Rickshaw Travel Group | Trek up Tiger's Nest, Bhutan

Trek up Tiger's Nest, Bhutan

23rd September, 2016 11:36:00

First and foremost, if you haven’t been to Bhutan and you’re thinking about your next adventure vacation, Bhutan should be high on your list. Other than the beautiful country that it is, with its warm and friendly people and chili and cheese dishes, there is something serene about this little Buddhist kingdom that’s hard to describe.

We didn’t plan on going there, but the recent circumstances in Kashmir (our first choice) forced us to make other plans and Bhutan just happened to be it.

Of the many things we did in Bhutan, like trekking, a farm house family lunch, playing badminton with the staff in the parking lot of the hotel or just chilling in the lounge overlooking the beautiful scenery of green hillsides, the most memorable thing was climbing up to Tiger’s Nest, the birthplace of Bhutanese Buddhism and one of the most sacred sites in Bhutan. It also happens to be one of the most challenging monasteries to get to.

It’s a steep climb to Taktsang, an elevation of some 10,000 feet above sea level and around 3,000 feet above the Paro valley, an easy climb I was told if one takes it fairly easy. The climb was hard for an oldie like me, but I must admit, half of us used horses to get to the teahouse point while the other half trekked up on foot. If the horses were allowed further, I would perhaps have climbed all the way up on them. This stop was a welcome sight where we could rest our feet and enjoy a cup of hot tea.

The sheer sight of the rest of the climb was tiring in itself. As one wise gentleman said “climb with sincere intention and not think about the difficulty”. So up we went, stopping every now and again to either take a breather or take in the beautiful views.

Finally, some hours later and no rain to make our trek worse, we did make it to the top and visited the monastery hugging the Cliffside, perched on a ledge with a steep drop down. The views from here were totally worth the knee pain I was having. After exploring the monastery, it was time to start heading down again with the help of walking sticks for some of us.