Asia Adventure 2012: Paro, Bhutan

Finally, our last full day in Bhutan and an exciting one indeed with our Tiger’s Nest Monastery hike. It seems they saved the best for last and that’s as it should be, I suppose. After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel we set out for our adventure.

The monastery is located 10kms north of Paro and hangs on a very steep cliff at 3,120 metres above sea level and approximately 900 metres above the Paro valley, on the right side of the Paro Chu (‘chu’ meaning river in Bhutanese). This is Bhutan’s most sacred sites in the whole country. Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambahva) of Tibet travelled to Taktsang in Bhutan, meditated for 3 months in one of the caves and achieved enlightenment there. Hence it became a holy place, and was later known as the Tiger’s Nest where the monastery was built in 1692. In 1951, the monastery burnt down and was rebuilt in 1954. Then again on April 19, 1998, a fire broke out in the main building of the monastery complex. Flickering butter lamps are believed to have caused the fire by inflaming the cloth hangings. The Government of Bhutan and the 4^th King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, had the Tiger’s Nest restored in 2005 at an estimated cost of 135 million ngultrum. If you can imagine, it only took about 1 year to restore!

We set out around 10am on this well-maintained trail with steep sections. Although it is off season for tourists, it was quite busy on the trail, and this is because many Eastern Bhutanese come here at this time of year. It was remarkable to see people of all ages making their pilgrimage to the Tiger’s Nest. Part way up, we stopped to ask for blessings; I spun the large prayer wheel 3 times and Greg spun a long row of prayer wheels. This trek is completely covered in prayer flags and is totally awesome.

A little further on, we stopped for tea at the Taktsang Cafeteria where we took some photos despite the thick fog hanging on above the Tiger’s Nest. A short while later we reached an amazing photo-op spot (say that three times fast) and by that time the fog had lifted and the sun was shining brightly. Then we descended a whack of stairs to a Shelkar Zar glacier/waterfall where I built an Inuksuk.

Finally, after a 700 stair ascent we reached the monastery. It was just amazing! Before entering, visitors can make a wish and with an arm outstretched and thumb raised, can try to make their wish come true by landing their thumb precisely in a pock-hole on a gigantic rock. We all missed by a longshot. At the security checkpoint, we had to check our cameras, bags, walking sticks, etc. The we ascended a few more stairs, remove our shoes, before entering the blessing room. A door leading to the cave is only opened on full moons, so we were out of luck on that one. We ascended another short staircase and entered another room where we meditated for 10 minutes before making our way back to the security checkpoint.

After backtracking to the Taktsang Cafeteria, we stopped there for a vegetarian lunch and lucky for us, the sun remained intermittent at that time and the fog had completely lifted, so we retook some of the earlier photos. We were back at the base by 2pm, so the whole hike took about 4 hours, which is not bad considering the gain of 900 meters in altitude.

Before our farewell dinner with Sherab and Dorji, we had a short walkabout in town. Paro is very safe and friendly. We had dinner at the TSN Restaurant and it was deliciously filling as always with Bhutanese food.