The Tiger's Nest Monastery (Paro Takstang) is one of the most visited places in Bhutan.
A trip to Bhutan will be incomplete without scaling the Tiger's Nest. The Monastery is a collection of buildings perched on a CLIFF, about 900 meters above the ground! how extraordinary is that!
The Monastery is around 20 mins by car from Paro City. Bhutan is generally visited by organized tours, transportation to the base will be arranged by the tour.
It's is advisable to reach early to the base. We reached as early as 6 am as we wanted to experience nature in all it's glory. It tends to get crowded later. At the base, you can buy walking poles for INR 50. These were very useful, especially on the hike down. Yo can also hire a horse for major part of the trek.
Within 20 mins, we got the first view of the Nest.
The trek to the cafeteria (half way point) takes around 1 hour.
The entire trail is covered in prayer flags making the trail very scenic and enchanting.
The next view point of the Nest
From here , there is a walk down a stone stair case. The stairs are a bit steep in some parts but is pretty doable. Then come a series of upward stairs, also a small bridge and waterfall en route.
The entire trek upward took me around 2 hrs. once at the Nest, our Guide "TR" took us on a tour of all the temples there.
Backpacks, cameras, shoes are not allowed within the monastery and have to be left at security outside.
Our guide gave us a tour of all the temples inside. There are mainly Four temples & some residential shelters. The monastery is built in honour of Guru Padmasambhava who meditated in the cave here for 3 years 3 months 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours!
There also was a place where we were told to close our eyes and place our finger on a point on the wall. If the finger touched the centre, we were told our wish would be fulfilled.
The Monastery is around 20 mins by car from Paro City. Bhutan is generally visited by organized tours, transportation to the base will be arranged by the tour.
It's is advisable to reach early to the base. We reached as early as 6 am as we wanted to experience nature in all it's glory. It tends to get crowded later. At the base, you can buy walking poles for INR 50. These were very useful, especially on the hike down. Yo can also hire a horse for major part of the trek.
Within 20 mins, we got the first view of the Nest.
The trek to the cafeteria (half way point) takes around 1 hour.
The entire trail is covered in prayer flags making the trail very scenic and enchanting.
The next view point of the Nest
From here , there is a walk down a stone stair case. The stairs are a bit steep in some parts but is pretty doable. Then come a series of upward stairs, also a small bridge and waterfall en route.
The entire trek upward took me around 2 hrs. once at the Nest, our Guide "TR" took us on a tour of all the temples there.
Backpacks, cameras, shoes are not allowed within the monastery and have to be left at security outside.
Our guide gave us a tour of all the temples inside. There are mainly Four temples & some residential shelters. The monastery is built in honour of Guru Padmasambhava who came on the back of a flying tigress & who meditated in the cave here for 3 years 3 months 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours!
There also was a place where we were told to close our eyes and place our finger on a point on the wall. If the finger touched the centre, we were told our wish would be fulfilled.
After spending some time in the peaceful atmosphere of the temple , we started on our downward descent.
The trek downward took around 45 mins. However it was very hard on the knees. Also it was slippery as it had started drizzling. We were lucky to have started early as we saw huge crowd while going down. We also met a couple , about 70 years old making the ascent upward. We were very inspired which gave us more strength to make the descent.
This is an experience i will look back on forever!
