Eastern Bhutan

Eastern Bhutan is the country's most remote and least-visited region, bordering India's Arunachal Pradesh and reached along winding mountain roads rather than the more direct routes serving the west. Trashigang, the region's largest town, was historically a key stop on trade routes to Tibet and India, while Mongar and Lhuentse are known for weaving traditions, Lhuentse in particular is considered the ancestral home of Bhutan's royal family and produces some of the country's finest hand-woven textiles. Trashiyangtse and Pemagatshel add further remote monastery towns, and Samdrup Jongkhar forms Eastern Bhutan's main border crossing into India.

For travellers from Singapore willing to venture beyond the well-trodden Paro-Thimphu-Punakha circuit, Eastern Bhutan offers a genuinely off-the-beaten-path side of the kingdom: traditional villages, weaving workshops and Buddhist sites that see only a fraction of the visitors western Bhutan does. Road journeys between districts are long, and infrastructure is far more limited than in the west, so this region suits travellers with more time who want to see a side of Bhutan that has changed far less with tourism's growth.