The Tiger's Nest and a Cultural Evening

 Our hotel.

 Our first view of the Tiger's Nest, up on the rounded mountain on the right.

 Prayer flags and recycled plastic prayer wheels.

 One of the eight temples in this area, but not the one we hiked to.

 The view from the beginning of the seven hundred steps.

 Two devotees.

 The stair entrance.

 The views from the return hike, with the better light.

 Taken from the cafeteria where we had lunch.

 The boys dressed up for a night on the town.

 An evening of cultural dances, music and singing, taken from the videos I took.

 The black necked crane dance.

The yak dance.

The beautiful instrument they used.

Monday, April 23^rd.

We were up, breakfasted and out by 7:30 for our morning’s exercise. We had a half hour drive to get there. Our destination was the sacred Taktsang monastery which clings to the rock face 900m above the valley floor. According to Bhutanese folklore Guru Rinpoche is said to have flown to the site riding on a tigress and subdued the local demon to free the valley inhabitants, and subsequently meditated here for 3 months. This gives it its colourful nickname, the Tiger’s Nest. It is one of Bhutan’s most holy sites and draws pilgrims not only from Bhutan but also from neighbouring Buddhist countries. The monastery was founded here in 1692 AD.

We set off on a two-hour hike on a well-worn trail that led up through the blue pine forest. The trail was hard packed and quite steep. To be honest I had been dreading this hike because of the exertion required at altitude, which makes it hard to breathe. I just set off walking ‘pole pole’ (slowly slowly) like up Kilimanjaro or Machu Picchu. I found a speed I could go where I was able to breathe, albeit huffing and puffing. Finally, we arrived at the café that marks about the half way mark and provides a spectacular view of the Tiger’s Nest. The views on the way up weren’t the best as the sun was in the wrong place. We stopped for a tea before continuing on. Gae, at 75, is the only one in our group who stayed behind and did not do the rest of the hike. Sherba had walked with her this far and stayed with her there.

Eventually we got to the 700 steps, half of which take you down and the other half back up on the next mountain. Down was easy, but up with the pumping of the muscles was hard. But, I have to say that although it was not a race or a competition between us, I was amazed and delighted to find that I was the first in our group to arrive at the steps to the entrance of the temple. So even after eight months of sitting on buses, I still have a reasonable level of fitness.

Once everyone arrived Chimi collected all of our bags, cameras and phones and locked them in a locker. Then we were allowed to enter. There were at least another 100 steps inside the temple that led to five smaller temples, all of which were dedicated to different buddhas, the one for long life, one for compassion, one for wealth. They were all very elaborately decorated and beautiful. This temple burned down twice, once due to a forest fire about a hundred years ago and more recently in 1998 caused by a butter lamp. These are lit by the monks and are all over the temple. Interestingly, when they rebuilt it they constructed a cable car to haul the materials up to the temple. But, upon completion (five years later), they removed the cable car as the people wanted to maintain the traditional climb.

After we were finished, we had to walk back down the 700 steps and up the other side, and down the trail to the café where we had lunch. The views going down were much better as the sun had moved into a more advantageous position. Then we walked down the rest of the long trail to the car park and our van.

When we got back to the hotel, I lay on the bed and promptly fell asleep for an hour and a half. Then as we were going out for dinner and a cultural event, I tried to put on my gho, without success. I went down to the lobby to find Sherba but couldn’t but another guide took the time to help me and try to explain the complicated process. There were other people there and I think all the Bhutanese people like to see us wearing their clothes. They said I looked good. I saw another guy who was wearing a down vest over his gho and I said, hey I don’t have one of those, he looked at me and said I don’t have one of those (pointing at my camera), maybe we can trade. Lots of laughs all around.

We drove into town to a restaurant where we were met by the owner of Blue Poppy Tours and Treks, the company that Chimi and Sherab work for. He wanted to know how we enjoyed the trip through Bhutan and thanked us for our patience with the roads, he said the one under construction used to be much worse. Then he gave us a box of beer and wine. We had drinks and were entertained by a group of dancers and singers. They performed eight different dances, including one to honour the black necked crane, and a hilarious one, called the yak dance, where two men inside a yak costume danced around, tried to charge us and eat food off our table. After the performance dinner was served. It was similar to all the meals we have had, rice, potatoes, chicken, cooked veggies.

After dinner we presented our tips to Chimi and Sherab. Will asked me to present it to Sherab, which I was very happy to do as he is such nice guy with a very infectious laugh. Then we wobbled out after our drinks and headed back. I met Nico outside the hotel who showed me how to use the manual mode of my camera to take a night shot of the Dzong. Then I sat outside alone and soaked up the atmosphere of my last night in Bhutan. This was the best day in Bhutan and one of the best of the whole trip.