I was busy typing up the Tiger's Nest section of our travel web site when I thought I'd include it here seeing as it is a popular topic on the forum. We travelled in October this year. Ian is 63, I'm 59 and Jeremy is 23 years old. This is how the three of us got on and I warn you this is a long read:
"Boy did we have to get ourselves organized smart quick this morning. We had to meet Kinga (our guide) and Dorje (our driver) at 7am. We did it within time. I didn’t eat any cooked breakfast as I was very stressed out thinking about going up to Tiger’s Nest and how narrow the path would be and scared stiff I would be useless with the horses. I had stewed about it all night and really didn’t sleep well.
Tiger’s Nest is located ten kilometres north from Paro and it is perched precariously high on a cliff, 900 metres above the Paro Valley. Tiger’s Nest is also known as Taktsang and it is one of the most sacred and special places for Buddhist worshippers. Guru Rimpoche (Buddha’s right hand man) is said to have flown there on the back of a tiger in the eighth century and meditated inside a cave there for 4 months. In 1692 a temple complex was built at the site. This is what we are going to visit.
It took about 30 minutes to drive from the Olathang Hotel in Paro to the drop off point for Tiger’s Nest. We passed lots of horses and donkeys, who were being led up the road ready to meet the people at the meeting point. It was quite cold and we wore our jumpers and you could easily see our breaths.
Dorje helped gathered up the horses. The handler seemed to study each of us in turn and then selected which of the three horses suited each of us best. We had to stand on a big rock so we would be up high to start with and then carefully get onto our horses with the horse handler helping us to mount them (ha-ha!). Ian got the largest horse. I was the last to get on my horse so it gave me chance to photograph Jeremy and Ian on their horses. For some reason Jeremy and Ian’s horses both had blankets over the saddle but mine didn’t. Perhaps the handler figured I had enough padding on my bottom already. Prior to getting onto the horses I heard another guide say to his group that they must not stand behind the horses in case the horse kicked them! He also said not to attempt to take photographs whilst on the horse as it may startle the horses. No need to tell me these things twice. I wouldn’t dare do anything other than exactly what I was told. I was too terrified to do otherwise!
With a bit of a lurch we got underway. I was petrified and I think my knuckles would have been white had I cast my eyes down to look at them. The swaying of the horses scared me to start with but I quickly got used to it. My horse was in the lead, with Ian behind me and Jeremy bringing up the rear. My horse continually stopped to nibble greenery, to smell the other horse’s poo and also to stop for no apparent reason at all! The agility of the horses is incredible. They climbed so easily amongst difficult rocks. Ian and I were quite nervous when our horses kept venturing right over to the edge of the cliffs. If the edge had crumbled even slightly the rider and horse would have gone to their deaths far below. I didn’t like it when the horse headed down a slope as I felt I would tumble off head first. I was far happier heading up the hill as opposed to downhill.
Ian’s horse kept farting and poo’ing. Jeremy reckoned the handler had picked the matching horse for him! With Jeremy bringing up the rear he copped every single horse fart and saw every poo. He was close to the handler who was shouting in his ear the whole time (at the horses) and he even felt the handler’s whip on his foot a few times!
We got off our horses at the cafeteria which is the halfway point. It gave the horses chance to rest plus we were able to have a toilet break, cuppa and biscuit. The toilets were already well used so they weren’t in an ideal condition when we got there, if you get my drift. Ian was waiting to use the toilet after me when a Japanese lady totally pushed past him to get in there first. Ian told her off in no uncertain terms! He doesn’t often get cross but this lady certainly copped it.
We got back on our horses and set off once again up to the final area the horses are able to go to (they can’t climb the stairs at the end). From there we had to walk uphill and climb up and down literally hundreds of steps. Towards the monastery we started to notice red splotches on the paving stones in front of us. We all thought it must be from the red berries that many locals eat and quite frequently spit out. Another guide walking past told us that it was actually blood spatters from other visitors whose body’s/noses were unable to handle the climb/altitude.
Eventually we got up to the monastery entrance with much puffing and panting. We had to deposit our cameras, mobiles etc, at a small office. We were then frisked by a policeman. We toured around inside the monastery for half an hour or so, finding the air in certain rooms quite heavy with an incredibly intense smell of burning incense. At times Jeremy and Ian both had to put their hands over their mouths just to filter the air.
I entered only a few of the rooms as I was so exhausted from the climb. I have Chronic Fatique Syndrome so I get pooped easily and I needed to sit down outdoors. Judging by Ian and Jeremy’s comments upon their return, the statues and stateliness of the rooms were absolutely exquisite.
Jeremy and Kinga went further on to a higher prayer room where Guru Rimpoche’s partner also flew there on the back of a tiger and meditated for 4 months. Jeremy said that climbing up to this prayer room was the most physically demanding thing he has ever done in his life. The staircases were very small and made from clay bricks. The incline and difficulty of this staircase was so great that Jeremy and Kinga were both on all fours trying to climb the stairs. Towards the top it became even more difficult because the stairs were narrower, slimier, wetter and covered in moss. It is truly a wonder the pair of them came back from the climb at all. Neither realized what it would be like beforehand.
The decline from Tiger’s Nest was still a tough walk. Ian timed himself climbing the steps down from the monastery and back up to the top of the stairs (before the main walk back down to camp) and it took him 22 minutes at a fast pace. After completing the stairs we took a couple of short cuts rather than sticking to the main path but I wouldn’t advise others to do so unless you have extremely good shoes and are very agile. I found it very hard not to slip on the loose, dusty, clay soil. Jeremy hit the ground once very hard and twisted his right ankle quite badly. It was so sore he had to sit still in the dirt for some time to get his act together and to continue on. It is fortunate that he was a good 15 minutes further down the path than us, as he apparently uttered every swear word under the sun because of the pain. This combined with sore tendons in the back of his left knee made walking down difficult for him. I hit the ground twice but didn’t hurt much more than my ego. After my two falls I became frantic that I would slip again, or worse still, that I would slide into someone else and take them down with me.
Kinga was always right beside me and held my hand in all the slippery parts – which were many. I also had to hang onto Ian a few times as well on our decline down the clay pathways. Jeremy and I both seemed to have trouble with our shoes not wanting to grip the dusty clay soil. No one else seemed to be as troubled as us. Later on we checked the soles of our shoes but they seemed fine.
It took us easily an hour and a half of walking down pathways to reach the originating car-park at the bottom of the hill. So that I wouldn’t slip again, I had been gripping hard with my toes inside my shoes, and consequently, when I finally reached the bottom of the hill, I found I had blisters beneath my toes.
The whole trek up and back took a grand total of five and a half hours, and we only spent a very short time at the cafeteria both ways. We hauled ourselves clumsily into the waiting car. Never were we so glad to sit down, particularly Jeremy and I, as we were in varying stages of limping.
My bottom was sore from horse riding but Ian and Jeremy both said their bottoms were fine. My legs were also like jelly, I had some gravel rash underneath my forearms too. Ian did the journey with no injuries which was a magnificent feat for his age – he he!
We were taken to the nearby Taktsang View Restaurant for lunch which was less than a 5 minute drive away. There we collapsed into our seats and were served the best meal we have had in the whole of Bhutan. The food included rice, a noodle dish, Chinese vegetables, spicy sweet and sour chicken, broccoli and carrots, beef and mushrooms plus diced cucumber in mayonnaise. This was served with plenty of cups of tea. We were the only people in the restaurant.
Some of the other climbers had their lunches at the cafeteria at the half-way point. So they would have had to finish their downwards (or upwards) walk after eating a heavy meal. Kinga thought that was not wise and we were very glad he had organized our meal after the walk was finished."
That day was, I'm sure, the highlight of our whole holiday in the Himalayas.
