Somewhere in Bangalore, June of 2016 . . .
Lee: See this photograph, it's called the Tiger's Nest. It's in my bucket-list of places to visit and I
really want to go there this year.
Me: The place looks unreal. Is September ok with you?
Lee: Yeah should be ok.
Fast forward to September that year . . .
Lee: It looks so far away . . . my fever is worse than ever. I don't know if I will be able to do this.
Me: We will reach there no matter what and as long as it takes. I see people taking ponies here, do you think you want one?
Lee: No. I will do this on my own.
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The evening we decided on the Bhutan trip we had only been dating for a few weeks. So, obviously doing a ten day trip to a different country was a significant step in terms of relationships. But, we tried to not look at it that way. Bhutan is a beautiful country, which is easily accessible for us Indians and is cosily nestled in the Himalayan foothills, and I have been wanted to visit the place for some time. And for Lee, visiting the magical site of the Tiger's Nest was one of her life's goals. Thus, a plan was conceived. We were all set to spend ten days in Bhutan, a place which by all accounts is a real world Shangri-la.
But a few days before we were about to leave, Lee caught a bad bout of flu.
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The Tiger's Nest, or Taktsang, is located near Paro, which is the second biggest city in Bhutan after the capital Timphu. This makes the city the first stop in Bhutan for most tourists. In fact the sole airport of the country is in Paro. The monastery is after all the chief-most attraction of the country by far. But, the site is so much more than just an 'attraction', it represents the very soul of Bhutan.
There are many legends around this holiest of sites. But they all feature a demon fighting Guru and a flying tigress. The most consistent version tells about Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal. The couple is regarded as the father and mother of Himalayan Bhuddism.
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| The fiery Dorje Drolo and the Tigress. Source: himalayanart.org |
As the story goes, Yeshe transformed herself into a flying tigress and carried the guru to this site. The guru then assumed the form of the fiery manifestation of Dorje Drolo and meditated in a cave there for four months. Thereafter, the two, still in their wrathful avatars, fought and subdued the evil spirits of the land. This legendary cave was where Bhutanese Buddhism was founded and later on it became the site of the Taksang Monastery. Taksang literally means "The Tiger's Lair".
Although the legend of the Padmasambhava and his flying tigress goes back to the eight century, the first temple was built at the site of the cave around nine centuries later around 1508, and a century and a half after in 1645 the site officially the part of the new nation state of Bhutan.
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By the time we departed for Bhutan Lee's flu had turned into a fever. Our doctor here had prescribed her a heavy dose of antibiotics which made it far worse than before. Paro was our first stop and our plan was to do the trek to Taktsang as soon as we could but we kept pushing it further due to her health.
Bhutan does not have private clinics or doctors, but only state hospitals. When we asked around for a doctor, we were advised to go to a pharmacists as they are considered as consultants here. The guy we met, however, seems like an absent-minded professor, and after some speculation he advised us to buy a ton of paracetamol.
To be honest, the paracetamol did what it is supposed to, i.e. to subdue the symptoms of flu and fever and that gave Lee enough energy to move around and enjoy Paro a little. But, of course it was no cure and the fever itself was not subsiding at all. By the second day even I was starting to get sick.
Our night before last in Paro, Lee's condition was so bad that we had to rush to the state hospital for a real check-up. There they prescribed another batch of antibiotics, but this was a much lighter dose. It was also state sponsored and unbranded. Our chief concern in all of this was whether Lee would be fit enough for the trek to Takhsang the following day. The doctor said that it might be a bit too much . . . and advised against it.
Not being the kind who really follow doctors' advise, we found ourself at the base of the trek the following day. Our driver, Nygma, who knew our predicament wished us all the luck in the world. He advised us to get walking sticks and hire ponies for the climb. We obliged with the former and considered the latter. But as mentioned earlier, Lee insisted on doing this on foot, such is the nature of pilgrimages.
We can see the monastery from the base of the trek. But the sight is more daunting than reassuring. It barely visible as a small cottage jutting high up in the cliffs. The climb starts at 7000 feet above sea level and ends at 10000 feet. That's almost a kilometer high climb, not at all ideal for for two people who were down with temperatures of 104 and 101 degrees Celsius the previous night. But there we were, moving forth, one step at a time.
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Although Takhsang is pretty well known in the global tourist circuit, we did not see many forigners there. This is understandable for western tourists, as Butan controls the number of international tourists quite zealously and visiting the country is prohibitively expensive for many given the visa charges. What was surprising was the relative rarity of Indians even though the country's tourism policy is completely lax for us.
In any case the trek was virtually vacant during the climb barring a some tourists, guides, piligrims and ponies. Our ascension was in a revered calm immersed in the ambient sounds of nature in the Himalayan foothills with breathtaking views in the shadow of the cliffs of the Tiger's Nest, and we were in no hurry.
We tackled the climb at an easy pace. We took several breaks, shot a lot of pictures and thoroughly engaged in the experience. Taksang was almost always in our field of view, moving in and out of the foliage and slowly increasing in its dimensions and majesty.
Though the climb was taking its toll, but our destination was invariably in front of us, and a few moments of sitting down and gaze at it was enough vitalize us again.
The trek was full of Buddhist flags, dotting the entire aura with colors and good wishes. We saw several monks in orange Kasayas and Bhutanese locals in their Ghos and Kiras on their spiritual saunters, chanting mantaras and keeping the prayer wheels moving.
There were piles of stones on the sides, some of them conglomerating into miniature castles. Each pebble that is added by different individuals marking their journey here, assimilates in a collective monument of experiences over eons.
We also met a variety of stragglers on the route. There was an Indian couple, the guy was on foot and the girl on a pony with wearing a heavy makeup and a Zara catalogue with a hat to match. There was a group of middle aged NRIs with an american accent, and they too were on ponies. We also met a particularly boisterous group of four, a young Indian man from Uttrakhand and three rather beautiful Bhutanese girls, while talking to them he mentioned that he has been living in that area for a few months. Lucky guy, I thought.
But, the meeting that affected us the most on that trek was an eighty year old British gentleman with crutches and a nurse as an escort. He was on his way down after the climb, and on seeing our tired faces he said "Come on lads, it's not too far, you are half way there". Our fatigue seemed to vanish after those words came from him.
We did reach the midway soon after. There were a bunch of gift shops and food shacks there where we lounged with a glorious view of Taksang.
This midway was where the beasts dropped their cargo, both men and materiel. The route ahead was not traversable on hoofs. Instead now there were only steep rocks followed by slippery stone steps leading all the way to the destination.
We resumed our climb having to be a little more cautious than earlier, one clumsy move and we would have taken a quick slide down to the coffee shops. But, the monastery was becoming bigger much faster now. Only now we realized how big the the complex actually was.
The last part of the journey was a hike though valleys and waterfalls and Buddhist settlements all the way to the end, and it's beauty was surreal.
It was a fitting end to a fine spiritual experience that the trek was. What started as our obsession a few months earlier, and became a highly ambitious and perhaps a hopeless pursuit a few hours ago, manifested into a form of a bit of enlightenment at the end of this long journey. We had reached the Tiger's Nest.
By the time we reached, however, the monastery was closed for lunch, and we had to wait around in the courtyard for half an hour to go inside.
Photography is not allowed inside the monastery so I had to store my camera with the guards there before entering. The interiors the were imbibed with incense and there were several prayer chambers for the Gurus and the all their manifestations. The walls of the monastery were completely adorned with murals and intricate statuettes, narrating the folklores and legends of Himalayan Buddhism. We tried to slyly stick around with groups with hired guides to listen in on some of these stories.
The architecture inside was obviously alpine and multilevel, and could get congested and labyrinthine in some places, I recall that we lost got several times while trying to find certain places. The last place we visited there was the actual cave from which the place derives it's name, the actual Tiger's Nest. The cave was dark, dingy and pristine. The floor looked dangerously steep leading the the side of the cliff, and it had nothing but narrow, lose, and rickety planks to walk on. One misstep could result in a cliff dive and a very fast way down. As we did not have any flying tigers with us we chickened out and turned around.
We spent some more time reflecting in the various prayer chambers and eventually made our way out of the monastery. We probably spent a total of two hours at the complex and pledged to come back again soon because it felt far too less.
When we started our descend, it was on the same route which we had ascended, but now it felt different and lighter and we felt different and lighter.
It was almost dusk when we stopped for coffee at the mid-way restaurants, and the golden hour light was performing it's own symphony of colors. Right about then, the clouds floated in and enhanced the ambiance with a fine drizzle. The surrounding ranges seemed to be tucking in for the night and snugged into rugs of vapor.
The rest of our descend was essentially on a solitary path. The tourists, the pilgrims and the ponies were long gone by now. However, we always had the company of the friendly mongrels who were always around and took on the responsibility of escorting us down the path.
The only other humans on the path at this time were a very few people carrying supplies upstairs. At one point, one such group waved at us. They turned out to be the guards we met at the monastery, they told us that one of their job is to do supply runs for the monks residing at the top, and they took it on as an honorable task. These guards were in fact state employees and part of the police force.
Eventually, we reached the base, bidding Taktsang adieu. It's at this point that I saw Lee hugging a tree. Now, I knew her to be a tree-hugger, but this was a bit too literal. She told me that earlier in the day before we had started our climb, she had whispered to this particular tree asking for courage and strength for the day ahead, and a wish to see it again in happier circumstances. The hug was a form of gratitude owing to a successful day.
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