We tried our best to confirm the festival schedules (dates), with Asssociation of Bhutanese Tour Operators (ABTO) and Department of Tourism. The dates of the festivals change from year to year because they are based on the lunar calendar, which itself changes every year.

Once a year a dzong or important village holds a religious festival, or tshechhu. The Tshechu is a festival honoring Guru Padma Sambhava. Villagers from the surrounding district come for several days of religious observances and visiting while making offerings to the lama or monastery. The central activity is a fixed set of religious mask dances, or cham, held in a large courtyard. Each individual dance takes up to several hours to complete and the entire set may last two to four days. Observation of the dances directly blesses the audience and also serves to transmit principles of Tantric Buddhism to the villagers. A number of the dances can be traced directly back to Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal himself, the founder of Bhutan, and have been passed down without variation since the mid-1600s.

Prior to dawn on the final day of the tshechu a huge tapestry, or thongdrel, is unfurled in the courtyard of the dzong for several hours. The mere sight of it is believed to bring spiritual liberation. The thongdrel is rolled up before the morning rays can strike it.

Tentative Festival Dates (Schedules) for 2009