-top tub in every suite, the valley drops away in farmhouses, blue pine forest and, on the valley floor, the roosting grounds of the cranes that make this nature reserve famous; the lodge itself is perched high enough to look over a 17th-century monastery as well. At 3,000 metres in central Bhutan, a little over four hours' drive from Paro airport (or 30 minutes by helicopter), this is about as far from a generic five-star as the Himalayas get.

A farmhouse that took three years

The lodge is a 12-room Bhutanese farmhouse in form, built over three years by owners Khin Omar Win and Brett Melzer, the couple behind Balloons over Bagan, with architect Mary Lou Thomson. All twelve suites are identical: 46 square metres, a Swiss wood-burning fireplace, underfloor heating, a dressing room with double vanities and that valley-facing bath. Just three rooms share each corridor, so it never feels like a hotel floor. Meals are half-board or full-board from a kitchen that grows what it can on site and sources the rest from Bhutanese farms, served in a main lodge arranged around two big stone fireplaces or in a private dining woodshed a step below.

Soak in our deep roll top baths with sweeping views of the valley below.

The monastery next door

What sets Gangtey apart is its working relationship with the Gangtey Shedra, the Buddhist college a five-minute walk behind the lodge where roughly 300 monks study. Morning and evening prayers with the monks are complimentary, as are guided meditation classes, the prayer-flag hoisting ceremony and use of the lodge's eight mountain bikes. The traditional hot stone bath is the indulgence to book: a pinewood tub heated with river boulders and scattered with herbs foraged from the forest. Note the practicalities: the monks take their winter break from December to February, and the lodge advises two nights elsewhere in Bhutan first to acclimatise to the altitude.