BPD: Scaling the famed Tiger's Nest

(BPD: Scaling the Tiger's Nest, 30th Apr '15)

With rains lashing out the city until early afternoon on 29th April, I had walked around Paro visiting the local places that day and had planned to visit the famed 'Taktsang' monastery the next day, a Thursday. On a clear day its better to start early for the monastery, since it involves a strenuous uphill 4 hours walk and it could get either very hot midday or end up with some early showers, with the weather being unpredictable in the mountains.

Starting at 8 am, I took a shared taxi until the junction where the main road splits towards the base point of the monastery. From there, it was about 4 km to the base, which was a nice scenic, morning walk on a gradual uphill road, meandering across the river and through a small hamlet with completely timber-built houses. Considering the views along the path, I decided to not cover this bit by taxi. After an hour of walking and sneak previews of the Taktsang monastery from afar, I reached the base until which point all taxis ferry the tourists. And there were a decent number them at that hour of the morning.

The village en route to Tiger's Nest Monastery (partially visible on the cliff behind clouds)

Timber-built houses in the village	Interesting sign at a monastery, on the way

The base point has some makeshift tourist shops selling knick-knacks, apart from other minor refreshments. There are no elaborate arrangements at this place for meals or any additional facilities, hence its better to come prepared to directly start hiking from this point. Considering that the route turns out to be a tough hike for first-timers and old aged people, they have an option to use mules. However this option is only until a midpoint during the journey, and from there one must hike through some narrow pathways, that are best covered only on foot.

The route up the mountain has a well paved, wide dirt track for the horses and those preferring a gradual incline, while there is also a steep trail that saves some distance but involves steep, tiring climb. The total distance up to the monastery is about 5km or 3 hours from the base point, and at various points we saw small sets of tourists turning back as they couldn't make it up further. The heavy rains from the earlier day were partly playing spoilsport, with the path becoming wet & slippery.

Model of the water-bell setup
& actual one (Botanical garden)

While I started the climb up, I was surprised to hear some voices in Tamil, not a usual occurrence in such a faraway place. This was a businessman from Chennai who was travelling with his family on their annual vacation to this mountain Kingdom and had covered Thimphu and Punakha valley, which is rated as the next most scenic place in Bhutan, after Paro. Chatting and walking together, we crossed a place where the waterfall flowing from the top of the mountain turned into a small stream at the base. As with the standard Bhutanese architecture, they had built three domes on the stream's path, each housing a large prayer bell that gets operated and pushed around by the water flowing around a paddle that's fit at the bottom of the bell. With the continuous flow of water, the bells perpetually chime away to glory, and the simple but ingenious mechanism with the chiming sound is a sight to behold. Such water operated bells can be found throughout the country and many of these are of considerable antiquity.

Prayer bell domes at Taktsang base	..and the stream water exiting the bells

Flowering Rhododendrons

Right at the midpoint where the horses halt and bid goodbye, there is the 'Taktsang' cafe that serves tea and coffee with sugar-coated biscuits, to give a small break from the walk. The views of the monastery from this point are click-worthy. At this point, the family from Tamil Nadu decided to stay back, not wanting to risk the climb with kids and the middle-aged lady. While I moved ahead, the driver who was accompanying the family joined me, for the last leg of the journey. The final leg of the hike up from there is at almost the same altitude as that of monastery but goes around the mountains. The walk is on rock-cut steps over a series of zig-zag paths going up-down, amidst rhododendrons in full bloom and offering stunning views of the monastery, of the high waterfall and also of the steep drop down into the rolling valleys beneath. The view at several places got so beautiful that I stopped taking pictures, since I realized it was impossible for the pictures to do justice to the views unfolding! I just stood by and tried to internalize the beauty.

View at the midpoint, near Taktsang Cafe	View of Taktsang from Cafe

The more one looks at the monastery it makes one wonder how monks could have made it up here in the earlier ages, let alone complete a full-fledged construction at such an elevation, against the sheer drop of the cliff. The path to the monastery, across the mountains has been developed well for tourists and made safe with solid iron and concrete railings added. Construction of this path would have also been a tough, expensive and time-consuming affair.

Yet another shot of the cliff..	..and the stone-cut steps in the path

Reaching the monastery at 12.30 PM, we just had 30 minutes to complete the prayers before the temple closed for the hour-long lunch break. The monastery has large and majestic statues of Guru Rinpoche, also called Guru Padmasambhava in the main and assumed forms. Legend has it that the Guru flew onto this cliff on top of a winged tigress, meditated and took a ferocious form to tame the local evil spirit and turn it into a protective deity.

The Tiger's Nest Monastery, finally from up-close

Amongst the temples and butter lamp hall, we were surprised to see a small opening in the cliff labeled the 'tiger nest'. Not finding any tourists going in and unaware of the significance, we ventured into the completely dark cave that was damp and slippery with water continuously trickling into the rocks. The opening led into a cave with a steep drop of almost 2 floors inside that had to be covered by crawling down a slanted wooden panel, then on a make-shift ladder, and finally squeezing oneself to get past a huge boulder in the way. This path finally culminates in a small dark corner in the cave, that had the Guru's picture and a small lighted lamp. We learnt later that this was the place where the Guru had meditated for 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks, 3 days & 3 hours in the 8th century! Before climbing out, we tried coming out on the opposite end of a rock crevice that showed some light streaking into the otherwise dark cave. This brought us onto the edge of the cliff that was a vertical drop, and gave a clear, unobstructed view of the valley and snow-covered mountains on the other edge of the Paro city, bordering Haa.

Lunch at Champaca cafe, Paro city

After scrambling out of the 'real' tiger nest cave, we made it out of the monastery, just in time for the monastery's lunch break. After a short pause to meditate in the serene and heavenly surrounding, we were on our way back. This time, the way down was covered mostly on the steep walking path that needed a little, careful maneuvering to avoid twisted ankles. The journey down was covered in 1 hour flat, to get us back to the base point, completely exhausted but fully invigorated. Once back in Paro city, I headed straight to the Champaca cafe for a sumptuous lunch of rice with kidney beans dal and vegetable salad.