Paro and Taktsang Monastery (Tiger's Nest) – January 30 and 31, 2010

We took off to Paro Saturday afternoon. Tshering Dorji, Sherab, Kencho and Phuntsok, the five of us in Kencho’s car. Car full to the brim with our “stuffs” (as Bhutanese say, adding an unnecessary “s” to many words) and the mood quite upbeat in the car as we headed out of Thimphu towards Semtokha and beyond.

I had reflected on the fact that it had been nearly three months since I had left Thimphu, basically since returning in early November from Bumthang, I had stayed inside the “walls” of Thimphu town. Interesting to reflect on such a prolonged period without any geographical movement, and without really much of a desire or need to do so.

When we arrived in Paro we stopped in town to purchase some groceries for our overnight stay at Drugyel village. Basically, we would be staying the night at this villagers house, enjoying hot stone baths and sleeping in a shack. But, in order to be fed, we would need to bring groceries for our host to cook for us. We bought vegetables of all kinds, and snacks, as well as ingredients for tea.

Paro Valley

Before we would head for our hot stone bath and our night in the village the boys wanted to take me and go visit two very historic and important temples in Paro valley. The first one we visited is the Dungtse Lhakang. (Pg. 138 in Pommaret's book on Bhutan for more info). This temple is unique because it is one of the onlychorten shaped temples in Bhutan. I found the paintings on the walls of this temple which was dark inside and required a torch to be viewed, I found these paintings to be most beautiful and elaborate and abundant paintings that I have seen collected together inside of one temple so far. I really would like to come back and see this temple again.

Dungtse Lhakang

From there we went to visit Kyichu Lhakhang (more info on pg. 131 of Pommaret). This is one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Bhutan. It supposedely dates back to the 7^th century, even before Guru Rinpoche’s time and was said to be built by the Tibetan Buddhist king, Songtsen Gampo. This is where Dilgo Kheyntse Rinpoche spent a good deal of his time teaching, and living, and he is honored in this temple.

The road leading down to the village looked treacherous, with huge rocks, it looked quite inhospitable for any car, and so instead, we entered the well known Drugyel high school (where Sherab had done his studies) and parked the car down in the football field, as it was the weekend. Good thing, both Tshering and Sherab lived in Paro a good deal and knew the town.

So we made our way towards our “hotel” for the night, walking for about ten minutes, carrying our sleeping bags, groceries and bags, crossing a very small stream and eventually reaching our destination. A big brick house and behind it, beyond loads of building supplies, a rather ugly looking shack. That’s where we would be spending our night. The shack divided into two. One side was the room where we would sleep and eat, wooden shims covering the ground, with sheets/embroidered cloths creating a sepration and the other side where two wooden baths were built into the ground, steam already rising from them. In the left hand corner of this second part of the shack, was a big tub full of cold water and two empty buckets. This water could be used to help modify the temperature in the baths. In front of this open hot stone bath section of the shack was a bon fire going out in the open, with many big sized stones being heated and attended to by a young boy of maybe 11 or 12.

Kencho and Phuntsok resting in our "hotel"...

In front of us the open sky, with the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains gradually becoming more clear as the clouds dispersed and the full moon appeared from within the clouds to shine ever so brightly in the sky.

We got settled, put our bags down and right into the baths we went. There were five of us and only two baths, it was even questionable if two could fit in one of the baths, as it was smaller. So, who wanted to go first? Three people could go in at once. Phuntsok, Tshering and myself agreed to go in first. So in we went into the warm and delightful water!!! I had the smaller tub all to myself for a while, and it was wonderful.

Relaxin'...

The way these hot stone baths work, is the stones are being heated on the fire outside, and when we need to heat the water inside the bath, the young man (boy) who was attending would bring a stone and drop it into our bath. It would make a nice splashing sound of the heat rippling through the water, and then in a matter of seconds or a minute or two, the water in the entire tub would be heated. The bigger the rock the more dramatic the heatwave would be. A few times, with really big rocks, the heat that would take over the water was so significant that I had to come out of the water and gradually come back in as it cooled off a little bit.

After a couple of hours of bathing in and out, it was time for some dinner. This was my first time in Bhutan really eating the way you eat in the village. We were served rice, ema datsi, a kind of cauliflower sabji and eggs I believe. No silverware, and so it was all hands. And it was great fun rolling the rice into a ball (or at least trying) and grabbing some of the veggies and eating. By the end of it, my hands were so oily. I think it’s better to keep the rice away from the curry, and dry, so that you can roll it into a ball and then get the veggies. My hands were so oily and messy by the end of it. What fun!!!

I should mention that throughout the weekend, during the drives, during the bathing, during the hike up to taktsang singing was a very main component of the experience. Every so often Tshering would burst out in a Bhutanese folk song, and the rest would join singing from the bottom of their throats, Phuntsok would sing a beatles song, and from time to time even Sherab and Kencho would beging singing. They asked me to teach them an Israeli folk song, and I indulged for a little while.

After dinner, we returned for some more bathing and then it was time to get ready for bed. Sherab and I pitched up the tent, and after a little bit of difficulty we managed to figure it out. We had brought sleeping bags, and we made our way into the tent, got ourselves as warm and cozy as possible, and got ready to sleep. Eventually, the rest of the group got in, one by one, and thus we were quite a cozy group of five in the tent, pretty much, laying there shoulder to shoulder. The ground was uneven, with the wooden shims, and the noise of the water running into the tub, and the host and the young man cleaning the baths, and dealing with everything outside lasted for about a half an hour. At first, I couldn’t stop laughing at the situation, all five of us, shoulder to shoulder in this tent, and then eventually I began to close my eyes and tuck myself deeply inside my sleeping bag. It was warm and cozy enough and once I fell asleep I slept decently well.

The following morning, Kencho and I were the last ones to stay inside the tent, and while the rest of the guys were already up, I decided to stay in the warm bag as much as I could. Eventually when we heard that tea was being served, we got ourselves up and made our way outside of the moist tent. We had tea, warmed ourselves up by the fire, and enjoyed the crisp blue sky, that was becoming ever more clear with every passing minute. Over to the north of us I could see for the first time in my life the peak of Mt. Jumalhari covered with a thick blanket of white, white snow.

Beautiful mountains north, and eventually even the sun came out from the clouds and starting to heat our backs as we sat by the fire, trying to avoid the thick smoke from entering our eyes. Eventually breakfast was served, not really that different from dinner: red rice, kewa datsi and radish with red chilis. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are pretty much the same here, and people eat very big breakfasts indeed. Considering the hike that awaited us, on this day I didn’t mind eating a good deal in the morning, as I didn’t know what to expect in terms of food the rest of the day.

Sherab by the bon fire in the morning...

Left to right: Tshering Dorji, me, Phuntsok, Sherab (drying underwear) and our host.

We got all of our stuff together, and made our way towards the car, which remained parked in the football field of Drugyel high school, and from there we drove to the base of Taktsang monastery. We could see Taktsang very shortly after we got back on the main road from the high school parking lot and it was high up above. We would have to climb up THERE!

So, we parked the car, fed some rice to the dogs that were hanging around and looked starved and began our hike up towards Taktsang Pelphug (Pg. 136 in Pommaret) or “Tiger’s Nest”. From the base one looks up towards the monastery tucked into the rock face, and it seems truly impossible to imagine that there is a path that somehow leads to it. In fact, all along the way, it just doesn’t seem like there is a way to get there, unless you climb the cliff, and only at the last minute when you start the descent from the adjacent mountain, do you see the stairs and the path that will lead you to the monastery.

Sherab in his colorful Gho getting ready for the hike. When visiting Temples or Dzongs, Bhutanese must always wear their traditional clothes. Sherab elected to also hike all the way up in his Gho, some of the other guys, changed before we entered Taktsang.

The guys elected to take the “short cut”, which is the much more steep and direct climb up the mountain towards the monastery. The way to reach Taktsang is by way of climbing an adjacent mountain, eventually reaching even higher then Taktsang and then descending, crossing a short bridge and walking up from the side of the cliff towards the monastery. It was a rigorous climb, and I was tired and out of breath easily, my legs hurting from the climb, but it was not more challenging than the hike I did with Pia in Bumthang, and in fact it was less straining as the climb was shorter (twice as short in fact).

Tea break...

The view on our way up...

About half way there, you reach the “cafeteria” which is a glorious vista point towards the monastery, still below it, looking straight across, it is quite something to behold. The majestic beauty of this nestled monastery is breathtaking indeed. No wonder it is so famous.

Not long after the "cafeteria", we stopped again on a big boulder for a tea break. It appears when Bhutanese go on hikes, even rigorous ones they take a packed lunch (rice and curry of sorts) in a special container that both keeps it warm and has different compartments in it, along with a big flask of tea which keeps it warm. It is interesting to compare this to Western hikers which will likely only take water, snacks/power bars, and sandwiches to keep their load light. Here, one of us (me most of the way up) had to carry the full flask of tea and someone else had to have the food container in their bag. After tea, we basked in the sun on the big boulder for a few minutes and then we resumed our climb.

So we continued our way up, with beautiful views of Taktsang, eventually reaching a point where we were standing higher on our mountain than Taktsang, from there we began to descend towards the temple. Passing along several holy streams. We stopped at the Meditation hall, where Sherab’s brother was there for a three year retreat (or is it three months), to drop off various food supplies that we had carried all the way up. We stayed there for only a few minutes and we made our way towards Taktsang.

Down we went on the stairs, and from there we crossed the bridge where the waterfall was and up we went the final patch of stairs before reaching Taktsang itself. By the time we reached it was past 1:00pm and the temple was closed for lunch!!! So we too decided we would have lunch. We went towards one end of the cliff where there was a bench and had our prepared lunch with tea. I guess it pays off to carry that warm lunch up the mountain as it was quite wonderful to eat after all of that exertion.

After 2:00pm the temple re-opened and we started to go visit all the different altar rooms. The first place we went was the holiest spot. But the actual cave where the room is, is only opened one day out of the year, so of course we couldn’t enter. In this room (cave) apparently not only Guru Rinpoche meditated but also Trungpa Rinpoche and DJKR and many other greats. Taktsang I found out had burnt down in 1998 and most everything burnt down except this main holiest of rooms and the statues and relics in, were not burnt thankfully. So, having been renovated all of the many other important altar rooms with all of the different deities to me were not as impressive as older temples that I’ve seen, including the ones I had seen the previous day.

After spending a while going to the many different altar rooms, the return down didn’t take nearly as long as the climb up, and aside from almost spraining my ankle pretty bad, the way down was uneventful. We reached back to Thimphu late that night after a wonderful dinner at Tshering’s mother’s house, and a night of conversation with a friend of the guys’ from Paro.

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Love,

Noam