Bhutan Spirit Sanctuary

Notice which way the beds face. Each was placed so that a sleeping guest's feet never point towards Eutok Goenpa, the monastery on the ridge opposite, which in Bhutan would give offence. The monks are an hour's walk up the hill, and the hotel can arrange a blessing there.

Paro's main valley holds Bhutan's only international runway and the town most visitors see first. The Neyphu Valley opens off it a quarter of an hour from the airport, a quieter fold of apple orchards and terraced fields, and the hotel stands on its slope like a small white fortress: whitewashed walls, deep timber eaves, shingled roofs weighted with stones. Inside, two dozen rooms are set around courtyards, looked after by a staff of about seventy, almost all of them Bhutanese.

The rooms divide evenly between the Balcony and Terrace categories, and both are cut generously. Carved lattice screens part the bed from the sitting area, the floors are timber, and the bathrooms are built for two, each with twin vanities and a bathtub standing apart from the shower. Guests choose their soap on arrival from the house's collection of locally made bars. Every room faces the valley, with the monastery on the opposite ridge in view.

The days are organised around Bhutan's own medicine. A stay begins with a consultation with a doctor of traditional Bhutanese medicine, who writes a plan, and the treatments follow from it, one for each night booked. The treatments come from the same tradition: Ku Nye massage; compresses of herbs or hot oil; moxibustion; the stone bath. Yoga and meditation run daily in the studio or on the pool terrace, and the therapists lead herb walks on the slopes around the hotel. The pool and the saunas take care of the hours in between.

Meals keep to the guest's clock. Breakfast is à la carte, lunch runs to four courses and dinner to six, served wherever suits, with house wine and local beer poured as part of the rate. The kitchen cooks Bhutanese dishes alongside Indian and Western ones and draws on its own greenhouse and gardens; in season, the apple pie comes from the hotel's own orchard. Beyond the valley, the trailhead for Tiger's Nest is 45 minutes away by car and Thimphu an hour, and the hotel arranges a car with a driver and a licensed guide.

This is Bhutan for travellers who want to unpack once. The country repays slow travel, and the house is built for it: a single base within easy reach of Paro, a programme that deepens over a week, and enough quiet to make use of it. Couples and solo travellers on a reset will get the most from it, as will families with children aged six and over. Anyone planning a circuit of the valleys will want to move on after a few nights. At dusk the niches along the arcade light up, and the prayer wheels inside them turn under the hand of whoever passes.