Seven days in Bhutan: a country that charges you to come, and gets away with it

Paro's dzong, built in 1646 on a spur above the river, whitewashed and enormous, with a courtyard of polished flagstones and a central tower rising through the middle of it. Monks live on one side and the district administration works on the other. The spring festival is held in the courtyard and a giant appliqued thangka is unrolled down the wall at dawn on its last day.

The national museum, in the round watchtower that once guarded the dzong below it, a building so odd it would be worth the climb empty: circular, thick walled, and full of stairs. The collection runs through masks, textiles, armour, thangkas and natural history. It took years to repair after an earthquake, so parts of the display move about.

Ask for ema datshi and something to put out the fire. Tomorrow starts early and involves nine hundred metres of climbing, so this is not the evening for the local rice spirit.

Taktsang, the tiger's lair, on a ledge nine hundred metres above the valley floor. Guru Rinpoche is said to have flown here on the back of a tigress in the eighth century and meditated in the cave the buildings are wrapped around; the monastery itself dates from the seventeenth century, burned almost completely in 1998, and was rebuilt exactly as it was. Inside are half a dozen small shrine rooms, butter lamps and monks, and no photographs.

The teahouse below the viewpoint serves a buffet included in most itineraries, with a terrace that looks straight across at the monastery. It is the only food on the mountain and the tea is free.

A fortress at the top of the valley, built in the seventeenth century to hold the pass against Tibetan invasions and gutted by fire in the 1950s. It has spent years being rebuilt in the traditional way, without nails, and it is worth going up simply for the view back down the valley and, in clear weather, north to the snow.

Archery is the national sport and every town has a range, but the game to watch is khuru, played with heavy wooden darts thrown at a target twenty paces off, with singing, taunting and a good deal of standing dangerously close. Evening, on any open ground; your guide will know where.

A small temple on a hillock in the middle of the rice fields, founded around 1499 and associated with Drukpa Kunley, the Divine Madman, a monk who taught through obscenity, drink and shock and is loved for it. Couples come from all over Bhutan to be blessed here for a child, and the phalluses painted on the village houses below are his emblem rather than a joke at your expense.

Punakha's restaurants are simple and mostly attached to hotels along the valley: momos, red rice, river fish and datshi. The valley is warm in the evening, which after Paro is a pleasant novelty.

Built in the 1630s on an island where the Pho Chhu, the father river, meets the Mo Chhu, the mother river, and reached by a wooden cantilever bridge. It was the seat of government until the 1950s, is still the winter home of the chief abbot, and holds the remains of the man who unified Bhutan. Inside are three courtyards, a hundred-pillared hall and jacaranda trees that turn the whole place purple in late spring.

Simple places on the road between the dzong and the bridge do a rice and curry buffet at midday, and several have terraces over the water.

A long steel footbridge slung across the Pho Chhu below the dzong, loaded with prayer flags and swaying enough to be interesting. It is the crossing local farmers use, so you will share it with people carrying things, and the view back up the river to the fortress is the one everybody photographs.

Two good afternoons: a gentle raft down the Mo Chhu, which finishes at the dzong, or the hour's climb through rice terraces to the tiered chorten the queen mother built on a ridge above the valley. Both need arranging in the morning.

A bronze Shakyamuni Buddha over fifty metres high, seated on a hall on the ridge above Thimphu and gilded to a degree that is visible from the far side of the valley. It was finished in the last decade or so, and the hall underneath holds many thousands of smaller Buddha figures. The terrace is the best view of the city there is.

A whitewashed Tibetan-style chorten built in 1974 in memory of the third king, and the busiest religious spot in the country. Old men and women circle it all day, clockwise, telling beads and turning the wheels around the base, and the evening is when it is fullest. There is no charge and you are expected to join the circuit rather than watch it.

Thimphu has the best eating in Bhutan and the widest choice by a distance: momo houses, a ramen bar, decent pizza and a couple of proper coffee roasters. Ask for the Bhutanese places rather than the hotel buffet.

The school of traditional arts, founded in 1971, where students spend up to six years learning painting, embroidery, wood carving, sculpture and the rest of the thirteen crafts. Visitors walk between the classrooms while the work is going on. Term time only, so it is closed in the winter break and on Sundays.

A small, serious museum of Bhutanese weaving, with royal robes and ceremonial cloth from the seventeenth century onwards and an explanation of what the patterns mean and how long each takes. There are usually weavers at work on the ground floor.

Eat on the main street, then walk the line of craft stalls beside it. Everything sold there is required to be made in Bhutan, and prices are fixed and marked.

The fortress that houses the throne room, the government ministries and the summer quarters of the chief abbot, rebuilt in the 1960s in traditional style without nails or architectural drawings. Visitors are admitted after office hours on weekdays and all day at weekends, which means about five in the afternoon, when the light on the whitewash is at its best.

The oldest temple in the Thimphu valley, on a ridge above the town, founded in the twelfth century and dedicated to a form of Avalokiteshvara. Parents bring newborn babies here to be named and blessed, so there are usually families on the steps, and the terrace looks straight down the length of the city.

About an hour down the valley road, and the airport is small and unhurried by any standard. Spend the last of your ngultrum before you check in; it cannot be changed back and is not accepted anywhere else.