Bhutan - The Tiger's Nest Monastery and beyond.
The final 'big' thing for us to do in Bhutan was to visit the Tiger's Nest Monastery. It wasn't about ticking it off on a list, it was a genuine desire to see a place that had fascinated me since I was a child.
The Paro Taktsang Monastery was built in the late 17th century on the site of a cave set into the cliff. Although it's commonly known to westerners by the English name of the Tiger’s Nest Monastery, Taktsang more accurately translates to “tigress’ lair” and takes its name from the legend of its founding.
According to that legend, the 8th-century Indian Buddhist master Guru Rinpoche was carried up the mountain on the back of a disciple who had transformed herself into a tigress. Once they arrived, Guru Rinpoche then spent 3 years, 3 months, 3 days and 3 hours meditating in the cave. He also subdued a demon, whose face is visible from a distance if you squint at the rock for long enough! After he had finished meditating and subduing, it became a holy place and became known as Paro Taktsang. Much of the Monastery complex was rebuilt in 1998 after a butter lamp induced fire. It was all redone in the original style and already looks old. we wouldn't have known it was a rebuild if our guide hadn't told us. There are 4 main temples, all with caves where various gods did, saw or said various important things. each one had a monk in there and they all had CCTV cameras which were monitored externally from one of the flat 'landings'.
The Monastery complex wraps around the mountain on a narrow ascending ridge some 10,232 feet (3119 meters) above the Paro valley. The round trip to the Monastery is about 4 miles and has an awful lot of ascending and descending - on a huge amount of steps! It appears and disappears depending on where you are on the path, but you actually end up higher than the Monastery at one point. As we had been in Bhutan for over three weeks by this point and had trekked at over 1000 feet higher for 6 days, Andy and I had adapted to the altitude and were walking at pretty much our normal walking speed. I was using my trekking poles as my left knee was still sore and swollen from the 24 miles we did on the final day of our trek but we were still overtaking people who were huffing and puffing their way up the mountain. It turned out that most tourists fly into Paro and then 'do' the Monastery the very next day before their bodies have had chance to acclimatise. Nevertheless it did amuse me to be overtaking people considerably younger than us!
First glimpse.
If there's a prayer wheel, it just has to be spun!
Getting closer.
Looking down on the Monastery complex.
And realising I'd got to do 750 steps...in both directions!
The bridge is the lowest point.....it was all up again from there to the Monastery.
Looking out from the bridge.
There are no photos from inside the Monastery because you have to leave your bags, shoes, phones and cameras with the security people. The Bhutanese people got sick of seeing their beloved and revered monasteries appearing on social media, often accompanied by comments which showed that the person who'd posted them had very little understanding or knowledge about Bhutanese culture or Buddhism....so they banned photos. The bonus is that you get to see and experience the Monasteries for real rather than just through a lens for the Instagram shot, which is actually a far better way to do it.
I had been a bit worried that it wouldn't live up to my expectations, particularly as we had been to so many temples where we had been the only people there and The Tiger's Nest is a bit of tourist trap/ bucket list place. Fortunately, there were plenty of quiet places to be found and, whilst it did often lack the peace and serenity of some of the other ancient temples, it was still a beautiful place that didn't disappoint.
I can't remember much about this building, but I do recall that a famous Bhutanese person was born in there.
Paro runway! The main road is between the trees and the end of the runway. The planes come in from the left before doing a 90* turn to land. Unfortunately we didn't see a plane doing it!
We had booked a 30 minute archery lesson at the hotel - figured we ought to give it a go as it's the national sport. Unfortunately, the archery teacher never turned up.....but two Bhutanese guests at the hotel heard us talking to the receptionist about it and very kindly volunteered to give us a lesson! The targets on the white wooden tombstones were set 50 meters apart (it's normally 120-150 meters but they're clearly kind to tourists!) and, if you hit the target, there is an obligatory happy dance done by the archer! We had an excellent and frequently hilarious hour and a half with them. Andy got to do the happy dance and I got to laugh a lot when Andy's arrow got embedded in a tree! The two men were really good teachers who refused to let us pay them as they said they'd had a really good time teaching us! It was such a fun thing to do ...but those bows are so powerful !!! I didn't have the strength to really pull back the bow, even the smaller one, but I did manage to get close-ish to the target a few times. My arms and shoulders ached the following day.
Sunset over the Paro river.
Paro Dzong in daylight.
Inside the Dzong.
The Watch Tower. It was badly damaged in an earthquake in 2009. The built a museum behind it to house the contents and have been renovating it ever since. Apparently it should be finished in a couple of months.......of Bhutanese time! It was a really interesting museum though.
An ancient bridge
....and some dubious electricity cables under it.
Stunning views of Everest on the flight to Kathmandu.
Unfortunately, it didn't stay this clear as we flew over the Kathmandu valley because of the fug of greeny-brown pollution sitting over the entire valley. Once on the ground you could taste the pollution and it got worse in the centre of Kathmandu. From our hotel we wandered into the old town and down the smaller roads and alleys. There was a lot of evidence of damage from the bad earthquake of 2015. Many buildings were propped up with wooden timbers that didn't look strong enough to hold anything up if there was another quake. Lots of building work in progress. Durbar Square was closed to tourist because of all the work going on there - so much destruction. I found it very sad as I had some very happy memories of the area as it was back in 1987. I did enjoy the chaos of the side streets and we had fun looking at the very dodgy wiring everywhere!
Our flights back to Manchester were long and uneventful. Abu Dhabi airport was just as boring as on the way out and we arrived back to snow and our taxi driver's slightly surreal news that Donald Trump had been elected President. we thought he was joking! Welcome home.
