Gelephu, a normally quiet town on Bhutan's southern border with India, just hosted one of the country's most striking gatherings of international visitors in recent memory. Around 1,400 guests from more than a dozen countries — Bangladesh, Cambodia, Canada, China, Taiwan, France, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the UK and the US among them — converged on Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) for the consecration of 108 Jangchub Chortens, an event known as Project 108.

The timing was deliberate. The ceremony coincided with Lhabab Düchen, one of the most auspicious days in the Buddhist calendar, which gave the raising and blessing of the 108 stupas extra weight for the devotees who travelled specifically to be there.

The visitor list tells its own story. Some were returning friends of Bhutan: a Canadian named Laurie had helped clear ground at GMC a year earlier and came back to find a city transformed and crowds growing by the day. Eric Watson from Los Angeles called the invitation an honour, noting that visiting Bhutan had been a lifelong wish, and made an offering (zhapto) as his personal contribution.

Others came as pilgrims. Chang Hio Lou, a wellness consultant and mindfulness coach from Macau on her sixth visit to Bhutan, described Project 108 as 'a living mandala' and stayed a full week to walk and circumambulate the chortens with fellow practitioners. She argued that Bhutan's appeal lies in how spirituality saturates daily life — greetings, offerings, everyday kindness — rather than being staged for tourists. She now plans to return annually and sees Bhutan as a natural fit for the wellness retreats she organises, a signal of where the country's tourism story is heading as Gelephu Mindfulness City takes shape.

For travellers, the takeaway is twofold. First, Gelephu is emerging as Bhutan's new spiritual and wellness frontier, and events like this show it can draw a genuinely global crowd — not just the trek-and-fortress circuit of Thimphu and Paro. Second, Bhutan rewards repeat visits: several of the guests quoted had been multiple times, and the country's calendar of religious festivals offers reasons to time a trip around something bigger than sightseeing. If a gathering of 108 consecrated chortens can pull people from four continents to a border town, it's worth watching what GMC programmes next.

Full story via The Bhutanese.