Now, I can walk a fair distance at home, on flat terrain in Bedfordshire which is eighty-five metres above sea level. Walking in Bhutan, in the Himalayas, over three thousand metres above sea level, is a totally different challenge. For a start it’s much steeper than anywhere I’ve been before, and the altitude makes it doubly harder as you’re gasping and your heart is pounding before you’ve even left the car park.
So when I first saw the Tiger’s Nest Monastery, clinging to the side of a vertiginously high mountain in the distance, I felt rather apprehensive. Would I collapse from exhaustion and have to be stretchered down the mountain? Would I have a total meltdown on a narrow path with a sheer drop just inches from my quivering body? I hoped that I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t guarantee it.
As we approached the beginning of the path, there was a whole herd of horses, waiting to take less athletic people part of the way up. Our guide told us we weren’t to consider hiring a horse as it was much too dangerous on the narrow paths. Looking at the people who were opting for the horses, they weren’t exactly leaping nimbly onto their backs – and some of them were practically being winched into position – so I hoped that we wouldn’t witness a terrible accident on the way up, which would put a bit of a downer on the day for us all.
Climbing at altitude is so tiring that we had to keep stopping to catch our breath, although our guide Kinsang breezed up the mountain. He’s used to taking groups on the Snowman Trek, which is supposed to be the most challenging trek in the world, following the trails used by yak herders, so the Tiger’s Nest was a walk in the park for him.
The cruellest part of the hike is a steep descent down the mountain, only to be faced with a steep ascent up the next mountain to get to the monastery. I wasn’t too keen on the many, many steep steps and sheer drops as we toiled down and then up again, but our guide told us that before Covid the paths were much narrower and there were no railings to stop pilgrims plunging to their death. While the country was shut, they gave employment to a lot of their tourist workers and made the trail a little less treacherous.
There’s a tea house half way, where you can have a rest, fuel up on caffeine and give yourself a motivational talk when you look at the Tiger’s Nest from the viewing platform and realise that although it’s nearer than it was, it’s still not exactly within spitting distance. I was also motivated by a woman having very public hysterics outside the tea house – I decided that if I was doing better than her, then that was something to celebrate.
When we finally made it to the monastery, we had to leave all cameras and phones in a locker, so no photos. The monastery gets its name from a legend that tells how Guru Rinpoche, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan, flew to this site of the back of a tiger. The cave where he is supposed to have landed is now closed off behind a golden door, and is opened once a year for a special celebration. The monastery has been created around eight caves, connected by passages and stairways chiselled into the granite, and there are four main temples which are highly decorative. It has been described as ‘clinging to the side of the mountain like a gecko.’
We spent some time looking around, and then sitting in quiet contemplation in front of a large statue of Buddha. But of course, what goes up has to come down, so we retrieved our backpacks and poles and retraced our footsteps back down the stairs, then up the stairs, then down the mountainside. It had been really busy on the way up, with a constant stream of climbers overtaking us, but on the way back there was practically no one. It seems that most people dash up there, whizz around the monastery and then dash back down again, so we were able to enjoy the peace and quiet, listening to the birdsong and admiring the flora.
When we got back to the bus, we were all feeling euphoric – we had made it! We’d completed one of the most iconic hikes in the world, that had been on most of our bucket lists for years.
And as if to underline just how iconic the Tiger’s Nest is, this poster jumped out at me as I walked through a tunnel at St Pancras on my way home …
The Tiger’s Nest is the poster boy for bucket lists … and very deservedly so.