{"id":447,"date":"2024-11-22T12:47:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T11:47:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/?p=447"},"modified":"2024-11-22T12:49:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T11:49:53","slug":"merak-and-sakteng","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/?p=447","title":{"rendered":"Merak and Sakteng tourism resources promoted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Many of the highlanders of Merak and Sakteng Villages in Trashigang Dzongkhag (District) in Eastern Bhutan are a semi-nomadic herding community whose livelihood, like their ancestors is based on livestock. They have a distinct culture, language, attire, and traditions, and their history goes back to the 13th century, when they fled Tibet after assassinating a tyrannical chieftain. Led by Ama Jomo and Lam Jarepa, they settled in Merak and Sakteng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Merak and Sakteng are well known and very popular destinations for both domestic and international tourists. The project team paid the first visits to the Merak and Sakteng communities in April 2021. The local partners HAB and BAOWE facilitated an Interest Group workshop in which they interacted with local residents and the local government to learn about the area\u2019s tourism resources, cultural assets, and challenges that highlanders face in sustaining their livelihoods. The international technical experts of the project visited Sakteng in November 2022. During the visit, the area\u2019s unique landscape, human-nature symbiosis, and community culinary culture were identified as potential tourism product ideas. The potential of tourism has yet to be fully and consciously explored. The recommendations for tourism development, which included yak walking, a hot stone bath combined with hiking or trekking, and fermented cheese dishes, were delivered to the Gewog (village) and Dzongkhag Administrations, as well as the Department of Tourism (DoT). Those recommendations will help to attract more visitors to the unchartered remote villages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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New income generation opportunities lie in establishing more village home stays (VHS), where tourists can experience indigenous lifestyle of the community people. As of now, April 2024, there is only one VHS in Merak registered under DoT, and two guest houses in Sakteng.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the main products of Merak and Sakteng is fermented cheese which is mostly consumed by the people of eastern Bhutan. Currently they use animal(cow) skin for fermenting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since Merak and Sakteng is very popular in livestock and local handicraft product, they want to market their product beyond the local market. Eleven participants from Merak and Sakteng has participated in E-Commerce training conducted by SHINE Project on 13th<\/sup> and 14th<\/sup> October, 2023 in Trashigang. Today some of the producer\/supplier from Merak and Sakteng has successfully registered and uploaded their product in SHINE e-Commerce platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pema Dorji, 36 years old from Merak, Trashigang shared his thoughts, \u201cin our community there are cuisines and textile products not only unique to other regions of Bhutan but also to the whole world. SHINE digital platform will give us an opportunity to showcase the distinctive culture of Merak and Sakteng which would be core attraction of tourism in the eastern Bhutan.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many of the highlanders of Merak and Sakteng Villages in Trashigang Dzongkhag (District) in Eastern Bhutan are a semi-nomadic herding community whose livelihood, like their ancestors is based on livestock. They have a distinct culture, language, attire, and traditions, and their history goes back to the 13th century, when they fled Tibet after assassinating a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[11,12],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activities","category-results","tag-merak","tag-sakteng"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shine.grat.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}