Wangdue Phodrang Dzong – A Fortress Reborn from Ashes Being from Wangdue Phodrang Dzongkhag, I have visited Wangdue dzong countless times, even before the 2012 fire disaster. Now when I visited the dzong recently after it was reconstructed. I was met with silence. Not an empty kind of silence but one filled with memory and rebirth. The dzong, stretching like a serpent along the narrow ridge above the Punatsangchhu River, had been reborn after the fire that gutted it in 2012. I wasn’t just visiting a structure I was standing in the presence of a second life. Highway view of Wangdue dzong Wangdue Phodrang Dzong has always had a different personality than the other dzongs. Built in 1638 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, it wasn’t constructed on a flat valley floor or a gentle rise it was deliberately placed along a steep, dramatic ridge. The layout is long and curved, almost hugging the contours of the mountain, with different sections unfolding as you walk. It alwa...